Long John Silver’s “Big Catch,” which consists of fried haddock, onion rings and hush puppies and has a whopping 33 grams of trans fat, took the dubious honor, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.And while the CSPI says you can easily find restaurant meals with more calories than the Big Catch’s 1,320, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more artery clogging offering.
“Long John Silver’s Big Catch meal deserves to be buried 20,000 leagues under the sea,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson on the organization’s website. “This company is taking perfectly healthy fish—and entombing it in a thick crust of batter and partially hydrogenated oil. The result? A heart attack on a hook. Instead of the Big Catch, I’d call it America’s Deadliest Catch.”
What’s even scarier, the CSPI adds, are the marketing methods being used to pawn the lard-laden meal off as even remotely healthy. According to the CSPI, the Long John Silver’s website “grossly overestimates” the amount of fish each Big Catch contains and “greatly underestimates” the amount of trans fat in the side orders.
While the company touts the fried fish as “the largest fish we’ve ever offered, weighing in at 7-to-8 ounces,” the CSPI says test conducted on the meal revealed only about 4.5 ounces of fish and nearly 3.5 ounces of added batter.
“It turns out that when Long John Silver’s says 7 to 8 ounces of 100 percent haddock, it’s more like 60 percent haddock, and 40 percent batter and grease,” Jacobson says on the CSPI site. “Nutrition aside, that’s just plain piracy.”
Similar tests conducted on the hushpuppies revealed 3.7 grams of trans fat versus the 3 grams the company claims, but shockingly, the onion rings – which supposedly contain an already unhealthy 7 grams of trans fat – actually contain nearly 20 grams of the dangerous fat.
CSPI says it has notified both the restaurant chain’s CEO and the FDA about its findings and will pursue a lawsuit against the company if changes aren’t made.
