How dare these restaurant chains not post nutritional information?

Options
1235»

Replies

  • gamerbabe14
    gamerbabe14 Posts: 876 Member
    Options
    Freakanomics did a podcast about this. A study determined that although some restaurants have to post nutritional data on their menus, it's rare for consumers to even pay attention to them.
  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    Options
    For the restaurants that do not post the info, people who weigh and measure all their food at home will have an easier time estimating because they will have practice seeing what 1 cup of mashed potatoes looks like.

    or you can, you know, ask. The local sports bar I play trivia at was really good when I asked how much the chicken breast that I wanted on my salad weighs. The server actually went back in the kitchen and the cook weighed a couple of them with an average of 6 oz. Works for me. Their burgers are hand patted but the meat is weighed to either 1/3 or 1/2 lb. If I get a salad with grilled chicken, I don't worry too much about the veggies and just take a guess. The meat and the dressing are the main things and they always serve the dressing on the side in little 2 Tbl cups. Close enough for me.

    BTW: this place serves Tater Tots as an alternative to fries.
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    edited May 2017
    Options
    gamerbabe14 wrote: »
    Freakanomics did a podcast about this. A study determined that although some restaurants have to post nutritional data on their menus, it's rare for consumers to even pay attention to them.

    From my n=1 I've found this to be true. Before I started making a focused effort on controlling my weight by counting calories I not only glossed over the calorie information I made a deliberate effort to ignore it.

    Eta clarity
  • bellaa_x0
    bellaa_x0 Posts: 1,062 Member
    Options
    nobody is forcing you to eat out... if you're so concerned with knowing your nutritional intake, then simply eat at home or estimate to the best of your ability when the information is not available. its not that difficult... even if the nutritional info WAS available at these chains, its not going to be 100% accurate.
  • AliceDark
    AliceDark Posts: 3,886 Member
    Options
    MoiAussi93 wrote: »
    Even with large chains, some things are not as standardized as you might think. When I was in high school, I was a waitress at a Pizza Hut. I saw the cooks make pizzas all the time. None of them...ever...weighed out cheese (probably the most high calorie part of many pizzas). They eyeballed it. There was plenty of variation. Same with sauce, sausage and other toppings. No food scales were used (I know, that is blasphemous in the mfp world. May God have mercy on their souls!) Nobody counted out an exact number of pepperoni slices. Nobody even used measuring cups or spoons. So any nutrition info provided for your pizza is just about guaranteed to be wrong.

    People need to stop being slaves to specific numbers on a website or menu and pretending they are exact and panicking when they aren't available. Use some common sense. You KNOW peppers are very low in calories and sausage is high. You know anything with lots of cheese, or a cream based sauce, or that is deep fried, or that has a lot of sugar...is probably very high in calories. You know if they give you a large volume of food...unless it is salad greens (without tons of cheese, bacon, croutons, creamy dressing, and other high calorie fillers)...it is probably more calories than you need. So if you like the restaurant because you get a lot of value for your money...you are also getting a lot of calories for your money.

    So order accordingly, or take part of it home, or just eat it all and accept that you will probably eat more than your targeted calories that day. But use your brain...calorie information might be nice, but I think it is silly to believe that order of jalepeno poppers is exactly 370 calories.

    Wait for it...I'm going to surprise you...(well, I probably won't surprise the PP but I may surprise the OP)...

    ...in all likelihood, nothing you've ever logged at 370 calories is EXACTLY 370 calories.

    It's all estimations. We can try to be as accurate as possible, but we're never exactly accurate. Do the best you can to make good choices for your life and then move on.
  • astronaught
    astronaught Posts: 103 Member
    Options
    mph323 wrote: »
    gamerbabe14 wrote: »
    Freakanomics did a podcast about this. A study determined that although some restaurants have to post nutritional data on their menus, it's rare for consumers to even pay attention to them.

    From my n=1 I've found this to be true. Before I started making a focused effort on controlling my weight by counting calories I not only glossed over the calorie information I made a deliberate effort to ignore it.

    Eta clarity

    Well, that brings back memories of actively avoiding looking at the calorie count of the box of something or other that I knew was bad for me and way too many calories. Now I understand why it doesn't reduce sales according to the studies I have seen.

  • raquele3394
    raquele3394 Posts: 180 Member
    Options
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    We have two fairly-new high-end pizza local pizza chains that serve thin-crust pizza with minimal (but delicious) toppings. Their names are oddly similar: Otto Pizza and Oath Pizza.

    You could probably eat 2-3 slices of a small pizza plus some salad for a meal and remain within plan, but neither posts nutrition info anywhere.

    HOW DARE THEY?

    In the case of Otto, my guess is that they don't want people to exactly know how many calories are in an entire Mashed Potato, Bacon & Scallion pizza. (If you're trying to lose weight, I might not choose that one.)

    Oath is trying to create walk-through pizza, sort of like Chipotle. You choose a bunch of toppings and they run it through a flash oven. It's pretty good.

    But: both seem to be making a play to be national chains. At some point, they will be required to post nutritional info. What the f are they waiting for?

    Go eat somewhere else! That is what I do when restaurants won't show the calories!!! Or I take a big wild guess!!!
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,139 Member
    Options
    another issue with calorie counts in restaurants is that there is no way that the folks cooking/preparing the meals are going to make them exactly the same every time....
  • sylkates
    sylkates Posts: 173 Member
    edited May 2017
    Options
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    This page at the FDA web site says they have to post it if they have 20 or more locations. This would exclude Oath and Otto, for now.

    https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredientspackaginglabeling/labelingnutrition/ucm248732.htm

    Wow! I didn't know this was a federal law. I live near NYC and I only knew about the local law that requires all large chain restaurants in the 5 boroughs to post their calorie counts next to the menu items. It looks like the FDA followed NY's idea at some point.

    Good idea, FDA! The more this is accessible, the easier it is for people to be careful about what they eat.
  • LolBroScience
    LolBroScience Posts: 4,537 Member
    Options
    Someone should invent an app where you can get a reasonable calorie estimate based off similar dishes.

    Honestly, it's not that big of a deal. If you're that concerned, just pull additional calories from other days of the week, or increase expenditure, and you'll still be able to end up in a deficit overall.

Categories