Just as Food Network Magazine lists Sill's Café's Famous Scone as Utah's "Best Breakfast," Health magazine ranked the scone as one of the nation's 50 Fattiest Foods.
Who's right? Probably both.
The July/August issue of Food Network Magazine lists a breakfast dish from each state, chosen because they're unique, classic or outrageous.
It happens that every so often, national media will contact local food editors for suggestions about restaurants or food in our area.
Last January, the Food Network magazine asked me for a list of three breakfast dishes in the state "that are delicious, memorable, wacky, local-inspired and unique, served at the kind of places locals are fanatical about and where you'd want to take your out-of-town visitors."
I made a list and anonymously visited several places before heading to work, just to double-check myself.
At Sill's Cafe, I was caught by my aerobics teacher while nibbling on a plate-size Sill's scone slathered with honey butter.
"Um, I'm just here doing some research," I told her, my face bright red as I mentally calculated just how many of her Body Jam sessions I'd need to burn off my "research."
Frankly, many traditional breakfast items are pretty high in fat: bacon, fried eggs, hash browns, sausage, french toast doused in butter and syrup. I wasn't asked to judge the calorie count; I just was asked for a popular, "uniquely to Utah" menu item, and Utah's interpretation of a scone is unusual.
To the rest of the world, a "scone" is a dainty cake served with tea and crumpets. But in Utah, it's a big blob of deep-fried dough, similar to Navajo fry bread.
Health writers also thought Utah's scone was unique, but not in a good way. The magazine listed a high-fat food from each state for its "50 Fattiest Foods" story. The article is an online exclusive, appearing on the Health.com website.
I had nothing to do with that designation.
"We got many submissions from local Health.com and Health mag readers through Twitter and Facebook," Amy O'Connor, Health.com's editor-in-chief, said in an e-mail.
"So this is not a scientific poll — it's more local foods that locals consider the fattiest, then we vetted with our staff dietitians."
The Utah scone is similar to the deep-fried beignet, deemed as Louisiana's fattiest food. Other dishes bearing the dubious distinction include Jack-N-Grill's 7-Pound Breakfast Burrito in Colorado, stuffed with seven potatoes, 12 eggs, a pound of ham, a whole onion, cheese and chili.
And Georgia's Luther Burger, a ground beef patty, topped with cheese and bacon between two Krispy Kreme glazed donuts instead of a bun. There's also New Jersey's Fat Darrell sandwich, which contains chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, marinara sauce and French fries.
Can you feel your arteries hardening already?
On the bright side, a study by Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently named Utah one of the healthiest states in the nation, with "only" 23.2 percent of its population being obese.
The state with the lowest obesity rate was Colorado, with 19.1 percent. Apparently not everyone in Colorado is chowing on 7-Pound Burritos, and not everyone in Utah is eating deep-fried scones.
e-mail: vphillips@desnews.com