Glamburgers®

Potato chips on a burger. It sounds like a dare, and it's the best idea on the Glamburgers list, because the crisps keep crunching after the cheese has melted into everything else.

American and cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, pickles and secret sauce complete it. James L. Kraft patented his method for processed cheese in 1916. Cheddar brings the flavour; American brings the melt.

1,390 calories and 3,410 mg of sodium, third-saltiest of the 13 burgers.

The lightest of the 13 Glamburgers on calories, fat and sodium, at 930 calories, 45 grams of fat and 1,650 mg, and it isn't beef at all.

It's island-style slow-roasted kalua pork with barbecue sauce, piled high on a brioche bun. It's sold at the Hawaii restaurants. 59 grams of protein.

Fish and sesame are listed with gluten, milk, eggs and wheat. For a pork sandwich, that's a long list.

3,530 mg of sodium, the saltiest of the 13 burgers, and 75 grams of protein, also the most.

Two kinds of bacon go on it. Thin crispy strips for crunch, and thick-cut, slow-roasted smoked bacon for chew. Then cheddar, American cheese and the house secret sauce over a charbroiled patty, with lettuce, tomato and onion.

The French Dip Cheeseburger beats it on calories by 10, at 1,620. Every other burger is at least 30 calories lighter. Between those two, I'd take this one, because two bacons is a better idea than a burger you dunk.

Fish is on the allergen list, and the likeliest reason is the housemade steak sauce, since Worcestershire, a standard steak-sauce base, contains anchovies.

Bacon, caramelized onion, arugula, that steak sauce and garlic aioli go on a toasted roll rather than a brioche bun. It works because the peppery arugula cuts the sweet onion. Sesame isn't listed.

106 grams of carbohydrate, tied for second-most among the burgers. 3,190 mg of sodium.

The menu calls it a chop house hamburger, and it comes with one slice of grilled onion, lettuce and tomato, no cheese and no sauce listed.

Without them, it still reaches 83 grams of fat. That's 23 more than the Old Fashioned Burger, which has mayonnaise on it. The patty is doing the work.

61 grams of protein, third among the 13 burgers. It's the one to order if you like your beef plain and your plate heavy.

Pressing a thin patty hard onto a very hot griddle puts more of the beef in contact with the metal. More contact means more browned crust.

This one doubles it, two patties, double cheese, grilled onions and special sauce on a toasted brioche roll, and at 1,140 calories it still comes in lighter than eight of the other Glamburgers, while 3,180 mg of sodium puts it fifth-saltiest.

$18.50 to $19.95. Only the Old Fashioned Burger costs less. Eat it straight off the grill, before the crust softens.

It's a turkey burger at 1,060 calories. The Old Fashioned beef burger is 990.

The patty is mixed with fresh mushrooms, garlic and spices, then charbroiled and topped with fontina, avocado, tomato, arugula and marinated onion, all on the restaurant's brown bread bun with garlic aioli, and fontina, avocado and aioli are all fat-heavy.

It does have the fewest carbs of the 13 burgers, 59 grams. The SkinnyLicious Grilled Turkey Burger is 560. If turkey was the reason you ordered it, order that one.

1,620 calories and 118 grams of fat, the most of the 13 burgers on both counts.

The French dip sandwich is a Los Angeles invention, and two downtown restaurants, Cole's and Philippe's, have argued for more than a century about which one created it. This burger borrows the dip. A charbroiled cheeseburger comes on a toasted brioche roll with grilled onions and sriracha mayo, with au jus on the side.

Dip the edge, not the whole thing. Brioche soaks up liquid fast and falls apart. Sodium is 3,470 mg, second only to the Bacon-Bacon.

New Mexico takes this burger seriously enough that its tourism department has run a Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail since 2009, with Hatch, the self-styled chile capital of the world, at the centre of it.

Here the patty gets green chile and melted cheese, with crispy tortilla strips on top for crunch. 1,270 calories. 61 grams of protein, tied for third among the 13 burgers.

It carries a single $20.95 price across locations. Sodium is 2,570 mg.

This burger is 1,340 calories. The Fried Macaroni and Cheese appetizer on its own is 1,310, so the beef patty, the bun and everything else here costs you 30 more calories than a plate of fried mac and cheese.

That arithmetic tells you the mac and cheese on top is a smaller portion than the appetizer. Still. Fried macaroni balls, cheddar sauce, lettuce, tomato, pickles and onion sit on brioche over a charbroiled patty. It's excess that's honest about itself.

Its 2,430 mg of sodium is lower than 9 of the other 12 burgers here, which surprised me, and 60 grams of protein comes with it.

At 990 calories it's the lightest beef burger among the Glamburgers, and the only one under 1,000.

Nothing on it needs explaining. Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and mayonnaise on a toasted brioche bun, over a charbroiled patty. It lands 290 calories under the Classic Burger and carries 640 mg less sodium.

This is the burger I'd order to actually taste the beef. $17.50 to $19.95.

42 grams of sugar, the most of the 13 burgers.

Barbecue sauce is the likeliest source. Smoked bacon, melted cheddar, crispy onion strings, barbecue ranch sauce and lettuce go on a charbroiled patty.

1,580 calories makes it the third-heaviest burger, and 68 grams of protein puts it second to the Bacon-Bacon. Onion strings go soggy under sauce within minutes. Eat it first, before the fries.

19 grams of protein, the lowest of the 13 burgers on the menu. It also carries the most carbohydrate of any of them, at 129 grams.

The patty is brown rice, farro, mushrooms and black beans, so grain does the work a beef patty would. Farro is wheat. That's why gluten is on the list.

Vegetarian, 1,040 calories and 2,920 mg of sodium, and if protein is the reason you want a burger, this isn't it.