My husband and I went out for lunch today to Outback steakhouse. I was told that it is a law in New york that all restaurants have to have a nutritional guideline available..... Well, I asked the waitress to find out how many carbs are in the soup..... She said that they didnt have anything.....
I do carry around a carbohydrate book with me, but it did not have the info that I wanted....
I wanted to know if anyone else has had a similar experience....
glad i don't go there. i so wish all places had nutritional fact sheets. it would be nice instead of guessing and going too high or too low. are they trying to kill us off?
do you have the calorieking book? it has a ton of listings in it for different foods and also a restaurant section with 200 restaurants. I checked in mine, which is the 2006 version, and Outback is listed there. It doesn't always have everthing listed, but it is my lifesaver when I go out to eat (which is not very often, so my guessing skills aren't very good!) Anyway if you don't have it here is a link where you can buy the current copy: http://www.calorieking.com/store/product/119-2009-calorieking-calorie-fat-and-carbohydrate-counter
hope this helps!
Yep. Had the same experience at Frisch's Big Boy last Sunday. The Calorie-King book only had a small fraction of info in it about Frisch's and when I asked the waitress for the nutitional information she gave me a sheet with their 800 number on it.
How do I plan to deal with this in the future??
1. Never patronize a restaurant that does not have any interest in serving healthy food. No more Big Boys.
2. Bring your carb book everywhere. Newb's like ourselves have been really surprised by the carbs packed into "healthy" foods like dried cranberries. YIKES
3. If you really want to go out to eat, check out the restaurant ahead of time online. Again, if they are afraid to tell you how fattening their triple Whopper with cheese is, do you really want to drop your $$ there??
4. Understand that mom and pop restaurants will not have nutritional info. Then the carb counting is on YOU, so choose wisely.
We love the CalorieKing book and it's handy to have whenever we go out to eat. we keep a copy in each car. They just published a new 2009 edition with updated info (since restaurants change their menus constantly).
***If you have an iPhone or iPod touch --- Another great tool you can (and should) get is the RESTAURANT NUTRITION application that was developed by Foundation Healthcare Network. It'll give you carb counts and nutritional info to many national restaurants and fast food chains. This comes in very handy for any parent dealing with diabetes. *****
Yes, I have the Calorie king book, and even though OUtback is listed, many of their menu items are not in the book....... We try to plan ahead, but sometimes it is not always possible.
I was doing a little research and in NYC, there is a law that states if a chain restaurant which has more than 15 locations nationwide, they must post their nutritional information.....
I did write to outback, and received a very strange response and they also replied to the wrong name..... I have been to other places, like Panera bread and asked them for the info and they had it posted in a book. The manager was more than happy to assist me.
i went to a restaurant and i looked at the website ahead of time. you could customize your meal and then it gave you the nutrition facts. it was really good to be able to adjust my meal to make it what i needed it to be.
I have an application on my phone that provides nutritional information. Very helpful :)
I have the CalorieKing book and it normally has what I need. I think there is only one place I went to that didn't have a nurtrional guide. If it is required by law, you should complain about it. It's the only way things will change.
[quote user="Alyssa"]
I have an application on my phone that provides nutritional information. Very helpful :)
[/quote]
Hey Alyssa,
What do you have on your phone?
For several years I've used the USDA Food Search database on my Palm Pilot and Centro. It's huge, highly detailed (with full nutritional facts), and it allows you to adjust the serving amount (which simply helps with math.) There's probably a version out there that's compatible with other OS's. Since I always have my phone with me, I always can look up foods.
This, of course, doesn't help solve the problem of knowing such facts for the prepared foods, especially in restaurants.
The CalorieKing book doesn't help, though, when you eat something that doesn't fit their standards. A few weeks ago I was at Ledo pizza (decent sized chain around the DC area), and ate quite a bit. Their pizza is cut into small sqares instead of normal slices, so I had no idea how many carbs were in it. I asked the waitress for the nutritional info, and she said that all she knew was that each square had "about 7" carbs in it. I believed her (big mistake), and ended up with a blood sugar of 300 a few hours later...
I had the pizza again last night, and guessed 11 carbs per piece - ended up at 171, which I guess isn't bad after a pizza dinner!
Ledo's website says that nutritional info is being "researched" or something of the sort... how hard is it for restaurants to provide basic nutritional info! If McDonalds can do it, every other place should be able to.
Kristy,
I have the Diet Diary, it's a CalorieKing product. I suspect a lot of people, I know I do, carry their phones when out to restaraunts and such. There's a 14 day trial (free), so it's worth a shot if you're interested. Here's the link:
http://www.calorieking.com/software/
PS: I think it's an application for palm-type phones. Not sure if there's other kinds...
I tend to agree...I mean we are new to this and it does have some good information but you really have to rely on yourself to make good decisions. And I will tell you another thing, this book has completely turned me off from a lot of places simply based on the carb content of some things. Take Jamba Juice for example which I worked at as a teenager and thought to be rather healthy. Granted it is fruit and mostly natural sugars, but it is crazy to think about how many carbs are in just one of their regular sized smoothies! You eat that and one of their breads and you might as well not eat for the rest of the day. Anyways, helpful but probably for the wrong reason :)
I found out that in NYC, it is a law that any chain restaurant having more than 15 locations nationwide, MUST have their nutritional facts avaiable to patrons.....
I thought it was the law that restaurants have to have this. I find that some do and some don't. More don't than do.
Last Saturday I was in Dallas and went to Jimmy John's sub shop. I asked the guy behind the counter if they had it. First he looked at me like I had 2 heads. He checked with the manager who told him it was online. No help as I have a dumb phone. finally he agreed to look it up for me online from the back room.
Once I was at 7-11 and asked for the nutritional info on a sugar free slurpee. The guy there had no clue.
Does anyone know if this really the law in all 50 states? I thought it was, but don't know.
it appears that for chain restaurants it's supposed to be posted, according to federal law.
"chain" means 20 or more facilities, but may not apply to independently owned or other twist your mind around ways to not be a "chain".
"restaurant" meaning: "Pursuant to 21 CFR 1.328 [Title 21 -- Food and Drugs; Chapter I -- Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services], restaurant means “a facility that prepares and sells food directly to consumers for immediate consumption. "Restaurant" does not include facilities that provide food to interstate conveyances, central kitchens, and other similar facilities that do not prepare and serve food directly to consumers."
so jimmy john might be off the hook if it's not a "chain"
and our dear friends at 7-11 may be off the hook because I don't know if they can skirt around the word "restaurant"
clear as mud. good luck, anything at a restaurant has 2x to 10x tha amount of carbs in it from my experience.
cheers
Jimmy John's is a huge chain. They're all over Dallas and they have them here in Seattle as well.
They skirted it by saying it was on the internet. The guy did look up what I wanted on the computer in the back. It was not posted in the restaurant.
I won't be going back anyway. I didn't think it was very good. Neither did my Mom.