Before going out to eat, do you all check the number of calories of the restaurant's meals when the nutritional info is available on the web?

I've had some success with this lately! I've been eating at this fresh sandwich chain called Cosi (located in NYC and possibly elsewhere?) for the past several years since they opened in my office building. I recently discovered their website where they post the nutrional info and I was stunned to see the range of calorie counts in the sandwiches from 480 to over 1000. I used to always get the TBM (tomato, basil and fresh mozzerella) sandwich but I just discovered that it has over 750 calories! Here I thought I was being "good" when I bought this sandwich. I wrote down a list of sandwiches that have more reasonable calorie counts and will only order these from now on. I also looked up the dressings and after seeing how high and low they go in calories, I started getting the lo cal one on the side.

Also, they freshly bake their bread and they leave the crust in a bowl for people to eat while they're on line. I used to eat at least 3 pieces of this DELICIOUS bread (without adding it into my calorie count that I used to do in my head) until I checked the calorie count the other day. I've been in there 3 times since checking and DID NOT TOUCH THAT BREAD. Just knowing how many calories was enough to stop me.

Best news was that I was overestimating the calories in their whole grain bagel by 150 calories! I changed it in fitday and the daily calories went down globally for all prior entries. What fun that was! Also discovered that this whole grain bagel I thought was empty calories and unhealthy (yet gave me so much energy to do my lunch time work outs) has 10 grams of protein, so not too bad (and I couldn't seem to work out for long on any other breakfast).

Perhaps you might try checking the online menus before you go eat somewhere; I guarantee you will make far better choices by educating yourself. In fact, New York City just passed a law that all restaurants that post their calories online or elsewhere will now be FORCED to post the calories ON THEIR MENU (even McDonald's will have to comply and put the calorie count on their big menu next to each item). Yeah for this awesome law (which extraordinarily also banned the use of trans fats at ALL (even Mickey D's) restaurants!)

I TOTALLY rely on restaurant's web sites for nutritional info. So much so that when we travel I often take my laptop just to check nutritionals!

I will say, though, that my husband and I opened an eatery/coffee bar earlier this year. We serve mostly fresh, healthy options (sandwiches, soup, salads, pastas) as well as a full espresso bar and lots of baked goods. Thankfully I rarely work in the shop, so I don't have to constantly be tempted by the bakery case. Anyway, I created a brochure with all the nutritional info (except for the desserts, which I figured wasn't worth it since they don't fit on anyone's diet very well). It took me a VERY LONG time to put this together. Many weeks, tons of phone calls to food vendors, lots of time on Excel, etc. It was important to me to offer this to our customers because it is important to me as a consumer.

But... I do feel for all those restaurant owners because it is a HECK of a lot of work. And some of the info is very hard to come by, depending on where the food comes from.

Oh, and if you are interested, this is the website for our restaurant!http://www.aquilaandpriscillas.com

Lindy

Sometimes if you can't find nutrition information for the exact restaurant you are going to, you can get a basic idea by looking at the nutrition information for the same kind of item at a chain restaurant. For example, my favorite independent grocery has amazing italian wedding soup. Its so good. They don't have their nutrition info online, but au bon pain has the same kind of soup. I estimated the calories for the soup at my restaurant based on the ones I could get nutrition info for. Its not perfect, but its better than "i have no idea".

It will be really interesting to see how the NY ruling plays out. There was NY Times article about this today: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/dining/13calo.html

One of the quotes from the article is, “A few chain restaurant operators are already wondering if it would be easier to simply take down any publicly available nutrition information before the deadline, thus exempting themselves from the law.”

I hope this doesn’t end up backfiring and making companies remove their nutritional info from their websites. That would be really counterproductive to the whole thing.

Slimlindy, the law only requires posting of calories for restaurants that already do that online, not for smaller establishments.

Nancy, that's a good point; I hope they can't get around this law by taking the info down from the internet. Its true, it is SOOOO hard to imagine Mickey Ds posting like a gazilion calories next to its Big Mac (and mostly all of its other items) for all to see while placing the order! LOL

Amanda, very good idea about finding out the calories of foods without labels.

