Study says restaurant meals are just as unhealthy as fast food
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hehe also, i'm a classically trained chef. i've worked in restaurants all of my life. so the food i prepare at home is just as luxurious as the food i prepare at my restaurants
I like you.
One of the reasons I go to restaurants is to try new things which I promptly turn around and try to replicate at home. I don't have the time or inclination to go back to school for cooking (though I think it would be fun), so I steal ideas from magazines, restaurants, online, etc. I love cooking!
On topic: I rarely go to restaurants that have calorie counts on their menus though (and usually they won't have nutritional information on their websites either, I think that is only chain restaurants here). I don't go out for dinner with the intention of trying to accurately count calories because it simply isn't going to happen. I either bite the bullet and accept that I'm going over my calorie goal for the day or I don't go out. I certainly don't consider it the restaurant's fault that I can't meet my calorie goals if I go out for dinner. /shrug0 -
This whole argument will be resolved in a few decades when the fast food wars leaves Taco Bell as the only restaurant in the world. You guys better start brushing up on using the 3 sea shells.
Random story to lighten the mood. I used to work with some people who did zoning work for chain restaurants in Ohio. They told a story about their efforts to get a Chi-Chi's approved in some little town. Eventually, it was, over some opposition, and when the mayor reported to them that they'd allow it he added "but I doubt it will do very well, because we don't have a lot of Mexicans here."
'Cause that's the target clientele, of course!0 -
Umm, calories are unhealthy? Sodium is unhealthy? I'm pretty sure scientists wouldn't actually use that description.
And after looking at the study, I don't see the word "unhealthy" in there.
What a surprise that a media outlet would lie/sensationalize to get more hits. (But readers keep rewarding the behavior so they will continue to do it.)
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lemurcat12 wrote: »This whole argument will be resolved in a few decades when the fast food wars leaves Taco Bell as the only restaurant in the world. You guys better start brushing up on using the 3 sea shells.
Random story to lighten the mood. I used to work with some people who did zoning work for chain restaurants in Ohio. They told a story about their efforts to get a Chi-Chi's approved in some little town. Eventually, it was, over some opposition, and when the mayor reported to them that they'd allow it he added "but I doubt it will do very well, because we don't have a lot of Mexicans here."
'Cause that's the target clientele, of course!
Random story that made me think of - I think it was on "This American Life", they were interviewing a bunch of Mexicans who had grown up in the US and then been deported, and they were all completely nostalgic for Taco Bell.0 -
When I go out to eat, I go to enjoy that meal and company I'm with. I'm not going to obsess about what the nutritional profile is. Food should be enjoyed. If the majority of your diet is made up of healthy, cooked at home meals, an occasional restaurant meal is something to indulge in.0
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This whole argument will be resolved in a few decades when the fast food wars leaves Taco Bell as the only restaurant in the world. You guys better start brushing up on using the 3 sea shells.
Can someone warn me before we lose all music to product jingles? I want to make myself deaf before that point...0 -
Is anyone genuinely surprised by this?0
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Articles like that are about trolling the general public to generate hits and advertising revenue.WinoGelato wrote: »kat_princess12 wrote: »Anyone who thinks restaurant food is made the same way as the average person makes it at home has clearly never worked in a restaurant. There's a lot more fat and sugar added in than you typically would use in your kitchen; additionally, anything with a sauce is typically drowned in it rather than portioned out as you would. So you may think, "Oh, I make this kind of pasta at home, I know roughly how many calories are in it", but if you actually measured the ingredients as it was made, the calories would add up a lot more quickly than if you were making your recipe at home.
Issues like this are not impossible to work around, but awareness of them is helpful. Information is not something to sneer at just because you don't feel like you need it personally.
I don't think anyone is sneering at the information, I personally take issue with the use of the word "unhealthy" as if it is the restaurant's fault. There is nothing inherently unhealthy about the way that restaurants prepare food.
If it doesn't fit my dietary needs, then I'm going to call it unhealthy. Whether the restaurant wants to call it that or not is irrelevant - I'm not eating there.
