The Energy Content of Restaurant Foods Without Stated Calorie Information

Abstract

National recommendations emphasize self‐monitoring for prevention and treatment of obesity; however, little information is available on the dietary energy contents of meals obtained from non‐chain restaurants, which account for ≈50% of restaurants in the US. Using bomb calorimetry, we determined gross energy of the 42 most popular meals from 34 randomly selected restaurants in the 9 most common ethnic restaurant categories in Massachusetts. Mean energy of the 158 meals was 1327 kcal (95% CI, 1248–1406 kcal), equivalent to 66% of typical daily energy requirements. All individual meal categories provided substantially more energy than required for weight maintenance, 95% of meals provided >;25% of typical daily energy requirements, and 7% provided >;100%. There was a significant effect of ethnic category on meal energy (P≤.(standardized to gross energy) than equivalent non‐chain entrees in the current study (P=.18), and meals contained 16% more energy than national food database information for equivalent meals (P=.0002). Non‐chain restaurants may be important contributors to the obesity epidemic because they provide large amounts of dietary energy that are incompatible with weight management, and at the same time do not typically report any nutrition information. Funding: USDA agreements 58–1950‐0–0014, 1950–51000‐072–02S. Grant Funding Source: USDA agreements with Tufts University

Eating Out Without Overeating

“…This reinforces the idea that the problem of obesity is eating at chain restaurants (most of which are fast-food establishments) when the problem is eating too many calories. This point is well made by Urban et al 3 in an article in this issue of the journal. They tested the energy content of meals from 9 common individual or small chain restaurants.…”

Higher densities of fast-food and full-service restaurants are not associated with obesity prevalence

“…The mean price for a meal in an FSR was $9.95 (http://www.ers.usda.gov); dividing this price by the state-level values of the total annual expenditure in FSRs gave the mean number of meals per year consumed at FSRs in each state. The energy obtained from a typical meal (entrée plus sides) in an FSR in the United States is w1327.0 kcal (5552 kJ) (44).…”

“…Moreover, in the absence of data to the contrary, we had to assume that the portion sizes and pricing at these 5 outlets were uniform across the 48 states. For FSRs, we used the energy content of a typical meal (entrée plus sides) based on a study in Boston that suggested a mean meal energy content of 1327 kcal (44). A more recent survey that included a more nationally representative sampling suggested a lower figure of 1205 kcal (47).…”

“…Again, however, meals differ in both their energy content and pricing. If we take the minimum meal price of $7.99 from http:// www.ers.usda.gov and the largest energy content per meal (Italian food: 1755 kcal/meal) (44), this provides a maximal estimate.…”

Factors Related to the Number of Fast Food Meals Obtained by College Meal Plan Students

“…A typical fast food meal contains more than 800 calories, 12 which for most adults exceeds 30% of their daily calorie needs (ie, if a person ate 3 times a day and required 1800 to 2000 calories a day, they would consume 400 to 600 extra calories because they did not adjust their later intake). 13 For example, a study of adolescents found that when they ate fast food, they did not compensate for the excess calories later in the day and had a net increase in calories, saturated fat, and sugar compared with days that they did not eat fast food meals. 14 Gerend 6 found that both male and female college students ordered fast food meals that were in excess of 900 calories when they ordered from an online menu.…”