Food for thought? Contest serves it up

No such thing as a free lunch?

Nonsense.

I'm about to offer a tasty repast at a landmark Southern California dining establishment. The prize will go to the reader who is smart enough and fast enough to beat the pack and ace my food nutrition quiz, which I'll get to in a minute.

I got the idea after reading my colleague Mary Engel's story last week about a quiz flunked by a majority of the 523 Californians who took it. Not a single person correctly answered all four questions on the nutrition content of the offerings at Denny's, Chili's, McDonald's and Romano's Macaroni Grill.

Actually, I didn't know there was supposed to be a healthful choice at any of those places, and I've never visited the Italian joint because I'd have to be forcibly dragged into an establishment calling itself a macaroni grill.

The fact that two-thirds of the test takers got every answer wrong -- here in the state that came up with the idea of putting sprouts in sandwiches -- could explain why more than half of all Californians are overweight, including 28% of our children, according to Harold Goldstein.

He runs the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, which conducted the test. Given the huge rates of heart disease and diabetes associated with obesity, Goldstein said, U.S. children born in 2000 could become the first generation in recent history with a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

To be honest, I only got two of the four answers right. I missed the one on McDonald's, which asked which of the following had the most calories.

A. 2 Big Macs

B. 2 Egg McMuffins

C. 1 large chocolate shake

D. 4 regular hamburgers

I went with the 2 Big Macs, but does this mean there are actually people who go to McDonald's and eat two of those sinkers at one sitting? If so, wouldn't it be thriftier to jump naked into a tub of cooking grease and count backward from 1,000 until the heart stops cold?

The correct answer was the chocolate shake, a frosty and quickly regrettable 1,160 calories, which happens to be the combined weekly caloric intake of Keira Knightley and Lindsay Lohan.

By the way, I'm no food cop, and believe there is no greater fraud than the multibillion-dollar diet industry, which preys on the epic lack of common sense in the U.S. If you want to lose weight, my revolutionary program -- available for just $29.99 monthly and GUARANTEED to begin shaving pounds INSTANTLY \o7if not sooner! \f7-- involves exercising just a bit more and eating just a tad less.