THE BAD DEAL

Dairy Queen, the fast-food chain whose orthographically-challenged slogan is “It’s so good, it’s ridqulous”, is offering “fan club” members SIX buy-one-get-one free coupons for the junktacular Blizzard, a total of twelve ice cream sundaes per year.The bring-a-friend effort is an attempt to socialize this act of self-imposed gavage. As a result, you’re not just becoming a potential statistic in the global obesity pandemic, you’re actually helping to spread the disease. 

Bad Deal Editor Ryan Sutton ignominiously attempted to consume this (admittedly delicious) small-sized specimen yesterday. He was not successful. Good thing he didn’t order a large Midnight Truffle Blizzard, which contains 590 calories, and 65 grams of fat. Multiply that times six (or twelve if you don’t share ), and you’re at 3,540 calories, and 390 grams of fat. That’s quite ridiculous (not ridqulous).  

To be fair, three Michelin-starred French cuisine, with all its butter, beef and cream, isn’t very healthy either. Jean Georges and Daniel Boulud serve wine-paired tasting menus that can easily exceed 1,000 calories. Then again, those chefs run expensive, special occasion restaurants, and they certainly aren’t giving away coupons to encourage frequent foie gras consumption. Dairy Queen, on the other hand, which is neither expensive nor a special occasion, is making regular consumption of junk food even cheaper with this offer. That is most definitely, most certainly, a BAD DEAL.