Nutritional Facts - Coming to a Restaurant Near You

There’s a lot of talk about menu-labeling laws requiring restaurants to post exactly how many calories, fat grams, sodium, etc. are in that quick lunch you eat on your way to your next meeting or your daughter’s soccer practice. Americans are spending almost half of their food dollars on food outside of the home, specifically at fast food restaurant and food-service vendors. And most don’t know exactly what they are eating.

The nutritional facts are available for most of these restaurants and have been for years, but research from the American Journal of Public Health show that most don’t look. Researchers observed 4,311 patrons of several very popular fast food restaurants to see if they accessed in-store nutrition data. The info was not on the menu board but in a pamphlet, on a wall poster or an on-site computer. Only six, or 0.1%, of the patrons looked at the numbers.

Some will argue that consumers don’t care or won’t change their selections based on nutritional information, but does that mean we shouldn’t have this information readily available. Would you choose to super size your order, knowing it adds 220 calories and 6 grams of fat? Maybe, but it would be an informed choice.

We cannot argue that obesity, heart disease and diabetes are growing rapidly. If laws require us to know what our clothes are made of and how to properly launder them, shouldn’t the same be said of our food?

- Tiffany Norris
Bariatric Nurse Coordinator