Book examines the bulging underbelly of dining out

By Linda Gordon
Scripps Howard News Service
The Commercial Appeal Memphis, TN
6/26/2003

12-inch plates have become the norm as portion sizes have grown

In fact, in the mid-'50s, Americans spent a scant 19 percent of their food dollar on food that was prepared outside the home.

Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that figure at about 41 percent, or $222 billion annually.

As authors Michael F. Jacobson and Jayne G. Hurley point out in their latest book, Restaurant Confidential (Workman, $12.95), for most people these days, eating out is neither exotic nor much of an event.

Overextended, time-crunched Americans increasingly rely on restaurants and take-out shops.

"The problem is, restaurant food is big. Big food has big calories. And most of the mid-priced chains offer consumers 'a deal they can't walk away from,'" said Hurley, a senior nutritionist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Her co-author Jacobson is the executive director of CSPI.

Jeffrey Prince, a former National Restaurant Association official, said it shouldn't be surprising that the biggest-selling item in the restaurant-supply industry today is the 12-inch plate, because the 10- or 11-inch plate won't hold the food anymore.

How many people know that a typical taco salad harbors as much fat as 18 strips of bacon? That a dinner of prime rib, Caesar salad and loaded baked potato is one of the least nutritious meals on the planet? Or that the now-famous trademarked Bloomin' Onion with dipping sauce (and its imitators) packs a whopping 2,130 calories?

Of course most people realize that foods like these are not exactly lean cuisine. (For example, few people order a whole onion for themselves, a waiter at the local Outback Steakhouse said. Mostly, the entire table shares.)

But surveys conducted by New York University and CSPI found that even trained dietitians greatly underestimated the calorie and fat content of restaurant food.

"If nutritionists can't tell what's in restaurant meals, consumers certainly can't," Marion Nestle, chairman of New York University's Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, is quoted is the book.

"I started looking at restaurant food when the FDA passed a law that supermarket food had to have labels giving nutritional breakdowns," Hurley said, "but there are no labels on restaurant food."

With the considerable resources of the CSPI behind them, the authors launched an investigation into restaurant nutrition, starting with Chinese meals.

"We were shocked when the lab analysis revealed sky-high amounts of calories, fat and sodium in many popular dishes," Hurley said. "An entree with 800 or 900 calories was the best we found."

A single entree of kung pao chicken with rice, for example, usually contains 1,600 calories, 76 grams of fat and 2,600 milligrams of sodium. Round out the meal with the usual accompaniments such as soup, an egg roll and extra soy sauce and the figure skyrockets.

Studies of Italian and Mexican food followed, along with seafood and other categories -- with equal results.

"Again we discovered enormous calorie levels and enormous levels of fat," Hurley said. "To sum it up, when you eat dinner out, expect 1,000 calories in your appetizer, 1,000 in your entree and 1,000 in your dessert."

That doesn't mean people shouldn't patronize restaurants, though," Hurley said. "We're not telling people not to go. We're giving people a little more information to help them eat more wisely."

Restaurant Confidential offers dozens of healthful eating strategies. And many of its 360-plus pages give nutritional breakdowns by restaurant category: Mexican, Italian, Chinese, seafood, pizzeria, steakhouse, etc.

There is even a "Restaurant Hall of Fame," which lists foods containing saturated fat at reasonable levels, followed by a "Restaurant Hall of Shame."