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Maybe this is just me, but when I’m eating something, I want to know how many calories it is and if it will increase my jean size.
Students can’t always make accurate guesses about the caloric content of the foods they eat; assuming a salad is healthy because it is a salad is not always correct.
Hidden calories in food are mischievous. You may think you are being good and healthy by ordering a McDonald’s Bacon Ranch Salad instead of a 580-calorie Big Mac (33 grams of fat), but you could be wrong. Choosing the “crispy” chicken over the grilled adds an extra 8 grams of fat and 100 calories. Top it off with a packet of Newman’s Own Ranch Dressing and you’ve got a calorie count of 660 with 51 grams of fat. You were better off ordering the Big Mac.
Having a bagel or a muffin for breakfast sounds innocent enough, but according to the “WebMD Weight Loss Clinic” our portion sizes have basically tripled in recent years. Muffins were once the size of tennis balls, now they’re closer to softballs. Bagels have grown from four inches in diameter to more than six; the calorie count has also risen. With 590 calories and 24 grams of fat, a Dunkin’ Donuts chocolate chip muffin makes a 200 to 300 calorie doughnut look relatively healthy, even the reduced-fat blueberry muffin packs 450 calories. A traditionally sized bagel ranges from 200 to 300 calories; but a fresh bagel from Starbuck’s or Dunkin Donuts now has more than 400 calories.
To be honest, I believe restaurants only add healthy options on their menus because they believe there’s a market for them, not because they care about your health. A recent study published in the “American Journal of Preventive Medicine” found the majority of restaurant menu developers care more about sales, profits and demand than they do about health and nutrition. In fact, only 21 percent of the people surveyed noted health and nutrition as important at all.
It was hard for me to grasp that the so-called “healthy” options on menus may not be as good for you as they claim. The “Sinless Shakes” at Coldstone Creamery come with at least 490 calories, which isn’t bad for a shake, but they also come with 52 grams of sugar and a half-day worth of sodium. They look pretty trim next to Cold Stone’s other menu items but it doesn’t mean they’re healthy options.
What if there was a way to know the calorie intake of what we were eating? Placing nutrition information on the backs of menus or on a poster at fast food restaurants can only help us. People who don’t want to know how many calories they are consuming don’t have to read it. According to the New York Times, a city study last year found 30 percent of New Yorkers were consuming more than 1,000 calories at lunchtime. Officials say adding nutrition information to menus could prevent at least 150,000 New Yorkers from becoming obese and prevent at least 30,000 from developing diabetes over the next five years.
So answer me this: why not? Why not have calorie boards at Port City Java or Taco Bell? Sure, we can make an educated guess on our calorie intake, but without clear nutrition information, it’s difficult to make informed choices at chain restaurants. How could we know that ordering a Chicken Fiesta Burrito (350 calories) instead of a Grilled Stuffed Burrito (690 calories) at Taco Bell could save over 300 calories, or that a café mocha and pastry from Starbuck’s has more than 1,000 calories?
Adding easy access to nutrition information — not websites — is a simple and cheap addition to our campus that has the ability to make a huge difference.