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"Some of the restaurants had a difficult time with this. But I say, if you fry a vegetable, it's still a vegetable," stated Megan McDonald, executive director of the Mayor's Office of Special Events.
Other "healthy" offerings include JR Dessert Bakery's apple pie with ice cream (it has apples it it), Home Run Inn Pizza's cheese pizza with organic plum tomatoes (it's organic), and Eli's Cheesecake's plain cheesecake (it's....plain?).
What the flerg is the point of this? First of all, what qualifies as healthy? 0 grams of fat? Lots 'o fiber? Fried spirulina? And isn't the answer to being "healthy" in the name itself? Taste something from each restaurant. Don't stuff your face full of 70 tickets worth of fried Twinkies and you're fine.
Click here to see a map of all of the participants and their healthy menu items. [Trib]
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But I say, if you fry a vegetable, it's still a vegetable.
That's my kind of argument.
"...flerg...."
First, blerg? Now, flerg?
well now that just sounds ridiculous...
frp- haha, you just wait until I bust out the mglurg....
Cheesecake is healthy because it is a dairy product of course! Get 3-4 servings of cheesecake a day and you will be well on your way to a healthy lifestyle.
Hahaha. Really? Isn't doing this gonna make less people want to come?
I'm just waiting for somebody to make a deep fried salad...
Folks in my family say that when they need to be convinced to go on "diets."
But I say, if you fry a vegetable, it's still a vegetable
WHERE was that argument when I was 5???
At Eli's, we look forward to the Taste of Chicago each year. It is where my dad's cheesecake made its public debut at the first Taste in 1980 and an event that has brought us many fans over the years.
This year we were challenged by the Mayor's Office of Special Events to come up with a "healthier" version of our cheesecake. We took this challenge quite seriously. We started with the no sugar added version of our cheesecake made with Equal Brand Sweetener. This is a very popular variety of our cheesecake as there are many customers with sugar restricted diets.
Our pastry chefs then went farther keeping the cultured cream cheese, Nielsen Massey Bourbon Madagascar Vanilla, cultured sour cream with no hydrogenated oils that Eli’s is known for. Our newest addition “Skinny Eli” is reduced in calories, has no sugar added and is made with Neufchatel cheese, ricotta cheese (as well as cream cheese), light cultured sour cream, real Madagascar Bourbon vanilla and Equal Brand Sweetener. We then top it with sugar-free chocolate ganache and it is baked on a no sugar added graham cracker crust with real butter.
It is 250 calories a slice and it tastes great. For those on a sugar restricted diet or for those looking to reduce calories, this is a great option. Of course, there is our other recommendation for Taste---share with your friends—guaranteed to be ½ the calories or 1/5---depending on how many friends and family you come to Taste with.
Looking forward to seeing you at Taste.
Marc Schulman
President
Eli's Cheesecake Company
Thank's Marc...will try to try it!
Re: M Chicago (#9)
On one hand, that was an example of corporate shillery at it's finest. On the other hand, he did answer the criticism of Eli's "just" offering a slice of plain cheesecake as it's healthy option- none of today's publications really have been very fair to them.
I'm interested to see what the potato chip retort is? Maybe they're baked, low sodium, sweet potato chips, with no coloring or preservatives - otherwise Billy Goat's full of crap.
Then again, so is the healthy food mandate - I don't go to a food festival to eat healthy!
(Although, if ticket prices keep going up, me lightened wallet may force a diet on me!)
Gastronomic political correctness. What a ridiculous plan, except, of course, if you want to appease "experts."
This plan is like, oh, there must be an adequate analogy somewhere...how about, it's like mandating bible studies at all UFC matches.
I think if you really wanted to make a healthy cheesecake you could ditch the aspartame and use carrots as the sweetener instead. The English did this as a sugar substitute during WWII and, voila, carrot cake was born. Why not a carrot cheesecake?
If this makes less people want to go, I might actually consider going to the Taste.
Fat people + heat + food + crowd = me bumping into sweaty fat people with turkey legs. Gross.