This month restaurant chains in California now report calorie and nutritional value on their menus. Last night was my first experience with the new menus. What a bummer that was! Seriously, of course it is a good idea that consumers know what they are eating, even when they are out to eat. However, finding out that the meal you want has more calories than you are supposed to consume in one whole day, well, just sucks. I love to cook and make my own delicious meals, but it is nice to go out to eat every-so-often and have something tasty too. Sadly, that tasty meal tends to have five million calories in it. What's worse is now we know about it.
Something that was quite interesting on the menu from last night's dinner out was that many of those "healthy" salads had more calories than a cheeseburger and fries. We spent about 15 minutes looking and comparing and gasping at these new menu numbers. The good news...Forget the Chinese Chicken Salad, bring on that Cheeseburger!
This will become a great source of entertainment, I'm sure!
ReplyDeleteTrue, those big salads have more calories, but the content of those calories is still better for you than that cheeseburger and fries. So now you don't have to feel bad about eating the big salad either!
Jason's right, the salad will give you all those vitamins and minerals mom nagged you about.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of us will be watching to see if you Californians start getting healthier, of if you just stop going to chain restaurants . . . Thanks for being the guinea pigs!
NYC has been doing this a while, and last time we were down there and went to Starbucks, it was too depressing to get much.
ReplyDeleteGood to know about the cheeseburger!
I'll never forget a friend of mine actually crying when she found out the big muffin she was eating on the way to work every morning, the one that "really held her over until lunch," was almost 1000 calories. Bitter tears, bitter. ~Mary
ReplyDeleteI've heard that before. Depressing all around.
ReplyDeleteCalifornia is so progressive like that. Wow. I don't know how many calories I eat a day. I need to start looking though : ) Maybe I should move to California : )
ReplyDeleteI'm having my ice cream no matter what. I refuse to read certain labels, and others shock me. CA has to quite coming up with all thses screwball ideas that cost the industry $$ to comply.
ReplyDeleteEwww. That is just creepy. Couldn't the calorie count just be an optional insert at the request of the client?
ReplyDeleteCall me old fashioned, but I don't want to think about calories and fat count when I go out to eat, I just want a well prepared meal using top ingredients.
I do however think, that at one hand, it might make people more aware of what they are putting into their mouths and understanding that, no, you cannot just eat everything in giant mutated portions and expect to stay healthy.
So in that I say, "I like it."
But written on the menu? Ewwww.
They try and take the fun out of everything, don't they?
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