Haven’t gone there since Her Royal Large Hind Ass Moochelle fiddled with their menu.
More options? Like squiggly pasta instead of flat?............
Now Macaroni Grill I can like.
There are better Italian restaurants. I have a Mom and Pop Italian restaurant a block from my house that serves real Italian food at a good price. Why would I want to go to some phoney corporate restaurant?
Cheaper? It was already one of the cheaper ‘sit down dining’ options out there. Any cheaper and you are getting into IHOP territory. Not exactly a high-end place.
Maybe they will follow JC Penny’s lead.
I ate at O.G. once, that was it for me. I argued with the waitress that she had brought me a child’s portion.
Maybe Olive Garden can serve up some of that jumped shark?
I like the bread sticks and salds at Olive Garden but their menu is abaout as authenticly Italian as my Aunt Bridget O’Rourke. Their food’s just bland to my taste. Bust I don’t see how they can make their menu less expensive. I don’t think they have a single entree over $20.00. But all that being said...unless I have a gift card or some other very compelling reason, when I want Italian I make it myself or go to one of my favorite mom and pop Italian restaurants.
I’ve never eaten at an Olive Garden. No real desire to see what I’m missing.
Yuck! Any Italian who eats there should turn in his Pisano card.
The Omaha, Lincoln, Des Moines area has The Pegetti Works(spagworks.com/) MUCH better food and each is family owned and operated(We like the Ralston, NE location best(no Omaha Food tax))!
I haven’t been THERE for YEARS.
It is incredible the amount of salt they put in EVERYTHING!
They could use half as much and it would still be TOO salty!
It's always good, it's affordable, and I believe the owners are conservatives.
Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
by Michael Moss
4.35 of 5 stars 4.35 · rating details · 55 ratings · 36 reviews
From a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the explosive story of the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging obesity epidemic. Michael Moss reveals how companies use salt, sugar, and fat to addict us and, more important, how we can fight back.
In the spring of 1999 the heads of the world’s largest processed food companies—from Coca-Cola to Nabisco—gathered at Pillsbury headquarters in Minneapolis for a secret meeting. On the agenda: the emerging epidemic of obesity, and what to do about it.
Increasingly, the salt-, sugar-, and fat-laden foods these companies produced were being linked to obesity, and a concerned Kraft executive took the stage to issue a warning: There would be a day of reckoning unless changes were made. This executive then launched into a damning PowerPoint presentation—114 slides in all—making the case that processed food companies could not afford to sit by, idle, as children grew sick and class-action lawyers lurked. To deny the problem, he said, is to court disaster.
When he was done, the most powerful person in the room—the CEO of General Mills—stood up to speak, clearly annoyed. And by the time he sat down, the meeting was over.
Since that day, with the industry in pursuit of its win-at-all-costs strategy, the situation has only grown more dire. Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese (triple what we ate in 1970) and seventy pounds of sugar (about twenty-two teaspoons a day). We ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, and almost none of that comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food. It’s no wonder, then, that one in three adults, and one in five kids, is clinically obese. It’s no wonder that twenty-six million Americans have diabetes, the processed food industry in the U.S. accounts for $1 trillion a year in sales, and the total economic cost of this health crisis is approaching $300 billion a year.
In Salt Sugar Fat, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Michael Moss shows how we got here. Featuring examples from some of the most recognizable (and profitable) companies and brands of the last half century—including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Kellogg, Nestlé, Oreos, Cargill, Capri Sun, and many more—Moss’s explosive, empowering narrative is grounded in meticulous, often eye-opening research.
Moss takes us inside the labs where food scientists use cutting-edge technology to calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages or enhance the “mouthfeel” of fat by manipulating its chemical structure. He unearths marketing campaigns designed—in a technique adapted from tobacco companies—to redirect concerns about the health risks of their products: Dial back on one ingredient, pump up the other two, and tout the new line as “fat-free” or “low-salt.” He talks to concerned executives who confess that they could never produce truly healthy alternatives to their products even if serious regulation became a reality. Simply put: The industry itself would cease to exist without salt, sugar, and fat. Just as millions of “heavy users”—as the companies refer to their most ardent customers—are addicted to this seductive trio, so too are the companies that peddle them. You will never look at a nutrition label the same way again.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15797397-salt-sugar-fat
I love Olive Garden!!! I try to get our family there at least once a month. For the food that you get, it is cheap. I guess everyone just wants to eat at McDonald’s. Outback and Olive Garden are my families favorite! Hopefully Olive Garden continues on forever.
I’ve been to a few different Olive Garden locations, although it’s been a long time since I’ve been to any. At least back then, the differences between locations was huge — get the right place, and the food was quite good for the price.
I’ve seen the same with other chain places like Red Lobster. Some locations are quite good, others... not so much.
“Olive Garden promises Cheaper Food”
Honey Boo Boo-style “Sketti” coming to an Olive Garden near you!
By the way their house red wine is absolutely horrible.
Who knows maybe their cheaper fair will be better than their older menu. I will say you won’t find me there trying to find out.
In this tough Obaconomy... people want more food for the buck.
People aren’t eating out much because its expensive.
You can find gourmet frozen food in the grocery store for a fraction of what you’d pay for it in a restaurant.
Bertolli beats Olive Garden! No wonder its struggling.