Jill, I also tend to overestimate, but after I started really strictly calorie counting and actually researching rather than guessing the number of calories I now I realize there must have been a ton of times I thought I was overestimating when I was seriously UNDERestimating. BTW Jill, I am really impressed with your efforts...very inspirational.

Mami,

Our nutritionals ARE posted on-line, but we aren't in New York anyway.

I read in the article that some estabishments are considering petitioning the Health Dept to put the nutritionals by the cash register. That is what we do, and that is where I start looking for them when I am out at other restaurants. As long as they're required to not run out of the pamphlets, I don't see why this wouldn't work just as well if not better. After all, the pamphlet you can take home with you!

Sometimes when I can't find nutritional info in the restaurant, I have asked someone who works there if they can get it for me. It is surprising how many do offer that info. For example, when I was last in Panera Bread Co, they did not have their nutritional info on a pamphlet, but when I asked for it the cashier got out a notebook with all of the info for all of their foods and I was able to look through and choose my meal.

I think more and more restaurants will sell healthier fare and offer nutritional information to consumers because that is what is being demanded more and more by consumers. In this fast-paced world, many people eat out all the time and are looking for healthier options that fit a healthier lifestyle. So in the long run, I think it won't just be the bureaucrats and the health depts demanding a change, I think it will be the consumers.

Not that the fast food, fried food, and junk are going away... just the healthier side will get bigger.

Lindy

Lindy, I love your web site! Too bad you're all the way across the country ... otherwise I'd be there in a heartbeat. Everything just looks wonderful! (and you're lovely too )

Lindy, it is so awesome that you went through the trouble to figure out the nutritional info for your restaurant! My SO and I try to support local businesses, which means we don't eat at chain restaurants when we can avoid it; one disadvantage of this is that there is almost never any nutritional info available for the restaurants. If possible, I use Mandalinn's method of looking up similar foods at restaurants that do provide nutritional data, but there are so many variables involved that this method is imperfect at best and completely wrong at worst. At times, I break the "no chain restaurants" rule because of the lack of nutritional info (sometimes I just don't want to have to go off plan for the day). If I lived in Springfield OR, I'd definitely be eating at your coffee shop.

I have emailed restaurants in advance to try to get nutritional info when it isn't available online and while most have been pretty responsive, I haven't gotten a lot of info this way.

I believe that in CA most fast food chain restaurants are required to provide nutritional info (I'm not quite sure what counts as "fast food" or "chain," clearly the rule doesn't apply to all restaurants). I don't think they are required to display it though, so you do often have to ask for it (or look it up on their website).

Meg and Barbara - THANK YOU so much for your positive words! It makes all the time I put into the nutritionals (and the web site!) worth it!

It's funny this thread is here -- we just got back from Mall of America & the spouse is all about counting his calories now! (He has MAYBE 7-8 lbs to lose but I figure I'll let him have a taste of what life is like for me! ) We settled on Ruby Tuesday's because I knew the petite sirloin was a good choice. He was so cute at the salad bar: "Is this okay? Is that okay?" I even remembered to ask for no oil and he piped in "Me too!"

when I go to a mom and pop place i usually ask them how they made my food.

This weekend we ate at a rest stop and i watched as they made my turkey and bacon wrap. it was 3 slices of turkey, 1 large tortilla 2 tbsp of mayo and 2 slices of bacon with lettuce and tomato- I easily figured out the cals when i got home.

most resturants have standard amounts that they use ie: 3 oz of chicken or 1/2 cup of cooked spinach it's the only way they control their costs.

Mami-

I used to eat at Cosi all the time during the summer when I worked in DC. I too got the cheese, tomato and basil sandwich thinking it was a healthier option. Oops! Recently, I looked up all of the food and drinks Starbucks offers. Once I saw how many calories were in each baked good, I haven't even been tempted to buy one since. I never really ordered the big froofy drinks there, but now that I know the calories in each it's unsweetened iced tea or if I want a snack a non-fat latte with sugar free vanilla syrup for me.