Why hasn't the entire world..

I have been known to check the restaurants online. Quite often they have their nutritional values on their sites. If not there are also apps that have many of the more common restaurants and their food nutrition. My hubby and kids have gotten so used to me doing this they now look things up for me before we go!

On the other hand, if a salad ends up being 1200 frickin' calories, I'd much rather use the same amount of calories on a big *kitten* bacon cheeseburger and order of fries.

If i go out to out to eat I already have it in my head what I may want so I just look up the nutritional values online and take the best guess. Honestly it not the restaurant responsibility anyway. And if i go out spur of the moment i just eat part and take home the rest

same here

Yes, that's a work around that a lot of people have to use since the actual information is not available. There isn't any harm in restaurants providing the ACTUAL information though, so that we don't have to find work arounds that aren't accurate.

I'm kind of blown away by how many people actually seem to think that this wouldn't be a helpful, nice thing for restaurants to do. It's not like anyone's saying they should be legislated to do this. It would just be awesome if they did. How can you argue with that?

Well, in the U.S. you would have to have a team of scientists and lawyers on staff - for when you misrepresent something accidentally. Once you put it in writing, you better be prepared to back it up. That makes it much more feasible for companies like McDonalds, Subway, Taco Bell etc. Also, those restaurants have stricter portion control - they have to when they only charge two bucks for food.

Sure, it would be helpful...to one out of ten customers. Until it becomes something that the majority of customers demand (which will never happen) it doesn't make any business sense. Eating at a restaurant should be a stress free, enjoyable experience. If it isn't, you're doing it wrong. In that case, eat at home.

Yeah, that's fine, but those who don't care don't have to read it, I just want a CHOICE.

you do have a CHOICE. you chose to eat out, you chose to go to that particular restaurant. i like having access to the nutritional information (either at the site on one the web) but yet i do not feel that the entire world has to cater to my every whim

if you're so serious about knowing what you put into your body you have the option of buying all your own raw ingredients and cooking your own foods. or only frequent the restaurants that give you the info you want.

Totally this! I am the retired chef/ owner of a small catering company/ restaurant. I actually did this for my base catering and restaurant menus and got asked for the info a total of 1/2 dozen times in 8 years!! As a small business owner battling to stay alive everyday and working crazy amounts of hours, why would I devote my time to this as opposed to things that improved business performance and kept people employed.

This really smacks of the "ME" generation where everyone want every little thing they want when they want it. Seriously. Get over yourself. If you feel the need to be that OCD about calories when you go out to eat, only go to places that give you that info. Don't put your expectations on some small business owner to make sure life is perfect for you.

Personally, I don't really worry about it. But, then I don't go out to eat so frequently that it matters. If you are going out to eat that much, maybe you should be thankful that you have the means to do that instead complaining about a lack of nutritional info on menus??

*shrugs*

You know what is good for you and what isnt. If you think McDonalds is "healthy" then clearly there is something weird going on with you to begin with.

I YOU

Honestly, though, how hard WOULD it be?

Most restaurants SHOULD have some sort of portioning system in place anyway. You'd just have to measure out the portions once to know what the calorie count/macros are for each dish assuming that your restaurant employees follow the proper portion sizes when cooking the meals.

Certainly there is a portioning system, but for example when you make sauces/ marinades from scratch there are potentially a dozen or more ingredients in each sauce or marinade of which there are probably a dozen. Not to mention when a restaurant makes a sauce they are making a huge portion to serve a large number of people over the next few days. Depending on who is making the meal different amounts of sauce are used. Proteins are marinated for different periods of time. While there is a recipe, if it doesn't look "right" additional ingredients will be added. Also, who is going to calculate all of this? The chefs? The servers? the managers? None of whom have experience with measuring caloric content? A food scientist would have to be hired, which most restaurants (aside from large corporations) don't have the money to pay for. Of course it would be NICE to see calories at my favorite local restaurant but it is not something is going to happen any time soon.

A food scientist, really? Am I, then, a food scientist when I create a recipe on the MyFitnessPal app by adding each individual item?

Yes, nutritional information can be skewed by all of the things you mentioned. But if big chains can do it, certainly mom & pop restaurants can do it too. How hard is it to measure calorie content if you have a food scale and thousands of books on the market telling you how to measure calories?

If a restaurant is making their own sauces, they should, by right, be creating the sauce the same every time by using a recipe with the portion sizes. Of course it will be slightly skewed depending if they have a lazy chef that creates it but if they hire proper employees, everything should be portioned the same way every time.

I'm kind of blown away by how many people actually seem to think that this wouldn't be a helpful, nice thing for restaurants to do. It's not like anyone's saying they should be legislated to do this. It would just be awesome if they did. How can you argue with that?

Well, in the U.S. you would have to have a team of scientists and lawyers on staff - for when you misrepresent something accidentally. Once you put it in writing, you better be prepared to back it up. That makes it much more feasible for companies like McDonalds, Subway, Taco Bell etc. Also, those restaurants have stricter portion control - they have to when they only charge two bucks for food.

Sure, it would be helpful...to one out of ten customers. Until it becomes something that the majority of customers demand (which will never happen) it doesn't make any business sense. Eating at a restaurant should be a stress free, enjoyable experience. If it isn't, you're doing it wrong. In that case, eat at home.

I call BS,

You don't need a team of scientists. I can show you this really cool program called called My Fitness Pal that is free and calculates calories when you enter a recipe, it only takes a minute and you don't need scientists.

You don't need lawyers either to handle nutritional information issues, at least not any more so than any other legal issue an organization would run into. Maybe I am wrong here, but I haven't heard of any cases where restaurants are sued for what they display for nutritional information.

You are right about the demand to a degree, not everyone cares what they eat, and that is why not every restaraunt tells you the nutritional info of thier food. However, there is some demand obviously and i suspect it is higher than 1 out of 10 and is growing. Maybe you don't care what you eat either, but would you also go shopping and disregard the price tags, go to the check out, close your eyes and just hand them your credit card?

Not sure why you think there is no business sense, some people like healthier food, so providing nutritional information caters to this demographic and will help bring in more business, in fact many companies recognize the competitive advantage. Sure to companies that only sell food deemed as 'unhealthy', then yea for them it wouldn't make much business sense. They might lose business if forced to provide the nutrition info. However, I think consumers have a right to know what they are purchasing and the loss of business is a natural by-product of giving the market what it actually wants.

Sure I could eat at home all the time, I could also make my own clothes, chop my own wood for heat, never purchase goods or services again, become Amish, etc.

A 2 second google provided one lawsuit based on nutritional information on a menu

http://rayroman.hubpages.com/hub/Applebees-Nutrition

Edit

and don't forget that as this a healthy eating / fitness / weight loss website the opinions will be off as people here are trying to eat better lose weight.