Americans love to go out to eat. We love it so much, in fact, that meals made in restaurants account for around one-third of our calories and close to half ourannual food budget.
The convenience of having someone else cook and clean up is a plus in our time-crunched lives. Yet consuming too many calories puts us at risk for obesity. One survey of U.S. adults found we tend to underestimate the calories in take-out meals by 650 calories per item.
The Affordable Care Act of 2010 includes a provision meant to help you figure out the number of calories in restaurant meals. The act requires restaurants with 20 or more locations to make available totalcalories and other nutrition information.
Will It Help?
To date, the value of information provided by chain restaurants may be offset by errors or gaps. As many as four out of five posted nutrition totals fail to give people enough information to gauge the number of calories in a serving, according to a study in the Journal of Urban Health.
Still, you may have a shot at ordering meals with fewer calories and less fat if you check nutrition information before you get to the restaurant. Visit a chain's website on your computer or use the "Stay in the Know on the Go" phone app that lists more than 60,000 items from 250 restaurants. Once you reach the location, you can investigate the nutritional quality of the food (or lack thereof) by reading menus, posters or brochures.
Healthy Choices
Whether you have nutrition details at your fingertips or not, this advice can help you order better meals:
-Strive for balance when planning meals. For example, if you have a high-calorie breakfast, have a lower-calorie lunch and dinner.
-Change your order to reduce calories. For example, ask for mustard [which is low in calories) in place of higher- calorie mayonnaise on a sandwich.Choose steamed vegetables instead of fried. Top a baked potato with salsa instead of butter, sour cream, bacon bits or cheese.
-Check the menu for a section with healthier choices.
-Learn food-preparation terms. Some usually signal the dish has less fat and fewer calories, such as baked, broiled, braised, grilled, poached, roasted and steamed. Other terms warn of high-fat and high-calorie totals, such as batter-fried, pan-fried, buttered, creamed, crispy and breaded.
Good Neighbor Pharmacy Health Connection, March 2013
Share with Friend
