Apr 27 2008

Calorie labeling: sneak preview

I live in a high-density fast food area of Manhattan and went out today to see how calorie labeling is coming along. Pretty well, I’d say, although not at McDonald’s. My local franchise must be waiting for the final court ruling. The delightful manager at Cold Stone handed me a calorie list and says the info will be up on menu boards as soon as the folks at headquarters in Arizona get to it. Brace yourself: the smallest serving is about 400 calories, and that’s before the extras. Calories are on the menu boards at Subway but they are for the 6-inch sandwiches. For just $2.00 you can upgrade to a 12-inch and double the calories. Chipotle is already posting calories, and why not? It lists ranges: a burrito is 420 to 918, and a burrito bowl is 130 to 628. Not helpful. But Cosi wins my prize for the biggest surprise. How about a tuna melt for 1012 calories or small, medium, and large blueberry-pomegranate fruit smoothies at 544, 725, and 1087, respectively?  Will anyone pay attention to this?  It’s going to be hard to tell, given that people are eating out less these days anyway, in this era of higher food costs.

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  • Ellen
  • April 28, 2008
  • 10:38 am

I can see why companies like Cosi and McDonalds don’t want to post their calorie counts. I started to look up nutrition information on their websites years ago and after finding out how much calories and saturated fat some of these meals contain, I stopped or go much less. With the required posting at the retail outlets, I truly hope this hits home with the customers. And at the end of the day, I do hope that this will encourage these companies to offer healthier alternatives.

  • Sheila
  • April 28, 2008
  • 9:04 pm

Wow, what are they putting in those high-calorie fruit smoothies to add all those calories?? Just fruit would take a bucket full to add up to that calorie load.

  • John
  • May 4, 2008
  • 8:47 pm

Any adult who is trying to lose weight should target about 600 calories a meal- 1800 cal./day. If this were widely advertised, and that number could be compared with say a 800 cal. meal, they hopefully folks will see at a glance that they are 200 calories over their target.
The other personal way to understand 600 calories is to go to a gym and climb on an elliptical trainer , or treadmill, and try to burn those 600 cals. That is easily an hour or hr. & 20 min. sweaty work out for an average 70 kg/150 lb man or woman. Hopefully fitness training will help people see your wisdom.
John

I’m not sure I agree that people are eating out less, but for those that eat out regularly, it’s a problem while trying to count calories. It’s amazing how hard restaurant chains are fighting to hide their nutrition information. I wanted to share a new service my company just launched called ‘Wellternatives’ that lets people find nutrition info for thousands of chain restaurants for free – right from their cell phone or on the web. It also makes recommendations for a healthier alternative, hence the name… Wellternatives. If restaurants aren’t going to post their nutrition info, we figured we’d do what we could to give people instant access to the info from anywhere. Would love to hear what you think of it! Maija

I think that we all need to brace ourselves for more shocks as we begin to see nutrition facts on menus and company web sites. As a dietitian that provides restaurants with nutrition analysis (www.cookedapple.com) I am continuously shocked by the amount of calories in the dishes served in restaurants. The liberating point is that this information is available, and we have the power to make decisions about what we order and how much of it we chose to eat. Because this information is required in some areas it is forcing many restaurants to reformulate, giving us more choices.

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