Fast food nutrition information: Full disclosure or just full of it
Here’s a little multiple-choice questin for your diversion.
Healthy food provided by fast-food chains is:
- A vital element of any national program to reverse current obesity trends.
- Increasingly viewed as a serious goal by the chain restaurant industry.
- An empty PR gimmick the fast food chains are using to buffalo the public.
- A meaningless gesture unless and until overweight customers get serious about eating sensibly.
- An oxymoron.
To some extent, all of the above.
As with all multiple-choice setups that give you the all-the-above option, F is the correct answer, of course.
Making smart fast-food choices
This observation was prompted by two recent items in the media. The first, an article by nutritionist Jennifer Putnam, offers a list of handy tips for eating healthy at drive-through chains.
Among the basics: grilled, chicken, and water or milk are better than fried, beef, and soda; choose salads instead of meat or cheese entrees but be careful to avoid fatty salad dressings; minimize such add-ons as cheese, mayo, and supersizing; know what you are consuming by checking out the nutritional information — calories, salt, fats — provided by the eatery.
Putnam offers specific examples on this last point: extolling a McDonald’s grilled chicken sandwich with 10 grams of fat and 230 calories and a Wendy’s Jr. Hamburger with nine grams and 270 calories. I am taking her word for these numbers, mind you. The question is, whose word is she taking? That of McDonalds and Wendy’s, or did she have an actual nutritional analysis performed?
Take the “facts” with a milligram of salt
This is a relevant question, given the second item, which was included in a recent report by KING channel 5 news in Seattle.
A national media investigation tested the nutritional contents of diet menu items at places like Chili’s and Macaroni Grill. In some cases, the fat and calorie content was several times higher than the restaurants claimed.
Some caveats are in order, of course. “National media investigation” is unsatisfyingly vague; who did the investigating, and what did it consist of? Moreover, Chili’s and Macaroni Grill are not McDonalds and Wendy’s; who were the specific good and bad guys in this investigation, and by what measurement? (More on that is available here.)
Nevertheless, the notion that major fast food and casual dining chains might fudge or even flagrantly misrepresent the nutritional content of some of their menu items would be shocking only in the Casablanca sense: we would probably be more surprised if they weren’t gaming the rules on the sly. Perhaps that fact will occur to the jury in the Paskett lawsuit, the focus of the KING-TV report.
The background: Ms. Anne Paskett, attempting to adhere to a three-year, rigid calorie-counting diet, was frustrated by her continuing, albeit slight, weight gain. She counted calories with a laborious dedication and precision. And yet, the slow progression of her size and weight.
The problem, she finally determined, was that two of her favorite dining establishments, Chili’s and Macaroni Grill, were and are deliberately understating the caloric and fat contents on their menus, thereby contributing to her overconsumption of calorie-excessive entrees based on false claims.
A Seattle attorney is even now representing her in a class-action suit that is charging those chains with misrepresentation and consumer deception. If she gets anywhere close to winning this case, and that includes tweezing a major settlement out of the defendant chains, you can bet that there will be an absolute epidemic of honesty in the posting of nutritional content at chain food providers, fast and otherwise, nationwide.
Which is probably a good thing, but which may be just a bit unfair. After all, Ms. Paskett had many alternative dining choices, not the least of those being home cooking. And a truly dedicated dieter should be seriously questioning why he or she is hitting a drive-through or restaurant chain to begin with. And she acknowledges that she continues to patronize her favorite chains and would not want them driven out of business.
She even allows, as how taste sometimes trumps reason, that she doesn’t always make the healthiest choice. Nonetheless, she would like her choice, whether wise or heedless, to be based on accurate information. She just wants the menu’s stated nutritional numbers to be honest.
And it’s hard to argue with her right to that.
(By Robert S. Wider for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
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