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EATING
07.30.2008
BY WEETABIX
 The thing is, I just don't trust calorie counts on anything, but especially at restaurants; that's because I come from a long line of restaurateurs and have done my time behind those swinging kitchen doors. The secret to making things taste good? Butter. Lots and lots of butter. I worked at a pizza place that actually even put a huge amount of trans-fatty butter substitute actually in the mix for its pizza crusts, as well as lubing up the pans with the stuff. And the easiest way to make a patron happy is to give them a hyoooge portion and you'd rather put too much cheese on something than not enough. But I had no idea that the so-called calorie conscious items were being fudged way worse than I even suspected. An independent lab recently tested numerous items from popular chains and what they found is going to make you clutch your pearls, darlings, so brace yourselves. You know Chili's Guiltless Salmon? They've absolved you of guilt by telling you that the dish only has 14 grams of fat in it, but there's really 35 grams and about 50 percent more calories. Taco Bell's beloved Fresco menu contains my favorite grilled steak soft taco ever, except I thought I was getting 4.5 grams of fat, not 19.6! But that's hardly a drop in the bucket, considering Macaroni Grill's supposedly Skinny Chicken, advertised as having 500 calories and 6 measly grams of fat. Too good to be true? In reality, the lab found that the Skinny Chicken's got 49 grams of fat and over a thousand calories. I know, it's hard to believe but read it and weep (pdf). Sure, the restaurants have issued official regretful statements and apologies, but man, kind of makes you wish you had ordered cheesecake instead. Who cares if restaurants are required by law to list their caloric contents on the menu? You can't believe it anyway. There's nothing wrong, of course, with eating yummy restaurant food or consuming 1,000 calorie meals. I feel no shock and dismay to learn that Cheesecake Factory's bread and butter is loaded with fat and calories, because the Cheesecake Factory never pretended that it was the healthy choice. We're adults and we make our own decisions about what goes into our pieholes, but seriously, it boils down to informed consent. If you sell us on the fact that your chicken is a saintly choice, then it's not unreasonable to feel betrayed when you realize that you were just had. 6 CommentsLeave a comment |
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FEED ME
There's a part of me deep down inside that thinks: "It's okay to lie to me; because that lie will allow me to enjoy this meal guilt free!" But, then again, I live in New York and have come face to face with the calorie embossed menus and I still will sit down and happily eat whatever greasy, fattening, calorie-laden food I'm craving-and the guilt is generally not something I can't quiet with a couple of tums.
Oh man. This is the SUCK. I was so happy when they started requiring restaurants to post calorie counts too...It makes food journaling so much easier.
OUCH! That file was very enlightening but it confirms why I have stopped trying to eat out at those place and eat healthy. I'm with Kim--I'll eat what I'm craving, just less of it! :)
Before you panic, you should watch the videos that go with the story: http://tinyurl.com/5km263
When this video first showed up on the interweb, they showed that for that alarming Skinny Chicken (the worst offender), they include the butter and rolls that were given to them with the meal in the calorie count. I don't think anyone ordering "healthy" options thinks that the nutritional information includes side items such as butter (seriously...) and rolls. With the butter and rolls included, they came up with the numbers shown in the .pdf...
The funny thing is that they've since changed the video (I'm sure I wasn't the only person who noticed it was employing sketchy logic) so that it shows the Skinny Chicken now having only 320 calories and 14 g of fat (advertises 600 calories, 6 g of fat). Awesome how they back-pedaled on the video but left it with the old numbers on the .pdf...
If they were so blatantly manipulative with the data in this case, I wouldn't be surprised if they screwed with some of the other numbers and just weren't silly enough to put such things in the video... Sure, the numbers will never be exact due to inexact measurement (they don't break out the digital scale for every ingredient most places), but this study is attempting to be alarmist and I wouldn't put much weight behind it.
I'm with Kim-why does having calorie counts have to mean that I wouldn't eat something high calorie. People might need to be sure they're above x/day. or, there are many other reasons for needing nutrtition info(I'm thinking carbs for diabetics and sodium for other stuff) that mean people might need to know, and need the ability to accurately compensate.
Yeah, there is that. I remember reading a similar study talking about... oh, I forget, but let's call it potato skins. Something similar, anyway. Well, their calorie calculations included everything on the plate, including some remarkably generous (by the picture) sides of ranch, sour cream, etc. I remember thinking that I could see someone doing a single container's worth, but not all of them. And I'm generally pretty willing to believe studies like that.
It would be much better if they broke it down. My favorite was one of the official Taco Bell breakdowns of their taco salad (never ordered it, just still remember it from years ago). It ended up being around 1,500 calories - 500 each from the salad, the shell, and the dressing.