Beyond Trans Fats:
What You Need to Know
About Restaurant Dining

WSJ.com
By TARA PARKER-POPE

A new push to take trans fat out of restaurants is grabbing headlines, but diners need to be even better educated about all the health risks lurking in restaurant food.

Today American consumers get one-third of their daily calories from restaurant food, up from just 18% in the 1970s, according to an October report called "Let's Eat Out" from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Numerous studies have shown that eating out regularly makes you fat. Restaurant foods tend to be packed with more calories and less nutrition than foods prepared at home.

A Tufts University study found that people who dine out frequently are more likely to have higher body fat than those who eat home-cooked meals. In addition to being high in fat and calories, restaurant foods are packed with sodium, which increases risk for high blood pressure and heart attack.


USDA surveys show that consumers say they want healthful foods when they eat out, but they make a lot of wrong assumptions about what's healthy and what's not. For instance, consumers looking for healthful foods are 19% more likely to dine at sit-down restaurants rather than fast-food eateries. But compared with fast-food meals, full-service meals actually tend to be higher in fat, cholesterol and sodium, according to the Let's Eat Out report.

For instance, a classic cheeseburger from Ruby Tuesday's restaurant has 1,103 calories and 78 grams of fat. A double quarter pounder with cheese from McDonald's has 730 calories and 40 grams of fat. For a consumer who eats a burger a week, the calorie difference translates to about 5½ pounds a year.

Some common pitfalls of restaurant eating include:

• Snacks and drinks often add up to almost a full day's worth of calories. A Grande Latte (260 calories) and slice of crumb cake (670 calories) from Starbucks may sound like a quick snack, but it's loaded with 930 calories. Snack on it once a week and you'll pack on nearly 14 pounds in a year.

• Salads can be loaded with saturated fat and sodium. A grilled-chicken Caesar salad from Panera Bread, the fastest-growing fast-food chain, contains 560 calories, 9 grams of saturated fat and 1,270 milligrams of sodium. That's about the same as a Big Mac, which also contains 560 calories, 10 grams of saturated fat and 1,010 milligrams of sodium.

• If you try to guess the calorie content of restaurant meals, you'll likely be wrong. Restaurant foods are often so loaded with ingredients, the actual calorie content even defies trained experts.


In one New York University study, 203 dietitians were asked to estimate the calorie and fat content of five restaurant meals -- lasagna, a grilled-chicken Caesar salad, a tuna-salad sandwich, a hamburger with onion rings and a porterhouse steak dinner. Despite their expertise, they underestimated calories by an average of 37% and fat by 49%. For instance, they guessed the tuna sandwich had about 375 calories but it actually contained about 720 calories.

So what's the solution? Nutrition experts say a few simple strategies can help you dine out healthfully and still enjoy the food. Instead of ordering an entree, choose an appetizer, which is usually just as delicious as other foods on the menu but in a smaller portion size. If you want an entree, split it with a friend or ask for the take-out box at the beginning of the meal so you don't overeat.

Take a look at menu items online so you get a sense of how many calories restaurant foods really pack. Panera Bread, Ruby Tuesday, Starbucks and other chains now post nutrition information online. Try to dine at chains that offer healthy menu items. TGI Friday's for instance, has items like Bruschetta Tilapia and Zen Chicken Potstickers that have no more than 500 calories and 10 grams of fat.

One of my favorite books, "Restaurant Confidential," offers a useful glimpse into the nutritional and calorie content of many popular restaurant foods.

"When we were kids, eating out was something you did on real special occasions so you weren't particularly concerned about getting a healthy meal," says Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has led much of the fight against trans fat. "Now people eat out so much more often, that if you want to be healthy you have to be concerned about what you eat at restaurants."

Corrections & Amplifications:

A grilled-chicken Caesar salad from Panera Bread contains 1,270 milligrams of sodium, and a McDonald's Big Mac contains 1,010 milligrams of sodium. In an earlier version, this column incorrectly gave these amounts as grams.

Source:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116589011094647210.html
_____________________