Thursday, April 10, 2008

Hungry for Breakfast? Have Some Candy!

When I first saw the tv ad for iHop's new "Who-cakes" (a promotional tie-in product for the movie "Horton Hears a Who") I thought I had a great target for my "Signs of the Apocalypse" series. 

5 pancakes in a large stack covered in sugary syrup, sprinkled with little candy bits and topped with a lollypop is definitely something that should make any responsible parent cringe. Seriously, do you want to be with any kid for the 2 hours they completely spazz out AFTER indulging in this sugarfest? Do you have any idea of how hard it is to peel a 4 year-old off a ceiling after they bounced on all your furniture, broke all your lamps, shredded all your library books, and feed cat food in to your dvd player? I think I would rather have another root canal.

iHop's Whocakes. No wonder Horton is hearing things!

After I had time to get over the initial shock, I changed my mind about making "Who-cakes" an apocalyptic food nominee. When you think about it, iHop may finally get across the message that most of what we see as "breakfast" today, is in fact, nothing more than candy. By sticking a sucker in to their latest carbohydrate concoction, iHop may have actually done parents a big favor.

I tried to look up the nutrition information on these things, but for some reason, iHop does not list the calorie or carbohydrate count for Who-Cakes on their website. A quick look at their regular pancakes is telling enough. 5 regular buttermilk pancakes is 85 carbs. Add another 58 carbs if you only use 2oz of syrup for a total of 143g of carbohydrates. This is close to 3/4 cups of pure sugar. I can only imaging what the sugar content of the Who-cake version might be. 

A Snickers bar only has 35g of carbohydrate for a 2.07oz size and 68.4g in a king size bar. The big candy bar has 74.6 FEWER grams of carbohydrates than iHop's most famous breakfast offering. If you want to eat candy for breakfast, that's your choice. Just don't delude yourself that forming it in to a pancake instead of a bar makes it any healthier. 

12 comments:

Mindy said...

Marvo over at http://www.theimpulsivebuy.com/wordpress/
did a humorous review of this today. WARNING! His blog is not for children or those easily offended. Most of the time he's hilarious.

The Bionic Broad said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Bionic Broad said...

When my thirteen-year old son saw the picture of that stack 'o' poison, he said,"That's too much! No wonder Horton heard a Who. He eats too much sugar!" Priceless.

Anonymous said...

My grandmother, who generally cooked low carb (which was the fashion at the time, as Abe Simpson might say), used to encourage me to eat breakfast by pouring syrup over it. Maple, blueberry, strawberry -- over scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and the occasional pancake or waffle. And if I ate it all, I got dessert. Dessert for breakfast.

Hmm. I thought Gram had retired a couple decades ago, but maybe she's scheming up new menu items at IHOP.

Mayberryfan said...

Excellent post, as per usual! I had a child at school one day who said his mom wouldn't let him eat cookies at snack time - she sent him a fruit roll-up instead. :O

Big dif. Not. Most people don't have a clue about what they're eating, they just eat it. Thanks for reminding folks to check things out!!

Vesna VK said...

Ewwwww!

Magicsmom said...

Those things look disgusting!

Nancy Ellyn said...

I couldn't believe it when I saw that commercial!

Anonymous said...

I love your blog, and you, but I really REALLY love your avatar & screenname!

Hugs,
Yucky <--- suffering from avatar envy :D

Kat said...

guess you got to be a kid to appreciate that picture of those cakes, lol...looks way to sweet to me.

Linda said...

Just looking at them makes my teeth itch!

Tracy said...

I can't believe that's actually food. At first I thought it was Playdough. My teeth are screaming in sheer agony.