The hottest new hamburger at Hardee's is an unabashedly unhealthy mountain of meat called the Monster Thickburger.
Loaded with two 1/3-pound Angus beef patties, four strips of bacon and three slices of cheese, slathered with a generous swab of mayonnaise and encased in a buttered bun, it's not exactly a celebration of calorie counting.
Who's counting? When the 1,420-calorie, 107-fat-gram behemoth was unleashed, people gobbled it up.
"Sales results for this politically incorrect burger have been encouraging," Andrew Puzder, chief executive officer of Hardee's parent CKE Restaurants Inc., told Wall Street analysts after the big burger's debut in mid-November.
The Monster has been singled out – the Center for Science in the Public Interest called it the "fast-food equivalent of a snuff film" – but the $5.49, 4-inch-tall sandwich is just the newest heart-clogging trend in the fast-food industry.
Big is nothing new at fast-food restaurants. McDonald's, for instance, famously offered Super Size fries and drinks until it overhauled its menu to promote a "balanced lifestyle" last March.
The latest trend isn't just about size or value. It's about thumbing your nose at the food police.