http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/he...=1&oref=slogin
By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: July 17, 2007
If you were watching calories, would you go for the chicken Caesar salad at Chili’s or the classic sirloin steak? Subway’s tuna or roast beef sandwich? A Starbucks chai or a cappuccino?
Demand for calorie labels on restaurant food is sweeping the country. New York City is ahead of the trend — a law requiring calorie counts to be posted next to prices in some restaurants went into effect July 1, though it will not be enforced until October. But some 20 other states and localities are considering measures that would require chain restaurants to provide calories or detailed nutritional information right on the menu or menu board, often next to the price and in the same size lettering.
Although the laws would apply only to chains, which make up just 10 percent of outlets, they serve about two-thirds of restaurant traffic, experts say.
Restaurateurs don’t like the idea. They say the labels would be cumbersome and expensive, and that they would not make a dent in America’s
obesity problem.
“Do you think people will stop eating McDonald’s French fries and Big Macs?” asked Rick Sampson of the New York State Restaurant Association, which is suing New York City over its law. “It doesn’t keep me from eating a candy bar even though the calories are listed on it right in front of me.” (A Big Mac has 540 calories; a medium order of fries, 380.)
But public opinion polls suggest that consumers are overwhelmingly in favor of menu labeling. And a 2005 survey of 5,297 adults by the food services company Aramark found that 83 percent of them wanted nutritional information in restaurants.
“Often, people are trying to do the right thing and make the healthier choice, but they’re just guessing at what the best choice is — it’s not always obvious,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutritional policy at the
Center for Science in the Public Interest, the advocacy group that is leading the movement for menu labeling. “Because there’s no nutritional information, they’re not getting what they think they’re getting.”
The chicken Caesar salad at Chili’s is one of those items that might appear to be a healthier choice, but brace yourself: it contains 1,010 calories and 76 grams of fat, while the sirloin has 540 calories and 42 grams of fat (not counting side dishes).
Nor is a tuna sandwich the low-calorie choice at Subway: it has 530 calories, significantly more than the roast beef sandwich, which has 290. And a chai latte almost always has 100 more calories than a cappuccino of the same size prepared with the same kind of milk.
While many eateries publish caloric information on their Web sites, or even on food packaging, advocates of labeling say diners need to be able to see the information while deciding what to order.
Some entrees and appetizers provide a staggering amount of calories in a single dish, sometimes more than the 2,000 recommended daily for the average adult. Notorious among nutritionists is the Bloomin’ Onion at Outback Steakhouse, a battered, deep-fried onion resembling a flower that is served with a dipping sauce. The damage, nutritionists say, is about 2,200 calories and more than 100 grams of fat, most of it trans fat.
And it’s not just average diners who have a hard time estimating the calorie content of food in restaurants. Even trained dietitians have failed miserably at the task, according to Dr. Wootan.
A study by her group and
New York University found that dietitians consistently underestimated the calorie content of restaurant food, figuring that a typical meal of hamburger and onion rings in a sit-down restaurant would have 865 calories. It had 1,550.
“There was a time when an orange was an orange, and an apple was an apple,” said Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders. “But people don’t recognize what’s in their food anymore — a Pop-Tart has 56 different ingredients. And the food industry is very good about cramming sugar, fat and salt into food, making it taste very good but making it a challenge to be healthy.”
Diners may order items they associate with health food — chicken over beef, for example, or a “California health sandwich” or “grilled vegetable wrap” — which may actually be laden in calories, experts say. A grilled chicken club sandwich at McDonald’s has more calories than a Big Mac, for example.
Officials who represent the restaurant industry point out that Americans still eat three-quarters of their meals at home. That may be true, labeling advocates say, but when they eat out they consume more calories than they do at home.
The real question is whether diners with more information would make wiser decisions. Studies show that only 10 percent to 20 percent of diners would choose lower-calorie options. “It’s not the whole solution to obesity,” Dr. Wootan said, “but it’s a very important part of the solution.”
Linear Mode
