I wholeheartedly agree, AbbaGirl...restaurants should HAVE to print nutritional information for all menu items. Or at least have the information available for a customer if he/she wants it.

I mean, what is WRONG with a restaurant's food if they're afraid to show customers what's in it?

Texas Roadhouse used to be my favorite place to eat, but since they won't print nutritional information anymore, I won't go back. I went to Applebee's with the husband over the weekend, thinking I'd looked up their menu's calorie counts before and found good things. Well obviously I hadn't. I got there and the entire menu was different from the last time I ever went. I ended up getting the honey BBQ chicken sandwich, and ate maybe half of the fries with it. Could've done worse, but also could've done better (Off the weight watchers part of the menu, maybe).

Went home to look up the calories and couldn't find anything, anywhere, other than their Weight Watchers menu. The excuse from corporate was that they had "so many restaurants around the country it would be impossible to keep track of them all."

Yeah, so a business with identical, or nearly identical, menus everywhere can't figure out how many calories are in its foods? Please.

There's a book that I've mentioned a bunch... Mindless Eating.. by doctor something or antoher.. in the book he refences a study or two that points out.. even if nutrition info is presented - people will still choose to ignore it... or overeat in other areas because they think they are eating lower calorie.. (the study involved people eating at subway -which posts it's nutrition info on their napkins, vs mcdonalds - in most cases -people got out of mcdonalds with lower calories...


Begin rant...
I hate the mindset that people are not willing to take responsiblity for what they put into their mouths and want info hand fed to them and don't want to use common sense - On no planet are a huge portion of deep fried potatoes smothered in cheese smothered in ranch dressing even remotely considered healthy or even low calorie...

I agree with your rant, Mal...when people argue that McDonald's made them fat, when nobody is responsible for putting the food into their mouths BUT themselves.

I don't want to be necessarily be hand-fed the information, because I am able to make those good choices. But at the same time, a person can order something like a chicken sandwich or grilled chicken breast off a menu and have it come out slathered in sauce/butter, etc. that makes it as bad as a cheeseburger. I just want restaurants to be truthful in what they're putting out, because the description on a menu and what you actually get on your plate can be totally different. If I'd noticed the sandwich I had over the weekend had a small note beside it saying it clocked in at 850 calories and 26 grams of fat, I would've gone with something else, entirely. Which is probably why they don't do it.

I think I got lucky at Applebee's....the sauce was minimal and there were no other condiments. I could've done without the bread...but anyway....I'll know next time to stick with the Weight Watchers stuff.

People put ice cream in fruit smoothies? Why?

Jamba Juice has a bunch of smoothies that use ice cream/frozen yogurt/shebert as a base...

why? because it sells

On the other hand though, to have that huge portion of fries smothered with whatever artificial crap once every few months shouldn't be big enough of a deal for that one day that people are going crazy over the amount of calories and fat. I think the bigger concern should be how often people are feeding this crap into their bodies, not how many calories the different items on the dollar menu have. (though I would still like to see nutritional values and what have you if I were diabetic or something of the sort)

I'm not sure this is even relevant to your post, I just wanted to quote you for the mention of big fry portions.

On my planet, everything is healthy and good for you. Especially fries smothered in cheese.

But the point is that I did not think that the above mentioned fries were good for me. I just had absolutely no idea the severity of the damage I was doing.
This is where posted information would be helpful.
I still may have ordered them when we went there, they are damn good, but may have ordered a smaller entree.
The point is, if i do not know how can I make an informed choice. No, I knew they were not good for me but the extent of there badness is astounding even now.
I take full responsibility, i ordered them after all and ate them, but some information could be nice.
I mean c'mon, they put warnings on cigarettes. Who honestly thinks those are not bad for them. All i am asking is the same thing, toned down a bit obviously or it would never sell, but generally the same thing.

McD has nutritional info on the wrapping of the food now! At least here in London they do! And they even have a grown ups caloric needs and a child's caloric needs and how much of it is in their burgers fries etc... it also says how much sugar, sodium etc... everything has! I was very impressed! NOt that I would ever eat there, but my kids love it and I feel better knowing what kind of crap I am giving them!
Camy

That's good to know because I would go there, but if they don't just have regular smoothies with no dairy then forget it.