TMI

You've heard the phrase, Too Much Information, well it definitely applies to the new restaurant industry standard of publishing on the menu the nutritional value of each food item. For years consumer advocates have been working toward this and it has has finally arrived. You know the saying, "Be careful what you ask for". I guarantee this will make you rethink what and how you order.


Last night we went to Red Robin for dinner. I have always loved their Whiskey Creek Barbeque Burger. It's a burger with barbeque sauce, shredded lettuce, cheese, mayo and fried onions. It is really delicious, but I knew it was high in fat, sodium and of course calories. Last night my suscipions were confirmed. Red Robin now publishes a nutrional guide to their menu, which is on every table. That's a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. I discovered that my burger contained over 1100 calories and 1900 millagramsof sodium. I was so depressed after reading that that I wanted to leave.

We've been waiting for years for restaurants to tell us what is in their food. Now that they're doing that, some of us won't be happy with what we hear. For example, at Red Robin, a caesar salad with chicken is over 900 calories and 1300 grams of sodium. A chicken burger is about the same as the beef burger. Pasta dishes are over 1200 calories and 1800 grams of sodium. To be fair, there are still some healthy options on the menu. Tortilla soup, French onion soup, and chili are all relatively low in calories, fat and sodium. All the salads are equivalent calorie wise and sodium wise to burgers and sandwiches.

California Pizza Kitchen has always been a favorite of mine, and now I know why. Everything is loaded with calories. They print the calorie content right on the menu. My favorite salad, the Thai Chicken Crunch, has over 2000 calories in the large size, 1500 in the small. Imagine, a pizza is less calories than a salad, at only about 175 per slice. Better choices at CPK include some of the soups, appetizers, and the new Moroccan Chicken Salad. Weight Watchers will blow all their points for the entire day in one meal.

The Cheesecake Facotory(http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/) also has a nutritional supplement to their menu. It's like a small novel. They list EVERYTHING you can imagine. They list salad dressing separately, so when you read that the Chinese Chicken Salad is 900 calories, that's before dressing. I was there recently for brunch, and I enjoyed eggs benedict for about 850 calories, and I substituted tomatoes for potatoes. Thats' still a pretty hearty meal.

I really love the idea of restaurants giving us the nutritional count on their food, but I didn't realize how I would feel reading that information and then ordering. If you're watching your calorie, fat and sodium intake it definitely helps you make a good choice. On the other hand, if you just have to have a burger, you may feel guilty, as I did last night.

P.F. Chang is another restaurant that offers nutritional information, but only online. I checked it out before going there a few months ago, and decided not to go. Everything on the menu was loaded with sodium, fat, and calories. As I've said before, choice is a very good thing, and having the nutritional information gives you more tools to make the right choice, or throw caution to the wind, and eat what pleases you.

Fast food restaurants are really ahead of the traditional sit down restaurants in this respect. McDonalds, Burger King, Carls Junior, and Jack in the Box all offer nutritional information to the consumer, and it's in plain sight. You don't have to be a detective or wait for the server to call the manager and get a book out and look up the nutritional content of the item you want. They have made changes to their menu to include items that even the most serious advocat of healthy foods can eat. The saying "Be careful what you ask for" is really relevant here. We wanted to know what's in our food and now we do, like it or not.

I suspect more and more restaurants will offer the consumer a nutritional guide at their table to help them make these choices. It'll either force restaurants to include healthy foods in their menu, or people looking for healthy food items will eat elsewhere. As I've said before, choice is a good thing.