Because it's unhealthy for me.
That's a rawther elitist attitude to take.lemurcat12 wrote: »fried
Hard to miss, not new.
It is hard to miss. Many restaurants will throw a grilled steak into the deep fryer to finish it off. Good luck figuring that out by the time it gets to your table.
If you are eating at a restaurant that's throwing your steak in the deep fryer, you're eating in the wrong place. And you certainly better be able to tell when you're eating it, or you don't know steak very well.
But this isn't?
MFP regulars' attitude is so frustrating to me sometimes, with everyone acting so "done" and "literally can't even" because someone presents information that they may know very well but that is new to a large number of people. Yes we get that you are perfectly aware of what is in your food and how it is prepared and what a macro is, and if other people don't know then they're at fault because the information is available. That's fine, great. But other people don't realize certain things just yet, and the way they learn is by coming across information such as this article that is the cause of so much derision. We're all responsible for our choices but the reality is that a lot of people are misinformed about the choices they are making.
And there IS something unhealthy about preparing a single meal which is not extremely filling and which is sold on one plate with one fork and one knife and is intended to be consumed by one average non-outlier person at one sitting, when that meal is actually 4 servings of food and is packed with fats and sodium which contribute to taste but take that portion way outside of reasonable daily macros. For most people that is unhealthy. Once we're aware of the fact that it's a huge portion of food, we're more likely to half the meal or share the serving. But honestly, most people do not know. I had no idea how much I was eating on a regular basis before coming across information like this. Most of my family, friends and colleagues don't know either. That's what articles, and conversations, like this are about - educating, so more people are able to make informed choices.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »This whole argument will be resolved in a few decades when the fast food wars leaves Taco Bell as the only restaurant in the world. You guys better start brushing up on using the 3 sea shells.
Random story to lighten the mood. I used to work with some people who did zoning work for chain restaurants in Ohio. They told a story about their efforts to get a Chi-Chi's approved in some little town. Eventually, it was, over some opposition, and when the mayor reported to them that they'd allow it he added "but I doubt it will do very well, because we don't have a lot of Mexicans here."
'Cause that's the target clientele, of course!
Even more funny - We had a Chi-Chi's up here, and when more Mexicans started moving in, it went out of business. First of all, because in their language, chi-chis is slang for bewbies, and second of all because it isn't authentic Mexican food.
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LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »
Articles like that are about trolling the general public to generate hits and advertising revenue.WinoGelato wrote: »kat_princess12 wrote: »Anyone who thinks restaurant food is made the same way as the average person makes it at home has clearly never worked in a restaurant. There's a lot more fat and sugar added in than you typically would use in your kitchen; additionally, anything with a sauce is typically drowned in it rather than portioned out as you would. So you may think, "Oh, I make this kind of pasta at home, I know roughly how many calories are in it", but if you actually measured the ingredients as it was made, the calories would add up a lot more quickly than if you were making your recipe at home.
Issues like this are not impossible to work around, but awareness of them is helpful. Information is not something to sneer at just because you don't feel like you need it personally.
I don't think anyone is sneering at the information, I personally take issue with the use of the word "unhealthy" as if it is the restaurant's fault. There is nothing inherently unhealthy about the way that restaurants prepare food.
If it doesn't fit my dietary needs, then I'm going to call it unhealthy. Whether the restaurant wants to call it that or not is irrelevant - I'm not eating there.
Because it's unhealthy for me.
That's a rawther elitist attitude to take.lemurcat12 wrote: »fried
Hard to miss, not new.
It is hard to miss. Many restaurants will throw a grilled steak into the deep fryer to finish it off. Good luck figuring that out by the time it gets to your table.
If you are eating at a restaurant that's throwing your steak in the deep fryer, you're eating in the wrong place. And you certainly better be able to tell when you're eating it, or you don't know steak very well.
But this isn't?
