It's true that America's Cheesecake Factory is not the sort of gourmet food consumed by refined aesthetes like you and we. But it's perfectly acceptable food for all that, rather better than average in fact. You also get a hefty portion for not all that much money. The puzzle though is that people complain about this:

Watch out, diners: There are serious calories in some restaurant meals.

That was the message of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group, as it released its annual "Xtreme Eating Award" winners — the most calorie-stuffed dishes and drinks from the country's chain restaurants.

Topping the list were entrees like The Cheesecake Factory's Pasta Napoletana, which the chain describes as a meat lover's pizza in pasta form. The pasta, dressed in a Parmesan cream sauce, is topped with Italian sausage, pepperoni, meatballs, and bacon and clocks in at 2,310 calories, 79 grams of saturated fat, and 4,370 mg of sodium.

We checked the price of this and in the LA area it seems to come in at $14. At which point we really do start to wonder why people are complaining.

Our point being that there has never in human history been a time when the average working guy or gal could go and have a full day's worth of calories of meaty goodness - OK, we know that meatballs and sausage are made of the scrag ends but still - for two hours of minimum wage labour, or more pertinently around 30 minutes work at the US median hourly wage of $25. Not cooked in a restaurant there hasn't been a time before now when this was true.

Far from us complaining about this we'll just add it to our list of proofs that the Good Old Days are right now.