Customer Reviews

Restaurant Confidential: The Shocking Truth about What You're Really Eating When You're Eating Out

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Without mentioning brand names, did you know that:
* a popular fabulous smelling cinnamon bun found in shopping malls is 670 calories and 34 grams of fat, 14 of them saturated? (p. 261)
* a typical restaurant serving of French toast is fried in shortening, and contains 800 calories with 26 grams of fat, 8 of them saturated? (p. 71)
* a typical order of moussaka in a Greek restaurant is 830 calories with 48 grams of fat, 25 of them saturated? (p. 184)

Since restaurant-, fast-, and mall food doesn't come with nutritional labels, "Restaurant Confidential" (RC) provides some of the label information for you: calories, total fat, saturated fat, (and in most cases trans fat and sodium). Rather than rely on the restaurant-provided data, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) had the food laboratory analyzed. Categories examined are breakfast foods, popular ethnic cuisines (Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Greek), other popular restaurant choices (pizzerias, sandwich shops, seafood, steakhouses, dinner houses, family style restaurants), fast food, mall food, movie theater snacks, and beverages. Missing from the list is Indian food, Thai food, and a popular ice cream establishment with 31 flavors.

Upon reading page after page of dietary analysis, I was shocked. I knew these foods were high in calories and fat, but despite my nutrition degree, I had no idea how high. Given that a CSPI study of 203 dietitians found they underestimated caloric content of popular meals by 37% and fat content by 49% (study described on p. 8) it's likely that most readers will be in for a whopping surprise.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who eats out at or takes their children to the types of restaurants listed above. (BTW, there are 2 pages of suggestions on eating out with children.) RC helps you navigate through restaurant menus dish-by-dish, suggesting how to order a dish to make it lower in fat, or whether it's best to avoid that selection entirely. And yes, some of the comments are a bit sarcastic, but I found the effect humorous rather than annoying. Each section provides a reminder of the suggested total fat grams, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium for a 2000 calorie diet, which assumes the reader is an average size adult following the RDA recommendation to consume up to 30% of calories as fat. If your caloric and fat gram goals differ, you might want to write those numbers on your copy of this book and take it with you when you eat out. Remember to keep your own eating patterns in mind when using this book. I don't know anyone who eats an entire 1620 calorie order of Kung Pao chicken by oneself! If "Restaurant Confidential" had been out when I did nutritional counseling, I would have recommended a copy to all my clients who frequently ate out.

I travel on business a lot - so I eat out a lot. Since you are working during the day and you have to tend to email and return calls at night, eating out becomes your entertainment. And since it is on the expense account, you deserve a good meal. Maybe a great meal. Now I know just exactly why, in spite of "watching what I eat", I was gaining so much weight. When my doctor told me my cholesterol numbers, I figured I had better get serious about what I am eating. And what I read in this book left me alternately laughing and crying. Considering what I and my peers eat on a regular basis, it is a wonder more of us aren't just dropping dead in the steet. Take my favorite "healthy" breakfast, the Belgian waffle (not those cholesterol laden eggs I wanted so much) - Of course with just a bit of butter and ham, not bacon - ONLY 1000 calories and more fat than the steak I had the night before, not to mention 2000 mg of sodium and cholesterol to literally die for. And if we go out to lunch as a bunch, that new cheese fries with ranch dressing is a mere 3000 calories! Yes, I shared it, but that means I only added 1000 calories and a full day's fat to the full meal I also ate. BUT, the good news is that you can live in restaurants for weeks at a time, not shunning your friends and co-workers, not slinking off to have some carrot sticks and bottled water, not ordering just the steamed broccoli and a diet coke - you can eat well and fully and the secrets are in this book. You'll see old cullinary friends in a new light - and maybe learn some new food ordering habits that could literally save your life. I am strongly recommending this book to anyone who will listen.

In "Restaurant Confidential," nothing is sacred. The restaurant foods you love do not love you.

It might be said Michael Jacobson is taking the fun out of eating. Maybe so, but he is introducing honesty. Just because waffles seem like a good ol' traditional meal does not mean it is good for you.

Eat out? I do, as often as I can. My budget limits me to the big chains, not the speciality restaurants. As I examine the different chains' offerings, as described by Jacobson, I realize my diet is not as healthy as I once believed. I'm not referring to the obvious diet killers: McDonald's and Burger King, but to Olive Garden and other well-known places to dine.

