Smart Eating Out: The Prelude

I’ve been trying to get started on a series of posts about making smart decisions when eating out for a while now, but for some reason I was suffering from writer’s block. That is until I came across this article on WebMD. The article summarizes a study performed by Pierre Chandon, Ph.D. and Brian Wansink, Ph.D. and published in October’s edition of the Journal of Consumer Research.

The study shows that people tend to underestimate the calories in fast-food items that they consider relatively healthy. In their first experiment, they asked diners eating a sandwich, soft drink, and a side order from Subway or from McDonald’s how many calories they thought those meals contained. They discovered that although the meals contained the same number of calories, the Subway diners thought their meal had 151 calories less than it actually had — a huge 21% underestimation.

In their second experiment they gave students a coupon for a 12-inch Italian BMT sandwich, or a McDonald’s Big Mac. They discovered that the Subway diners bought into Subway’s healthy branding and seemed to believe that the BMT sandwich was better for them, when in reality the BMT boasts a massive 900 calories, compared to the Big Mac’s 600. This misconception made the Subway diners much more likely to order higher calorie sides, compounding the problem even further.

In their final experiment they produced menus for two completely fictitious restaurants — they both offered exactly the same food, but one menu presented the food as being healthy. Students estimated that the calorie counts of the meals offered at the healthier restaurant were lower than the other restaurant’s, although, when challenged they weren’t quite so sure about that.

So, as you can see, you can’t trust a restaurant’s branding because you can get unhealthy and healthy options anywhere. Yes, you can even find healthy options at McDonald’s! So how do you know which are the healthy options, and which aren’t? By studying the nutrition information on the companies websites … or by hanging around here for a while and letting me do that hard work for you.