Eating :: Chain restaurants charged with promoting X-treme Eating

A 2,000-calorie appetizer. A 2,000-calorie main course. Another 1,700 calories for dessert. Those aren?t typos. It?s more like par for the course at Ruby Tuesday, On the Border, the Cheesecake Factory, and countless other top table-service chain restaurants.

But since those chains make almost zero nutrition information available on menus, their customers don?t have a clue that they might be getting a whole day?s worth of calories in a single dish, or several days? worth in the whole meal.

And rather than compete to make their products healthier, restaurant chains are competing with each other to make their appetizers, entr?es, and desserts bigger, badder, and cheesier than ever before.

?Burgers, pizzas, and quesadillas were never health foods to begin with, but many restaurants are transmogrifying these foods into ever-more harmful new creations, and then keeping you in the dark about what they contain,? said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). ?Now we see lasagna with meatballs on top; ice cream with cookies, brownies, and candy mixed in; ?Ranchiladas,? bacon cheeseburger pizzas, buffalo-chicken-stuffed quesadillas, and other hybrid horribles that are seemingly designed to promote obesity, heart disease, and stroke.?

?Americans eat out on average about four meals a week,? said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan. ?Studies show that women who eat out more than five times a week eat 300 more calories per day on average than women who eat out less often. With dishes like these, it?s easy blow your diet not just for the day but for the whole week.?

Thanks to a courageous move by the New York City Board of Health and the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, many chain restaurants that operate in the Big Apple will be required to list calories on menus and menu boards starting this summer. CSPI says the time is ripe for other cities, states, and Congress to pass Menu Education and Labeling (MEAL) legislation. Such bills, which have been introduced in 19 cities and states in recent years, would apply only to standardized menu items at chain restaurants.

Councilmember Phil Mendelson of the District of Columbia today announced he will reintroduce legislation that would require chain restaurants operating in the nation?s capital to list calories on fast-food menu boards, and calories, saturated plus trans fat, sodium, and carbohydrates on printed menus. Only chains with 10 or more locations nationally would be covered by the ordinance, not smaller chains or independent restaurants, and only for standardized menu items, not special orders or daily specials.


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