'Would a 1,600 calorie salad put you off?' blog discussion 9 August 2010 at 11:19AM in Martin's blogs & appearances & MoneySavingExpert in the news 69 replies 7.3K views

Former_MSE_Penelope

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Would a 1,600 calorie salad put you off?" Blog.

Please click reply to discuss below.

starjumper

I'd eat the salad, but only if that was the only thing with calories I'd be having that day!

Was it a nice salad Martin?

kyrasulls

Placing calorific information on restaurant menus won't stop people from eating out - it will just help them to make informed choices when they do so. It might even encourage those who currently avoid eating out altogether because information on things like saturated fat, salt, sugar, wheat and other allergens can be so haphazard.

jm2k

we really should have information about the calories and content of all food we buy (just as in processed food). I for one would NEVER have expected such a high calorie content in a salad, which leads to wonder exactly how many cals are in all the other types of food we sit down to eat in restaurants. why is the UK not supporting us in providing us such basic nutritional information?

pinkclouds

starjumper wrote: »

I'd eat the salad, but only if that was the only thing with calories I'd be having that day!

Ditto. If I really wanted to eat it, then I would - but I'd eat very little of anything else that day (and possibly the day after too). It's all about balance.

I think nutritional information is an empowering thing and should be adopted over here.

McBirdie

I would be put off the salad since I'm currently trying to cut down a bit, but I would be very inclined to re-visit a restaurant that told me the nutritional information. I would really appreciate it--in fact, I get quite stroppy when I feel I'm being swindled nutritionally. I was angry enough to send an email to Tesco when I discovered that the nutritional information for a lovely looking pasta salad they had was for a single tablespoon.

They said it was because people often like to "share" their single portion sized tubs of pasta salad, therefore that information would be helpful to those who were just going to try a bite. I haven't bought a salad from them since.

sharond101

I'd like to know what the salad consisted of?

Davewils

If you feel guilty eating something then thats a personal problem, not something a resteraunt needs to worry about.

Anyone who is concerned with what they eat is most likely going to abe an adult, capable of making decisions. If you see that a food item is 1500 calories and you decide to order it, that's your choice. But you should never feel bad about doing so.

If you feel bad about it, dont order it, it's pretty simple.

Like those people that say "oh i cant eat chips" then pick half of yours off your plate! Get some self control people!

I'm all for putting calories on a menu. If you have some kind of emotional connection between the number of calories you take in and whether or not to order something, you need to look at yourself more than the menu!

fixx

It wouldn't stop me eating out - I'd do it just as often, but it would change what I ate in a restaurant. And as a poster above said, I'd be more likely to visit (and revisit) a restaurant who gave me the information - I'd feel much more confident eating there, as I knew what I was eating!

Over the long term surely it would encourage restaurants to create more new healthy and tasty dishes for the menu - even better for consumers.

ScarletBea

Would a 1,600 calorie salad put you off?

:eek: a 1,600 meal would put me off!!!

casper_g

Putting nutritional information on the menu would be easy for a big chain restaurant where the dishes are standard across several places and stay on the menu for a long time. For a local restaurant where the chef created dishes regularly, perhaps based on the availability of fresh ingredients in the market etc, this could be very difficult. It could require pretty fundamental changes in the way you'd do things in the kitchen, surely?

As an example, say the chef is making celery soup and the veg are more strongly flavoured than they were last time, so he wants to add a bit of extra salt to balance out the flavour. He used to just add a bit at a time until the flavour was right, but in future will he have to weight the salt out precisely, little by little, keeping a note of how much he's put in so far, then get all the menus back in from the dining room, throw them away and replace them with ones which show the new sodium levels?