MFP regulars' attitude is so frustrating to me sometimes, with everyone acting so "done" and "literally can't even" because someone presents information that they may know very well but that is new to a large number of people. Yes we get that you are perfectly aware of what is in your food and how it is prepared and what a macro is, and if other people don't know then they're at fault because the information is available. That's fine, great. But other people don't realize certain things just yet, and the way they learn is by coming across information such as this article that is the cause of so much derision. We're all responsible for our choices but the reality is that a lot of people are misinformed about the choices they are making.
And there IS something unhealthy about preparing a single meal which is not extremely filling and which is sold on one plate with one fork and one knife and is intended to be consumed by one average non-outlier person at one sitting, when that meal is actually 4 servings of food and is packed with fats and sodium which contribute to taste but take that portion way outside of reasonable daily macros. For most people that is unhealthy. Once we're aware of the fact that it's a huge portion of food, we're more likely to half the meal or share the serving. But honestly, most people do not know. I had no idea how much I was eating on a regular basis before coming across information like this. Most of my family, friends and colleagues don't know either. That's what articles, and conversations, like this are about - educating, so more people are able to make informed choices.
Yes, and they also distort so much as to confuse the public more.
For example, say you are someone who thinks that McD's is extremely unhealthy and (based on the description here) not particularly educated about nutrition or the options for learning about the calories in food. You get told that restaurant meals in general are "as unhealthy" as McD's. You don't think through what that means -- essentially something about calories on average based on where the people surveyed ate and, importantly, what they chose -- but decide that you might as well give up on trying to find something that better fit your nutrition needs and just pick up McD's (which is cheaper anyway) when in a hurry and not in the mood to cook.
But the truth is that restaurants are diverse and there are lots of options out there that will meet nutritional considerations (which is relevant to whether it's healthy or not). I care about nutrition and I know a decent amount about the restaurants I choose and what they make, and I do not agree that their meals are "unhealthy" in general. Sometimes they are more challenging to fit into my nutrition goals.
On the other hand I went to a quick serve place today (Pret) that was perfectly filling and fit as easily into my nutrition goals and calorie goals as the meal I would have brought from home if I hadn't overslept. I'd have more vegetables in the home-cooked meal, but only because I usually go nuts in how many vegetables I pack. So the generalizations about restaurant meals of any sort seem off to me.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »And there IS something unhealthy about preparing a single meal which is not extremely filling and which is sold on one plate with one fork and one knife and is intended to be consumed by one average non-outlier person at one sitting, when that meal is actually 4 servings of food and is packed with fats and sodium which contribute to taste but take that portion way outside of reasonable daily macros. For most people that is unhealthy. Once we're aware of the fact that it's a huge portion of food, we're more likely to half the meal or share the serving. But honestly, most people do not know. I had no idea how much I was eating on a regular basis before coming across information like this. Most of my family, friends and colleagues don't know either. That's what articles, and conversations, like this are about - educating, so more people are able to make informed choices.
Again, I know lots of people who go out to dinner a lot. It's a common work-related thing. They go to nice, quite indulgent restaurants. And almost NONE of them are overweight.
That's because the issue is not restaurants. It's whether or not you exercise common sense.
Also, although it differs restaurant to restaurant, that serving sizes are out of control in the US is incredibly commonly known.
I do not believe that people don't know how much they are eating.
And in any case the most common restaurants--especially for those who are neither foodies nor people who go out a lot because they love restaurants--are chains, and those have nutrition information available.
You can disbelieve all you want, but the fact is, most people don't know what a serving is, and think that a serving is what you eat during a meal. I am one of those persons who didn't know what a serving is and regularly ate (and eat) wayyyy more than I should have. Most of my family members and colleagues who aren't super health conscious don't know. I'd say many obese people don't know. You may know that creamy pasta and breadsticks and salad with dressing and an appetizer and dessert and 2 sodas at Olive Gardens is too much, but you probably won't realize that the pasta alone is likely to be more than half your daily calories. Etc.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »And there IS something unhealthy about preparing a single meal which is not extremely filling and which is sold on one plate with one fork and one knife and is intended to be consumed by one average non-outlier person at one sitting, when that meal is actually 4 servings of food and is packed with fats and sodium which contribute to taste but take that portion way outside of reasonable daily macros. For most people that is unhealthy. Once we're aware of the fact that it's a huge portion of food, we're more likely to half the meal or share the serving. But honestly, most people do not know. I had no idea how much I was eating on a regular basis before coming across information like this. Most of my family, friends and colleagues don't know either. That's what articles, and conversations, like this are about - educating, so more people are able to make informed choices.
