--- title: Calories Fast Food Meals Report description: The Center for Science in the Public Interest hands out their Xtreme Eating titles to the most calorie-heavy restaurant meals in the U.S. canonical: https://time.com/4433184/most-calories-chain-restaurant-meal-applebees/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-01T16:57:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:34:57.847Z og:title: Here's the Unhealthiest Meal at a U.S. Chain Restaurant og:description: If you're counting calories, these are the chain restaurant orders to avoid. og:url: https://time.com/4433184/most-calories-chain-restaurant-meal-applebees/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's the Unhealthiest Meal at a U.S. Chain Restaurant twitter:description: If you're counting calories, these are the chain restaurant orders to avoid. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Is the Unhealthiest Meal You Can Eat at a Chain Restaurant This Year > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Aug 1, 2016 4:57 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Aug 1, 2016 4:57 PM UTC Eating healthfully at a restaurant can be a challenge. But at some spots, [the odds are especially stacked against you](http://time.com/3910588/most-calories-chain-restaurant-meals/). For this year’s Xtreme Eating Awards, the [Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)](https://cspinet.org/eating-healthy/foods-avoid/xtreme2016), a nutrition consumer advocacy group, took a look at the excessively calorific meal combos available at America’s chain restaurants. If you’re counting calories, you’ll want to steer clear of [Applebee’s](http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1905549%5F1905546%5F1905465,00.html?iid=sr-link5) build-your-own appetizer sampler, CSPI tells us. The customizable platter can contain up to 3,390 calories, 65 grams of saturated fat and 11,650 milligrams of sodium if you order classics like the cheeseburger egg rolls, brew pub pretzels with beer cheese dip, chicken quesadilla, boneless wings and spinach and artichoke dip. (For reference, a day’s worth of food is 2,000 calories.) Even if you split the platter four ways, each person is still consuming more calories than the chain’s burger offering. And that’s all before tucking in to the main course. CSPI also shares that at Maggiano’s Little Italy, a Meal for Two is also ill-advised: it starts with dinner rolls, then an appetizer, two pasta dishes, dessert and two extra pastas to take home for the next day. The most dangerous order — which would involve choices like mozzarella marinara and fettuccine alfredo — clocks in at a whopping 2,890 calories per person, and that’s excluding the take-home pastas. Other restaurants who offer meals that rack up [major calorie counts](http://time.com/3957895/america-least-healthy-fast-food-chains/?iid=sr-link5) include the Cheesecake Factory, Dave and Buster’s and [SONIC](http://time.com/2941579/woman-claims-she-got-a-bag-of-marijuana-with-her-french-fries/?iid=sr-link8) (for its Candy Slushes alone). They advise skipping appetizers, ordering more vegetable sides or substitutions, and cutting carbs. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4433184/most-calories-chain-restaurant-meal-applebees/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4433184/most-calories-chain-restaurant-meal-applebees/"},"headline":"This Is the Unhealthiest Meal You Can Eat at a Chain Restaurant This Year","datePublished":"2016-08-01T16:57:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:34:57.847Z","description":"It's an appetizer","url":"https://time.com/4433184/most-calories-chain-restaurant-meal-applebees/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Food & Drink","Business topic","health"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4433184/most-calories-chain-restaurant-meal-applebees/","name":"This Is the Unhealthiest Meal You Can Eat at a Chain Restaurant This Year"}}]}] ```