It Must End!

I love the hospitality industry but detest many of its practices when it comes to menuing. Fooling the customer for the sake of profit is unethical in my book. Take for example a recent expose in Nutrition Action, which is published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Yes, that very same publication that far too many in foodservice decry as evil -- mostly because it sheds a light on far too many decieve the consumer in their menuing (which is why I am all for restaurants being required to report the calories for each dish on their menu) to grow not only their bottom line but that of the consumer's waist line.

To give an example of how we decieve the American public and in turn making our contribution to the obesity and diabetes rates in this country by offering up tasty menu items, take the following quiz. Below are listed various tasty menu items for chain restaurants. See if you can guess which are under 1,000 calories:
a. Chili's Big Mouth Bites (their version of the Slider)
b. Olive Garden's Tour of Italy (lasagna, chicken parm, fettucini alfredo)
c. Cheesecake Factory Fried Macaroni & Cheese
d. Red Lobster Ultimate Fondue
e. Uno Mega-Sized Deep Dish Sundae
f. Cheesecake Factory Chicken and Biscuits
g. Applebee's Quesadilla Burger

You may have guessed that each of these starters, entrees, and desserts were well over 1,000 calories. So now see how good you are and estimate the calories for each item above.

I am going to guess that you had no clue that the items had the following calories:
a = 1,580 calories, b = 1,450 calories, c = 1,570 calories, d = 1,490 calories, e = 2,800 calories!, f=1,760 calories, g = 1,400 calories.

The bottom line of today's blog post is that we have got to educate our students that many of the practices of our beloved industry have got to change and that they can be the change agents. We have also got to work with our industry to show them how menu items can be full of flavor without all the fat, salt, and refined sugars! It starts with you, the educated person, to make it a habit of reading publications like Nutrition Action and then sharing the bad news with students and asking them what they think could be done to preserve the profits of a business while serving tasty food one might not find necessarily at home.