I thought about this when I was adding some nutritional information for restaurants to our website: RapidWeightLossExpert.com, so I had to do some research.
The nutritional information provided by restaurants is somewhat accurate. The information provided by fast food chains is usually more accurate that sit down restaurants.
How can this be?
Fast food chains strictly control the portion sizes of the foods they sell. Most of the menu items are pre-packaged into serving sizes. When dining at a sit down restaurant, the portion size and even the preparation of menu items is not pre-packaged, therefore, the portion may be larger or there may be more calories added in preparation through oil, butter, etc.
Many of the fast food chain menu items are within 10% of the stated information. This means that a menu item stating 100 calories may actually be 90 to 110 calories. Some of the items on those menus may be grossly underestimated. A little common sense will help you choose. A double bacon cheese burger with blue cheese and mayonnaise isn’t really 500 calories.
So, what’s the point of posting the Nutritional Information?
Well, it’s required by law to help the consumer make good choices. Use the information as a guideline when choosing from the menu. Understand that the information may be wrong. There may be 10% or more calories in those foods than is on the Nutritional Chart. While there are occasionally less calories, I wouldn’t count on it.
Also, the FDA allows food manufacturers a 20% margin of error in determining the accuracy of nutritional information found on the product label of food we buy at the supermarket.
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