Friendly's Grilled Cheese Burger Melt Tips Scales, Shocks Health Advocates

June 25, 2010— -- To public health advocates, a new sandwich from restaurant chain Friendly's must seem like a cruel practical joke -- the Grilled Cheese Burger Melt.

The sandwich is a burger with all the trimmings, wedged between two grilled cheese sandwiches. The entire Burgermelt meal, with fries, tips the scales at 1500 calories, 97 grams of fat and a stunning 2,090 milligrams of sodium.

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One blogger dubbed the dish "death on a bun," and experts agree.

"It's deadly," said Dr. Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "It's not the kind of thing people should be eating. In fact, it's the kind of thing the Surgeon General says don't eat."

The Grilled Cheese Burger Melt is not even the highest calorie item on Friendly's menu. The restaurant also has a breakfast dish called Caramel Cinnamon Swirl French Toast -- a cinnamon bun split down the middle, fried in egg, served with ice cream, cream cheese, caramel topping and whipped cream. That's 2,090 calories for breakfast, which already exceeds federal guidelines for an entire day's worth of meals.

A few years ago, Saturday Night Live poked fun at Americans' ceaseless appetite for these meals of mass destruction. In a commercial for a fictional restaurant called "Taco Town," the show jokingly imagined a three-layer taco, wrapped in a pizza, surrounded by blueberry pancakes and deep-fried to finish it off.

But now, reality seems to be catching up with satire.

Friendly's new burger is the latest salvo in what seems to be a runaway race to come up with the most outrageous sandwich, in defiance of alarming statistics about obesity in America.

It's "in the midst of our health care crisis of high rates of heart disease. It's nuts," said Jacobson. "And the companies are showing no corporate responsibility whatsoever."

Friendly's defended its product in a statement: "As the place where 'ice cream makes the meal,' we offer our customers a diverse selection of delicious and innovative menu items, including salads, vegetable sides, wraps, lots of ice cream selections for every time of day ... and our newest sandwich -- the Friendly's Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt. We provide choices to our customers, along with full nutritional information, available in our restaurants and online for all menu items to help them make informed decisions."