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South Carolina Restaurants Resist Mandate to List Nutritional Data on Menus

Posted on: Wednesday, 22 December 2004, 21:00 CST

Dec. 22--Restaurant menus that show the calories or carbohydrates in food help dieters watch their weight and allow finicky foodies to monitor what's going into their mouths.

Unless, that is, the chef inadvertently slips an extra quarter-cup of pasta into that one-cup serving.

Or your favorite restaurant switches mayonnaise makers.

Or the kitchen decides to replace pine nuts with pumpkin seeds one day.

For the millions of Americans who start watching what they eat every New Year's Day, relying on menus for dietary information might not be the best way to keep those resolutions, dietitians say.

What's more, supplying diners with the digits on all those fat grams and net carbs isn't the simple typographic task restaurants once hoped.

"It sounds good, but in reality it's really difficult to do," said Tom Sponseller, president of the Hospitality Association of South Carolina. "Restaurant associations are fighting it because it hamstrings them. It severely limits what they can do on their menus. You can't change them every day."

With obesity rates increasing at a record pace, fast-food restaurants like Subway have been trying to help people count calories and cut down on fat for years. The chain posts nutritional information for most of its sandwiches, touts its "7 subs with 6 grams of fat," and has made Jared, the "Diet Guy," a national weight-loss hero.

Since last year, the Food and Drug Administration and Congress have been floating the idea of requiring all restaurants -- from the national chains to local mom-and-pop diners -- to post dietary information on their menus, or at least offer brochures showing the difference between that side salad and a slice of pie.

It's easier said than done.

"It's primarily easy for fast-food restaurants because their menus don't change," Sponseller said. "But when you have fluctuating menus, especially independent restaurants, it really handicaps them. They change their menus based on trends, consumer tastes, items that are in season. A lot of restaurants don't even like to have a set menu because their customers know them to be unique and different all the time."

If a restaurant starts buying a new brand of tomato sauce, the calorie count changes. If a chef substitutes croutons for walnuts in a salad, the carbohydrates change. And if serving sizes change, so does everything else.

"It could very well put the restaurant in a kind of legal situation as well, when you think about it," Sponseller said. "Because they are promising, 'This is what we have," but then it's sometimes, 'This is what you get.' "

Restaurants like TGI Friday's, partnering with Atkins Nutritonals Inc., began offering data this year on its low-carb menu items. Applebee's lists fat, calorie and fiber figures for its Weight Watchers-approved dishes. Chains such as Ruby Tuesday listed facts for every dish on its menu for a while, then recently moved the statistics into separate brochures posted on tables.

If people want the dish on food at most McDonald's and Burger King restaurants, they can check out posters in the windows, ask cashiers for help or go to the chains' Web sites.

While some dietitians say these restaurants are taking a good first step to better consumer health, others worry that making dining decisions based solely on a few food facts does more harm than good.

"I think it's really going to cause some problems," said Vicky Ott, a dietitian at Physician's Plan Weight Management in Charleston. "People are making their food choices based on one thing, either carbs or calories or something, and they're not looking at food as a whole."

Health officials say Americans -- who consume nearly one-third of their calories and spend half of their food budget eating outside their homes -- concentrate too much on certain statistics and forget about portion size, vitamin content and food preparation.

Suzanne Runtz, a dietitian at the Medical University of South Carolina, said there are better ways to eat out healthy than just to read numbers on a menu.

She suggests measuring out various foods at home, then visualizing proper portion sizes in a restaurant. A serving that covers the open palm of your hand is about half a cup. Something the size of your closed fist is a whole cup.

Dieticians also say menus often don't reveal how a food is cooked, and dietary information can change when a nutritious ingredient is fried in fat or oil.

"If you use any sort of moderation at all, that's what works," Runtz said. "No one, even if you aren't on a special diet, needs to be hitting the fast-food restaurants on a daily basis and nobody ever needs to be super-sizing."

Medical professionals also say consumers can't just rely on the statistics they're given. They have to ask questions and request healthier items that might not always be on the menu.

"Our patients find most restaurants are pleased to substitute extra vegetables for rice or potatoes and not bring bread to the table because you'll just eat it," said Dr. Douglas Jones, an endocrinologist at the Metabolic Medical Center in Mount Pleasant. "But you have to ask. You're deceiving yourself if you think it's just one area you have to watch."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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APPB, RI, WTW,

Source: The Post and Courier

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