New 'Fat Burger' Causes Controversy

Health experts were outraged this week when Australian fast food restaurant Hungry Jacks (known internationally as Burger King) released the controversial ‘Quad Burger’.

The burger consists of four beef patties, four slices of cheese and two rashers of bacon in between two buns, topped off with barbeque sauce. It contains no lettuce or vegetables, and comes to a whopping 4520Kj – half the recommended daily energy intake for a woman.

Health experts claim that eating just one of the 1000 calorie burgers will have immediate negative effects on the eater’s health – “You’ll feel lethargic, you won't sleep well; it'll stay in your gut because it's just too much for your system to handle. It'll just clog you up and you'll feel bloated and it would completely disturb your entire digestive system.” (Ed Whitlam.)

Hungry Jacks responded to the claims that the burger is not intended as an everyday meal, and stated that the burger’s fat and energy content was equal to that of a full cooked breakfast (eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast).

The burger is aimed at a male market, with the meal being worth just over a third of the recommended calorie intake for men. Selling at just $5.95AUD, many are concerned that the sale and television advertisement of the Quad Burger could present young people with the wrong image, especially after so much effort has been put into the promotion of healthy foods.

With Australia recently overtaking America as the fattest nation in the world, it’s no surprise that the burger, containing 71 grams of fat, has received high levels of criticism from both health experts and the media.