The study, which was published in this week’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined 269 menu items at 42 fast-food and sit-down restaurants in Massachusetts, Arkansas and Indiana ordered over a six-month period last year. Both the menu items and the restaurants were randomly selected.
The nutritionists, who were based at Tufts University, Purdue University and the University of Arkansas, conducted laboratory tests on the dishes to check the accuracy of the calorie counts listed on the menus. While the researchers found that overall, the counts were accurate, with a difference of only 10 calories between the stated and measured amounts of food energy, some individual items had much wider discrepancies. In particular, 50 of the 269 items, or 19%, had measured energy levels 100 or more calories above what was on the menu, and 17 of those had an average energy level some 258 calories higher than listed.
To make matters worse from the dieter’s point of view, foods at the lower end of the calorie range were generally more fattening than advertised. On the other hand, those at the upper end were not as fattening as advertised.
That last fact does not mean you can go out and order a Monster Beef ‘n’ Bacon Burger at IHOP, a slice of the Cheesecake Factory’s Ultimate Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake, or any of the other six artery-cloggers on this year’s list of Xtreme Eating Awards dishonorees issued by the Center for Science in the Public Interest with a clear conscience. Take 250 calories off the 1,540 in the cheesecake and you still have nearly half off a typical day’s calorie intake in that one slice.
As the FDA is developing new rules implementing a nationwide requirement for restaurant chains to list nutrition information on their menus, accurate calorie counts will be of greater concern to more diners across the country. Yet the JAMA study echoes one conducted last year that found that actual calorie counts were on average 18% higher than reported on a wide range of restaurant items and prepackaged frozen meals.
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