So I just went to Pei Wei for lunch and before heading out, I checked out there nutritional info. I saw that Chicken Lo Mein was 460 calories and I love Lo Mein so I was thrilled. Well when I got the dish there was a lot of food - so much I couldn't finish it (but I ate quite a bit of it). Something just didn't sit well with me and when I came back I did some more research. Turns out it is 460 calories per serving and one serving is half the dish. SO I just ate about 800 calories - great!!

Anyway, just wanted to send out a warning to you all - make sure you read all the fine print.

My husband and I've gone to Pei Wei a few times. We usually split a dish or eat half and take leftovers home. Their portions are pretty large although I'm surprised they wouldn't say upfront what the entire served item is unless they expect you to split it.

Yep - portion sizes can hang you up even if you do the right thing and check out the calories/fat/etc ahead of time! Frustrating!

But at least now you know, right?

That is bullcrap. When they SERVE it to you in a restaurant, that should be a SERVING!!!!

i've never heard of pei wei up here in canada, but it seems like a lot of places try and mislead us on serving sizes. it's the same on individually packed food. the calories will be for like 18 pieces of whatever, which works out to a quarter of the bag!

why don't they want us to lose weight? lol

I have been suckered by misleading portions. The worst offenders for me were pre-packaged salad. I used to love grabbing one at the grocery store before going on road trips and then I noticed that the little buggers had 4 servings. 4 servings! That's crazy!

The one thing I was able to get out of those lessons was to read the label very carefully.

I looooove Pei Wei, but their portions are ginormous.

Amy's Organic has all those frozen dinners that I was addicted to. The Enchiladas were kind of high-cal but not that bad so I bought them. Turns out that the cal/fat count was for ONE enchilada and it comes in a package of 2. I'm supposed to cook it and save it?

Ramen is the same. Serving size is half a block. Who cooks half a block? In Korea they wisened up and put the serving as 1 per package--of course, 90% of the brands have 95% of your RDA of sodium or over. I've even seen 119%!

Awhile back someone posted that in NYC chain restaurants they are going to start providing nutritional info on the menus. I'm sure it will catch on across the country, I mean, wasn't NYC one of the first to ban smoking and now that's practically nationwide? Another thing is there is an initiative, I can't remember if it's passed and where, but I think so, to post calories on the fronts of packages.

I'm SURE that some serving size manipulation will result.

As a culture our concept of serving size has gotten way out of whack when it seems normal to be able to buy a twelve-inch long sandwich for one person.

I was sitting next to a sandwich stand thinking the same thing. This girl ordered a Vietnamese sub on 12-inch bread... made up as a sandwich, it seemed big and all but when I looked at the pile of foot-long bread waiting to be made into a sandwich I thought--man, that's a TON of bread to eat in one sitting! Like I would have to eat about 10 dinner rolls to compare. But dress it up as a sandwich and it looks pretty normal.

Here in Seattle we've just passed laws so all the restaurants have to post nutritional information. It is really great because you know what you're eating, but it's also really frustrating because you do realize portions are not what you thought, and enlightening when you realize what you were eating so no wonder you weren't losing weight!!

So I am learning to eat smaller portions, which is a good thing, but also learning with pleasant surprises that some of what I like really is low carb, so that's very cool, and I think my eating is improving as a result, especially if I pay attention.

I'd rather know what I'm eating and have to eat less than not know and keep driving myself crazy with why I'm not losing!!