Group says restaurants promote "extreme eating"

[Doondoo]

Many U.S. chain restaurants are promoting "extreme eating" with dishes that pack at least a day's worth of calories and fat, without giving customers facts about their orders, a consumer group said on Monday.

Displaying restaurant offerings including a cheese-laden chicken-and-pasta dish they dubbed "Angioplasta," officials at the Center for Science in the Public Interest said such dishes help fuel national epidemics of obesity and heart disease. They urged local, state and national governments to make restaurants list nutritional data on their menus.

Michael Jacobson, the group's executive director, took aim at "table-service" chain restaurants like Ruby Tuesday's and Uno Chicago Grill. Such places increasingly stuff their dishes with extra unhealthy ingredients, he said.

"What we're finding is that table-service restaurants have launched into a whole new era of extreme eating," Jacobson said. "If we're going to deal with the epidemic of obesity and the tremendous prevalence of heart attacks and strokes, we're going to have to do something about restaurant foods."



http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL67367420070226

[foo_bar]

1. in related video:

http://www.gofish.com/player.gfp?gfid=30-1017855

[Hippo_Tron]

5. LMAO, that made my day, I haven't seen that one in a long time

[Forkboy]

2. Well duh!

:crazy:

[greenman3610]

3. I've never been to an Advanced Cardiac Life Support conference

that didn't have a table full of greasy fried dough
as the only available refreshment.

Medical people are fucking hypocrites when
it comes to health.

[BlueManDude]

4. this is an area of individual responsibility

[Hippo_Tron]

6. It would help if they'd tell you what is in the dishes

[BlueManDude]

14. I agree with you there - and I'm not opposed to banning trans-fats

ot at least telling people that trans fats are being used.

still, many people gorge themselves and think that vascular disease will only happen to someone else.

[Hippo_Tron]

16. No doubt about that

And I'm not saying that obesity will suddenly go away if we start telling people what is in their food. Still it would be extremely helpful to not be eating something that is in fact 1500 calories when you assume it can't be anymore than 700 or 800.

[NorthernSpy]

7. in point of fact, age-adjusted incidence of heart disease has been declining for years...

... as has mortality due to heart disease. In other words, we're less likely to develop heart disease than we were in the good ole leaner days of yore, and we're also less likely to die of it. Michael Jacobson is just trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The man has got to be the worst concern troll around.

[WinkyDink]

8. Oh, brother, another lasagne-hating buttinski.

[Bridget Burke]

9. These are the same guys who said Tex Mex can be fattening.

Duh.

"We're going to have to do something about restaurant foods"? Many popular restaurants in Houston are known for huge portions--so how about dining elsewhere? Or ordering an appetizer instead of a full meal?

Sane dining is possible--even when you're eating Mexican food.

[WiseButAngrySara]

10. LOL! A real heart attack meal .. Have some "Angioplasta" ! ....n/t

[Divernan]

11. You don't have to clean your plate! Take 1/2 home for a second meal.

My partner and I get takeout Chinese once a week. I am full after one/third of one entree, and refrigerate the rest for two more meals later in the week. He eats 1/2 and has one more meal out of his order. And at some restaurants I get two appetizers instead of the entree w/ bread, salad and side dishes. Or if I'm being really bad, one entree and DESSERT! Creme brulee - surely invented by the devil to tempt me.

[NorthernSpy]

13. unfortunately, if portion sizes were cut, we couldn't do that anymore...

No more big servings = no more leftovers. If the CSPI had their way, we'd all be paying more money for less food -- and for food that we liked less well. All for little or no real improvement in our health.

And yet diet moralists continue to wonder why ordinary Americans mostly just tell them to fuck off...

[donco6]

12. All they want to do is make sure people know . . .

. . . that the single plate of alfredo has more calories than a grown man needs in an entire day.

People tend to have the idea that, if it fits on a plate, it's not too much food.

[Beelzebud]

15. Wait I thought there was no slipperly slope, and they'd stop with cigarettes?

America: Former Land of the Free.

[Kelly Rupert]

17. They're not trying to ban anything.

They're just trying to let people know the caloric content of what they're eating, so they can make more-informed decisions.

[Marie26]

18. They at least need some labels

If they don't want to put it on the menu, that's fine, but that information needs to be available to customers. I looked up the calories from a dish at Ruby Tuesday's & just about died. If people knew that a restaurant entree had 2000+ calories, for example, they'd be more likely to make healthier choices.