An advocacy group has been giving out awards for the past six years to restaurants that have excessively large portions and that use ingredients that have been deemed to be unhealthy. The “Xtreme Eating Awards” are given out annually and among the winners for 2013 are some of the country’s most popular restaurants such as the International House of Pancakes and the Cheesecake Factory.
The list, published on cspinet.org rates menu items in restaurants for their calorie count, fat, sugar as well as sodium. The findings are startling. A single meal such as the Bistro Shrimp Pasta from Cheesecake Factory easily exceeds the recommended calorie intake from the Department of Agriculture in the U.S. for the entire day. Restaurants even have fruit drinks that look to be healthy but are extremely high in calories and full of sugar.
Over 96% of chain restaurants in the U.S. serve meals that are sized in excess of the recommendations set forth by the USDA for sodium and fat daily intake. The findings stand in contrast to eating habits that are changing of many people in the U.S. who are now more conscious of their health and who choose to eat a better diet and less at each sitting.
Tests in the past have shown displaying a meal’s calorie count has made a difference in what a consumer chooses to eat. Researchers have also found that if such information is received by people prior to making their purchases, often times they tend to order less or finish their plate with more left than if they had not been informed.