Again, I know lots of people who go out to dinner a lot. It's a common work-related thing. They go to nice, quite indulgent restaurants. And almost NONE of them are overweight.
That's because the issue is not restaurants. It's whether or not you exercise common sense.
Also, although it differs restaurant to restaurant, that serving sizes are out of control in the US is incredibly commonly known.
I do not believe that people don't know how much they are eating.
And in any case the most common restaurants--especially for those who are neither foodies nor people who go out a lot because they love restaurants--are chains, and those have nutrition information available.
You can disbelieve all you want, but the fact is, most people don't know what a serving is, and think that a serving is what you eat during a meal. I am one of those persons who didn't know what a serving is and regularly ate (and eat) wayyyy more than I should have. Most of my family members and colleagues who aren't super health conscious don't know. I'd say many obese people don't know. You may know that creamy pasta and breadsticks and salad with dressing and an appetizer and dessert and 2 sodas at Olive Gardens is too much, but you probably won't realize that the pasta alone is likely to be more than half your daily calories. Etc.
A breadstick is half my daily calories.0 -
You may know that creamy pasta and breadsticks and salad with dressing and an appetizer and dessert and 2 sodas at Olive Gardens is too much, but you probably won't realize that the pasta alone is likely to be more than half your daily calories. Etc.
Olive Garden is widely joked about as a calorie bomb.
Also, because it's a chain that provides the information, anyone can easily find out the calories if they actually care:
http://media.olivegarden.com/en_us/pdf/olive_garden_nutrition.pdf0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »Why did they only check for fat as the only macronutrient? I thought carbs were the booman?
I wondered why as well. And which restaurants.
I wondered this too, which is why I wanted to look at the overall study.
The restaurants are just the ones the people chosen for the survey happened to go to, so disproportionately the restaurants that are most commonly attended, I'd imagine.
There's an issue here, as one of the points that the authors are trying to make is that the current policy of requiring calorie listing for chains is inadequate, as fast food is no more caloric than other restaurants (perhaps even less, on average). But most likely a high percentage of the "full-service" restaurants are chains (in other words places that do or soon will be forced to provide the information in question) and also not places people think are "healthy."
People who attend a lot of the restaurants that would never include calorie information (like high end places or tiny local places) are a smaller percentage of the population and--or at least based on my anecdotal experience--likely to be more sophisticated about what the meals consist of. (They might even be irritatingly obsessive about it, in a foodie or other pretentious sort of way. Or this just could be where I live.) ;-)
That's a really good point!0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »And there IS something unhealthy about preparing a single meal which is not extremely filling and which is sold on one plate with one fork and one knife and is intended to be consumed by one average non-outlier person at one sitting, when that meal is actually 4 servings of food and is packed with fats and sodium which contribute to taste but take that portion way outside of reasonable daily macros. For most people that is unhealthy. Once we're aware of the fact that it's a huge portion of food, we're more likely to half the meal or share the serving. But honestly, most people do not know. I had no idea how much I was eating on a regular basis before coming across information like this. Most of my family, friends and colleagues don't know either. That's what articles, and conversations, like this are about - educating, so more people are able to make informed choices.
Again, I know lots of people who go out to dinner a lot. It's a common work-related thing. They go to nice, quite indulgent restaurants. And almost NONE of them are overweight.
That's because the issue is not restaurants. It's whether or not you exercise common sense.
Also, although it differs restaurant to restaurant, that serving sizes are out of control in the US is incredibly commonly known.
I do not believe that people don't know how much they are eating.
And in any case the most common restaurants--especially for those who are neither foodies nor people who go out a lot because they love restaurants--are chains, and those have nutrition information available.
