Eating Out - How To Track

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rmarsala212
rmarsala212 Posts: 6
in Food and Nutrition
Sorry if I'm repeating a topic.

It's easy to find nutritional information on this website for restaurant chains and their common foods. For example, someone has posted the nutritional info for chicken tacos from Chipotle.

The problem is: going out to eat at a restaurant that doesn't have a website or provide nutritional information. Is there anywhere I can find find "typical nutritional info" for, say, taco dinner at a local, family-owned restaurant?

I feel that, if I'm going to track everything, I need to be as succinct and accurate as possible. What do you folks think?

Robert

Replies

  • rmarsala212
    rmarsala212 Posts: 6
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    I guess I'll only find generic values for these things, but I wonder if there is something out there more accurate. . .
  • Fry24
    Fry24 Posts: 21
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    http://caloriecount.about.com/new-health-care-law-champions-good-b406196

    Here is an informative article- looks like new laws will mandate restaurants with 20 locations or more to have calorie and nutrition info available.

    So your family owned mom and pops aren't mandated. It is possible that they have the info available, if you ask for it. And if they want to have people coming back, they likely will do what they can to accommodate you.

    Good luck!
  • sangrea
    sangrea Posts: 26 Member
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    If they don't have a website with the information posted you can ask them at the restaurant cause i think by law they are suppost to be able to provide that information for us so they should have something on hand but they may not like to give it out.
  • bjberry
    bjberry Posts: 665 Member
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    I bought a mediterranean burger from Bistro-13 yesterday. Their web site does not have the nutrients set up, so I weighed the hamburger and entered that under 'hamburger, grilled', noted the tiny slice of tomato and the single lettuce leaf, found those in our food database, and weighed the fries to see what 1/4th of an oz was (4 fries). I only ate half the burger--and the other half the next day.
    I use a postal scale for measuring my foods. It weighs in grams and ounces, thank goodness.
    Have fun and good luck with your meals.
  • lisawest
    lisawest Posts: 798 Member
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    I typically try to find a similar chain restaurant that lists a similar dinner and put that in. For instance tonight I went to a local steak house and got a flat iron steak. I went and looked at several restaurant listings of flat iron steaks and went with the one closest to the middle. (Most of the time I pick the most calories, but when I looked at other restaurants they had more stuff on their steaks than I had on mine.) It's all an estimate. Just get as close as possible.
  • rmarsala212
    rmarsala212 Posts: 6
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    Thanks for your replies everyone. I ate a chicken taco dinner at a local, family-owned restaurant. Flour tortillas, spanish rice and refried beans. I decided to follow lisawest's advice. I went on the Pepe's website and grabbed info on the taco part. Then I added info from a serving each of rice and beans from other sites. I created a "generic taco dinner". Voila!

    By the way. . .TONS of sodium :(

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