Restaurant Menus: Making Calorie/Nutrition Content Visible

Eight o’clock Friday night and you are having a Big Mac attack. Would you change your mind about a trip to the local drive-thru if you knew that sandwich had 540 calories, 260 of those from fat? Maybe more than you want to think about on a Friday evening, and something you may not take the effort to find out, since the information isn’t on the wrapper.

Legislation being discussed as part of health reform could make knowing what you are eating easier to determine. Presently the information is available online or if requested at fast food and chain restaurants. Some of the establishments list the nutrition in a clear and concise chart. For instance, finding the calories online on the Big Mac was no problem; it’s also easy to find that KFC’s 3-piece chicken strip item is 380 calories, 200 of those from fat. Red Lobster’s online information is a little less clear: the Ultimate Feast®, is 638 calories, but the fat is shown in grams at 4.18, requiring that the diner also know how many grams of fat are allowed in their daily calorie count for the information to be useful.

Why does all of this matter if that is what you want to eat? U.S. chain restaurants and fast food chains have been criticized for contributing to the country’s obesity epidemic. Food items that you purchase at the grocery store, and even snack items on almost all retail shelves have labels that provide nutritional information. At present, nutritional information on both fast food chains and large nationwide dining chains must be sought out by the consumer. Most of us are not going to set up our laptop to check out nutritional information before we order that Awesome Blossom® at Chili’s (2710 calories, 1827 from fat) but maybe we should.

The law requiring menu labeling could be in health reform legislation which is expected to be addressed by Congress in the next few weeks. States and some cities already have laws requiring menu labeling to help promote health and nutrition, but most would rather see federal legislation to make the rules uniform. This legislation is not just about “big brother” looking over shoulders at the dinner table, but trying to provide information for fighting obesity, which can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer—all extremely expensive diseases in terms of health care costs.

“America is facing an obesity epidemic, which must be addressed at the national level,” said Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who along with Democratic Senators Tom Harkin and Tom Carper, have backed menu labeling legislation.

The legislation is also backed by the National Restaurant Association, whose members include the operators of Red Lobster and Olive Garden chains; The American Diabetes Association; and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Sue Hensley, a spokeswoman with the National Restaurant Association said, “To have all of those key players at this point as one unified front to move forward with a nutrition standard is, I think, really significant.”

Will this legislation, if passed, really help reduce obesity? Only if Americans use the information to their advantage and plan their calorie count around the food they are going to eat away from home.