Restaurant meals ‐ almost a full day's worth of calories, fats and sodium

Abstract

The objective was to systematically analyze the nutritional profile (calories, fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sodium and cholesterol) of meals from chain sit‐down/family style restaurants. Using the “U of T Restaurant Database”, the nutritional profile of 3507 meals from 19 restaurants was calculated and analyzed. This included all potential meal combinations from restaurants that provided nutrition information online and had 10 or more locations nationally. On average, breakfast, lunch and dinner meals contained: 1129 calories (56% of the average daily 2000 calorie recommendation), 151% of the amount of sodium an adult should consume in a single day (2263 mg), 89% of the recommended daily fat intake level (58 g), 83% of the recommended daily saturated and trans fat intake level (16 g saturated fat and 0.6 g trans fat) and 60% of the daily value for cholesterol (179 mg). More than 80% of meals exceeded the daily recommended intake level for sodium (1500mg). Only 1% of meals had less than 600 mg of sodium, the “healthy level” for meals, according to the FDA. Meals identified by the restaurants as being “healthy” contained on average 474 calories, 13 g of fat (20% DV), 3 g of saturated fat (17% DV) and 752 mg of sodium (50% AI). These data demonstrate that addressing the nutritional profile of restaurant meals should be a major public health priority.Grant Funding Source: MS: CIHR/PICDP Fellowship, Ontario Graduate Scholarship, ML: U of T McHenry Grant, Canadian Stroke Network