Burger Time

Hey, when you’re hungry, you’re hungry. But is anyone really hungry enough to eat a 4lb burger?

The Fifth Third Ballpark in Grand Rapids, Michigan has decided to offer up this heinous meal-time choice. Maxing out at a whooping 4,800 calories (that’s more than double the FDA’s daily caloric recommendation), this gargantuan burger defies a one-person consumption. Or does it?

We’ve all heard our mothers and our mother’s mothers groan on about the hungry children in Ethiopia when we’ve been forced to sit at the kitchen table for not finishing our peas, but those are a few measly peas. Think if we could pass this on to them! The joy! The celebrations that would ensue. I mean, this has the potential to feed a family of five— easily. Maybe even an army! A village!

Unfortunately, I think that if any of those poor starving children even attempted to eat this monstrosity, he or she would surely drop from the shock to the system that the reported 300 grams of fat, 10,000 mg sodium, and 744 milligrams of cholesterol would dole out. Obviously this age-old adage doesn’t work with this monstrosity. Sorry starving kids, I fear that this’ll freaking kill you.

Now keep in mind that this isn’t your normal burger. This puppy is loaded with oddities like corn chips, salsa and a cup of chili. Part of me wants to plead with them to stop the insanity. For crying out loud, corn chips? Frigging corn chips? Come on, that’s obviously just to up the ante on it’s disgusting unhealthiness, isn’t it?

I can see the cooks standing around the kitchen, each in stained aprons, hands wet from spreading chili over the five patties, hemming and hawing over the magnificent creation they just assembled.

“It just doesn’t look finished,” one cook says to another as he scans the shelves of food in front of him.

“Well, what else would you put on it, Jim*?”

“Screw it,” says the first, “let’s just throw whatever the heck’ll make this baby the most ridiculous thing people have seen in a while, and watch them flock!” Enter the corn chips to the equation.

And the funny thing? The funny thing is that people will flock to Fifth Third, just to try to the damn thing. Just as they did in Clearfield, PA to try the "Beer Barrel Belly Buster" or "The Big One" at Mama Lena's Pizza House in McKees Rock, PA (what’s up with your over-sized foods PA?). People big, bigger and relatively small will walk into the stadium with high hopes of ingesting the atrocity and waddle away bloated and full, perhaps even with the misguided idea of topping the whole thing off with the signature deep-fried Twinkie. (oh, yeah. They have those there too.)

This is one giant leap for obesity, and one small step for the evolution of the burger. I’m full just thinking about it.