I have to admit that when I go out to eat now, it's not only the dish and its ingredients that I check out. I definitely look for nutrition information on the menu. Should I order my favorite steak plate at 1050 calories or my second favorite at 575? More and more restaurants are including calorie counts. But can you trust them?
Researchers at Tufts University decided to find out. Are menu calorie counts a good way to help people monitor their intake in an effort to loose or maintain a healthy weight? With 34% of Americans now considered obese (2008) and restaurant foods providing 35% of daily energy intake for U.S. individuals (study), it's a good question.
Lorien Urban, Ph.D. and colleagues examined the calorie content for 269 items from 42 fast-food and sit-down restaurants in 3 states... and guess what? The stated calories on the menus were pretty accurate the majority of the time, according to the study. Good news for health conscience consumers, but don't get too excited.
The researchers found that there was "substantial inaccuracy" for the worst offenders... and the discrepancy between the stated and measured calorie counts in sit-down restaurants was worse than in quick-serve restaurants.
141 of the food items (52%) contained at least 10 calories less per portion than stated.
108 (40 percent) of the food items contained at least 10 calories more per portion than stated.
19% of foods contained greater than 100 calories per portion more than the stated.
Researchers then analyzed foods with the highest positive discrepancy (meaning the food had more calories than stated) to find out how big the overall difference was. "These foods had an average difference between measured and stated energy contents of 289 calories per portion."
The authors say one reason why individual foods have inaccurate stated energy contents may be poor control of portion size, especially in sit-down establishments.
Bottom line: Although the calorie counts were relatively accurate on average, supporting the idea of greater use of nutrition information on menus, the “"projected benefits for preventing weight gain and facilitating weight loss are likely to be reduced if restaurant foods... provide more energy content than stated (on their menus). Additional portion control in restaurants has the potential to facilitate individual efforts to reduce energy intake and to help resolve the national obesity epidemic,” said the study authors.
The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Research conducted by Lorien E. Urban, Ph.D., of Tufts University, Boston, and colleagues.
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