You can disbelieve all you want, but the fact is, most people don't know what a serving is, and think that a serving is what you eat during a meal. I am one of those persons who didn't know what a serving is and regularly ate (and eat) wayyyy more than I should have. Most of my family members and colleagues who aren't super health conscious don't know. I'd say many obese people don't know. You may know that creamy pasta and breadsticks and salad with dressing and an appetizer and dessert and 2 sodas at Olive Gardens is too much, but you probably won't realize that the pasta alone is likely to be more than half your daily calories. Etc.
A breadstick is half my daily calories.
What? According to their website, a breadstick with garlic spread is 140 calories...0 -
californiagirl2012 wrote: »The best meals are always home cooked. We all need a nice balance of protein, fat, carbs (simple and complex), nutrients, fiber, etc with not too much of anything. A lot of restaurant food has extra sodium and anything to make it taste better, sometimes it might just be more than you need.
given the lack of cooking ability that I see in most people, I think the average Joe/Jane is probably getting better nutrition eating out. A buddy of mine "cooks"...like a box of mac and cheese and eats the whole thing...no veg...sometimes he'll have some kind of slab of meat with that. He eats out most of his meals though...usually a veg side is provided...so there's that.
my point is that for the average person out there, I don't think it tends to matter either way...they're mostly eating like *kitten* regardless.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »californiagirl2012 wrote: »The best meals are always home cooked. We all need a nice balance of protein, fat, carbs (simple and complex), nutrients, fiber, etc with not too much of anything. A lot of restaurant food has extra sodium and anything to make it taste better, sometimes it might just be more than you need.
given the lack of cooking ability that I see in most people, I think the average Joe/Jane is probably getting better nutrition eating out. A buddy of mine "cooks"...like a box of mac and cheese and eats the whole thing...no veg...sometimes he'll have some kind of slab of meat with that. He eats out most of his meals though...usually a veg side is provided...so there's that.
my point is that for the average person out there, I don't think it tends to matter either way...they're mostly eating like *kitten* regardless.
I had a roommate who couldn't make scrambled eggs. She was a pro at mac and cheese from a box and frozen pizza...0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »And there IS something unhealthy about preparing a single meal which is not extremely filling and which is sold on one plate with one fork and one knife and is intended to be consumed by one average non-outlier person at one sitting, when that meal is actually 4 servings of food and is packed with fats and sodium which contribute to taste but take that portion way outside of reasonable daily macros. For most people that is unhealthy. Once we're aware of the fact that it's a huge portion of food, we're more likely to half the meal or share the serving. But honestly, most people do not know. I had no idea how much I was eating on a regular basis before coming across information like this. Most of my family, friends and colleagues don't know either. That's what articles, and conversations, like this are about - educating, so more people are able to make informed choices.
Again, I know lots of people who go out to dinner a lot. It's a common work-related thing. They go to nice, quite indulgent restaurants. And almost NONE of them are overweight.
That's because the issue is not restaurants. It's whether or not you exercise common sense.
Also, although it differs restaurant to restaurant, that serving sizes are out of control in the US is incredibly commonly known.
I do not believe that people don't know how much they are eating.
And in any case the most common restaurants--especially for those who are neither foodies nor people who go out a lot because they love restaurants--are chains, and those have nutrition information available.
You can disbelieve all you want, but the fact is, most people don't know what a serving is, and think that a serving is what you eat during a meal. I am one of those persons who didn't know what a serving is and regularly ate (and eat) wayyyy more than I should have. Most of my family members and colleagues who aren't super health conscious don't know. I'd say many obese people don't know. You may know that creamy pasta and breadsticks and salad with dressing and an appetizer and dessert and 2 sodas at Olive Gardens is too much, but you probably won't realize that the pasta alone is likely to be more than half your daily calories. Etc.
So, when you eat out, you don't know what a serving is, and eat everything you're given (half your daily calories), but at home, you're a serving size expert, and feeding yourself exactly what you should? I don't buy that. People who are eating the 'terrible food and oversized portions' at the restaurants are likely eating the same things at home.0
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