He compares, for example, how some waffles are worse than a big steak. He hardly is advocating that a steak is healthy, but it showing how fatty, how sugary basic breakfast food can be.

He goes dish by typical dish, analyzing the good and bad, and sums up in a line or two if that dish is what you should be eating.

It is a saddening expose. It is a free country, so choose what you will eat, but with this book, you can choose more wisely, and think about the big picture of your diet more accurately.

I fully recommend "Restaurant Confidential" by Michael F. Jacobson. With all of this writing, I'm hungry now.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

Okay, so I've been subscribing to Nutrition Action newsletter for several years, and this is a compilation of all those "Food Police" alerts I've already seen and agreed with. If you haven't seen this info before, you really, really should. Restaurants today can take a veggie that's nothing but good for you, deep-fry it, pour cheese on it, serve it with ranch dressing on the side, and basically introduce you to the world of cardio-care and expensive pharmaceuticals. WAKE UP! If you've read "Fat Land," by Greg Critser (or "Fast Food Nation" or "Mad Cowboy"), you already know that this isn't being done for your benefit; it's happening because there's so much beef and dairy being produced in this country that new ways have to be found every day to get you to eat it, seemingly at bargain prices. Middle age spread and weight-creep are not normal parts of getting older; it's your diet catching up with you as you slow down. This book shows you the nutritional breakdown of all those tempting dishes and gives you the numbers you need to make sane, reasonable choices when your stomach growls and you grab the car keys. Buy the book--it's cheaper than upsizing your wardrobe!

If I knew before that the content of restaurant food was so awful, I would have made some better choices in the past. This book is a wonderful compilation of restarurant foods and what is both good and bad about them. Yes there are alot of bad foods out there, but the book also goes into some of the better choices when eating out. I will research now before I go out.

While reading this book I was surprised at how many foods in restaurants that I thought were "good" or "healthy" were not as they seemed. I felt the authors focused a lot on saturated fats (trans fats) more than any other nutrient. But they certainly brought to my attention the sodium content in my favorite restaurant dishes were quite high. Good menu suggestions for each type of cuisine, substitutions are given to help make your favorite dish just a little lighter, and they let you know what you need to avoid when ordering from a menu. I have found this book very helpful with my dining out dieting.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is known for not only their great exposes and fighting for the public, but also their sharp, sarcastic tone. This book gets a little heavy on the snippy-ness. At some point, you just want the info and get tired of wading through the smart-alec tone.

That said, this book has changed the way we eat out. TOTALLY. It is worth every penny -- we checked it out from the library but have bought our own copy. Did you know that sirlon steak and eggs are FAR BETTER for you than french toast? I sure didn't!

The only other comment I have is that they put alot of emphasis on saturated fat grams. It gets confusing because they say things like "this is as bad for your heart as three big Macs!" And you have to translate that as meaning "this has the same saturated fat as three Big Macs."

To be honest, I have very low cholesterol but I need to lose weight. So I don't care about fat, I care about calories. All the tremendous focus on this book on fat grams was a lot less useful to me personally. Since fat is satisfying both physically and psychologically, I find it helpful to make sure I eat enough of it (while keeping my calories down) because otherwise I feel too deprived and then binge!

Cheese fries and ranch dressing 3,010 calories. The recommended caloric intake for a person is 2,000 to 2,500 calories per day. Loved this book and how it helped me get down to the FACTS about eating out with strategies on what is best to eat. Found interesting facts about different ethic food and it looks like Greek is a good way to go.

Great tool for eating out - gives you the big picture and helps you make better eating out choices!

Topping off every single list in this book of things you should never, ever eat: cheese fries with ranch dressing. Is this a popular combo? I'd never in my life heard of cheese fries paired with ranch dressing, but the authors of this book are obsessed with it. I feel self righteous knowing I never knew it existed. I must be a fatty for a whole different reason.

Despite the book's chiding, humorless tone, it was useful and often surprising to see how horrible the authors believe restaurant food is. I think though, that with a tiny amount of common sense, we'd all manage to muddle through menus without always having to order the steamed fish with a side of steamed vegetables and a cool, tasty glass of water.

Note: I'd be more impressed if the authors had included photos of themselves.