ALBANY, N.Y. - Restaurants,
under fire from health advocates for too-big servings and not enough detail on
nutrition, are fighting back.
The National Restaurant Association is building a Web site that will provide
a hefty list of healthy meals and restaurants across the country where they can
be found.
While the Healthy Dining Finder site isn't as upfront as the onsite brochures
and posters that health experts have called for, it is a step in the right
direction, said Christine Gerbstadt, a nutritionist with the American Dietetic
Association.
The Web site is a way to discreetly court dieters willing to do research
without offending others who may not want to be confronted with shockingly high
calorie counts.
"It's a happy medium," said Sue Hensley, spokeswoman for the National
Restaurant Association.
Arming diners with nutritional information is especially critical now, with
Americans eating out more than ever before, Gerbstadt said. "People need to know
what they're consuming," she said.
Tricia Bliss, a petite 35-year-old, always logs onto the Internet to check
nutritional information before going to lunch with co-workers.
If their chosen restaurants don't have anything she can eat, she'll persuade
her friends to go elsewhere.
That's just the type of customer the Healthy Dining Finder -
http://www.healthydiningfinder.com/ is intended to reach.
The site is collecting nutritional information on the four to 10 healthiest
dishes at restaurants in a community. Users can punch in their town or ZIP code
and search for restaurants by cuisine or price range. It is already available
for preview, but a formal launch with more than 10,000 restaurant listings is
scheduled for January.
"It's going to be the Grand Central of nutritional information," said Erica
Bohm of Healthy Dining, the company that developed the site with the restaurant
association.
Their hope is to dispel the notion that dieters must stay at home or leave
their diets at the door.
"When people go on a diet, they think 'Oh, my God, I'll never be able to eat
out again,'" said Netty Levine, a nutritionist at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in
Los Angeles.
But with some help, Levine said, people can find ways to stick to their diets
wherever they go. It's a matter of doing a little research and asking servers
the right questions. (Is the spinach sauteed in oil? Is the sea bass breaded?)
The Healthy Dining Finder will make that work easier, although Levine
cautions that online calorie counts might not always be accurate. Two plates of
chicken parmigiana, even from the same restaurant, can vary greatly.
The Web site begs the question: Why not post the information in the
restaurants or on menus?
"It's sort of sneaky that they do it online but not in the store," said
Elizabeth Picker, a 19-year-old Albany resident. "When people go out, it's
usually a spur-of-the-moment thing, and they aren't going to be able to go
online."
Some cafes are more upfront about what they serve. At Au Bon Pain bakeries,
computer kiosks calculate calories and other details for sandwiches and
pastries, and Applebee's uses the Weight Watchers point system on its menu.
Subway boasts of its sandwiches' nutritional value, even printing the
information on its napkins.
"If it's a fine dining restaurant, there's not going to be a poster. The type
of restaurant is going to drive how the information is made available," Hensley
said.
