In President Obama’s new health reform bill, restaurants with more than 20 chains must post nutrition facts of their foods on the menu. When I see clients for weight loss, I often pull up nutrition information on the computer from the website of restaurants they frequent. Then I rotate my computer screen and show them in print the actual calories and grams of fat that they are consuming. They usually gasp. So much nutrition information is right at our fingertips online, but let’s face it most of us are lazy. Looking up nutritional information before you go out to get is a huge effort, right? I think having nutrition information right next to the food on the menu at restaurants will improve some people’s choices.
I believe many people live in denial. You know that a donut isn’t healthy and has lots of calories and grams of fat, but there’s no food label on a donut so it’s easy to eat two or three or four and not realize what you’ve just consumed. I encourage you to take some time to look up the calories and other nutrition information of foods you typically eat. Use some of the online food journals like www.fitday.com for a week and see just how much you are consuming.
I was interviewed today for a local magazine on whether I think Americans will eat healthier because of the new health reform bill. I believe it will help. I think having nutrition information right there on the menu will make some people make better choices. I believe increasing knowledge is always good. If you see that a 6” cold cut combo from Subway has 410 calories while the 6” turkey breast sub has 225 calories then making the better choice is easier. Living in denial is harder when the information is right there in front of your face in black and white.
Now you didn’t really think I was going to get political on my nutrition blog did you?