Calories listed on restaurant menu

I think they are as reasonable as any calorie number given for a food you didn't weight/prepare/cook yourself.

If they are being prepared according to the recipe used, they are reasonably accurate (I believe in the US it can be 20% off, but don't quote me on that.) But of course, if someone is preparing it for you, you have no guarantee that they're not using too much oil or dressing or whatever, especially in busy places where they're just freehand slapping stuff on.

If you're aiming for accurate and your acceptable margin of error is small, getting the high-calorie stuff on the side or asking for light cheese or whatever might be a good idea. In a fast food place, the stuff that comes pre-prepared (like the burger patties or buns) are going to be pretty uniform, but for anything where you're trusting someone who's just trying to get through their day at work and is maybe even trying to be nice by being generous and is not concerned with your calorie intake, the possibility for error increases.

It's never going to be perfect, but IMO if you're trying to lose weight and you eat out frequently, you do need to pay a little more attention to what you're getting and how it's prepared, because if the restaurant calculated the calories according to a standard recipe with 10ml of mayo and your prep person just squeezes on 50ml, that can have a substantial impact in your daily deficit especially if it's small.

The sub doesn't surprise me. The Italian Night Club without mayo, but with cheese -- and with the fattier deli meets -- is 765, so I can see a turkey club with mayo and cheese coming in at 755.

I'll ask this: Does it benefit you to start distrusting all nutritional data? What are your results showing so far? Do you have more accurate data than the restaurant -- AKA, are you running your own lab analysis on it?

I obsess about this to the umpth degree. And even I accept restaurants' nutritional data (the ones from the restaurant direct, not the MFP listings), because it's not like I'm running my own lab analyses. You have to start trusting something from somewhere at some point, because obsessing to to the point where you trust *nothing* is not going to put you in a good brain space.

I love Portillos! I always get the Italian beef, because it's less calories than a chopped salad!

If you're going to Portillo's, just get the chocolate cake. With a side of chocolate cake.

ginababin wrote: »

The club lulu is 790 calories according to their nutrition sheet on their website and there's no cheese on it. That doesn't seem low to me for white bread, turkey, bacon, mayo, lettuce and tomato. If you really drown it in mayo, maybe. But I did notice if you go to their website and look directly at the menu they don't give you any info about what a serving size is considered to be for that sandwich and it says 309 calories. Which must be if you get wheat bread and only eat half the sandwich? That kind of misinformation or lack of information kind of drives me crazy and is why I don't eat out often.

Where do you see that? When I went to the website, it gave me the 755 for one sandwich that the OP said.

This came up recently on a TV news report. They ordered menu items from several chains and had the food tested. Aside from the more sensationalistic outliers from some dessert items, they found that the menu calories were usually within a reasonable range, and sometimes overestimated.

Here's the report: https://www.today.com/health/can-you-trust-calorie-counts-restaurant-menus-t117270

My takeaway from it was that it's not going to be as accurate as something you weigh and prepare yourself, but many chains do try to get it close. You just have to approach it with some common sense.

Noelishere wrote: »

Hi, I’m a little skeptical about the calories listed on the official portillos menu ( its a fast food place )

It’s listing their char broiled cheeseburger at 570 calories and, well... that thing is pretty huge.

Do you feel the calories listed on the official menues are accurate?

Another example is the club lulu from jimmy johns being around 755 for the whole 8” sub when it’s drenched in mayo and cheese.

I am alway skeptical too. Some seem legit, but others lm just not as convinced.