If you plan to chow down tonight at a big chain restaurant, there’s better than nine-in-ten chance that your entrée will fail to meet federal nutrition recommendations for both adults and kids, according to a provocative new study.
A whopping 96% of main entrees sold at top U.S. chain eateries exceed daily limits for calories, sodium, fat and saturated fat recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “If you’re eating out tonight, your chances of finding an entrée that’s truly healthy are painfully low” say Helen Wu assistant policy analyst at Rand Corp.
The restaurant industry is employing a wide range of healthier-living strategies: putting nutritional information on menus, adding more healthful items and launching a 2011 program at nearly 100 brand restaurants in more that 25,000 locations that offers children’s meals in line with 2010 dietary guidelines. Other findings of the study:
---Appetizers can be calorie bombs
Appetizers averaged 813 calories, compared with main entrees, which averaged 674 calories per serving.
---Family restaurants fared worse than fast-food restaurants
Entrees at family-style restaurants on average have more calories, fat and sodium than fast-food restaurants. Entrée at family-style eateries posted 271 more calories, 435 more milligrams of sodium and 16 more grams of fat than fast-food restaurants.
---Kid “specialty” drinks often aren’t healthy
Many drinks offered on kids’ menus have more fat and saturated fat on average than regular drinks. While regular menu drinks had a median of 360 calories, the median number of calories in kid specialty drinks, such as shakes and floats, was 430. The message to parents is that it’s the little extras you order that add up.
The lesson here- DON’T EAT OUT UNLESS YOU HAVE TO!!! It is simply much easier to control what you put in your mouth, and what it is make of, at home.
Bobby Bland PWCA, CIC
Commercial Risk Service
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