Even though the Food and Drug Administration has once again decided to delay enforcement of a new rule requiring restaurant chains and others to include calorie information on their menus, some companies have decided to just go ahead with displaying this information. [More]
menus
Restaurants Sorting Out Weird Calorie Issues Before Menu Rules Go Into Effect
By 1.9.17 — Updated: 5.3.17
When your salad comes with dressing and croutons, should a menu board calorie count include those toppings? Does a restaurant have to calculate and post the calories in a seasonal item like an eggnog latte? Restaurants and vending machine operators only have a few months to figure this out before the Food and Drug Administration’s calorie-count requirement becomes mandatory. [More]
Does Knowing The Calorie Count Change What Food You Decide To Order Online?
By 6.28.16
When the Food and Drug Administration’s new calorie labeling rules go into effect next year, consumers will not only see calorie counts on menu boards in stores, but in online menus as well. But will coming face-to-face with your caloric decisions change what you order when you order food online? [More]
Subway Posting Calorie Counts On Menus Nationwide Ahead Of Final Federal Regulations
By 4.5.16
It seems someone has gotten a little bit impatient: instead of waiting for federal regulations requiring chain restaurants and other businesses to post calorie counts on menus and displays to finally go into effect, Subway is going to go ahead and slap those numbers on its menu boards nationwide now. [More]
Government Pushes Back Deadline For Restaurant Menu Labeling Again
By 3.29.16
A law requiring calorie counts to be posted for most food items that people eat outside of their homes was part of the Affordable Care Act, which passed in 2010. Resistance from different parts of the food industry means that its implementation kept getting pushed back. Now, the newest delay pushes the deadline into 2017, and the calorie counts would be implemented under the next president. [More]
DNA Analysis Shows Legendary Explorers Club Dinner Didn’t Actually Include Woolly Mammoth Or Giant Sloth
By 2.3.16
In the days before DNA testing and the Internet, it was possible to get away with telling people you’re serving them prehistoric animals for dinner. Not so much now, as scientific research has shown that a legendary Explorers Club dinner from 1951 that offered “prehistoric meats” didn’t really serve members giant sloth, as the menu had it, or woolly mammoth, as legend had it. [More]
NYC’s Salt Warning Labels Set To Debut At Chain Restaurants This Week
By 11.30.15
Menus at New York City’s chain eateries will be getting a makeover this week, as the city’s rule requiring warning labels for particularly salty menu items goes into effect. [More]
McRib Returning, But Only To 55% Of U.S. McDonald’s
By 9.14.15
Last November, the McRib returned in all its glory to nearly three-quarters of McDonald’s U.S. locations. This year, however, the (real) meat patty with (fake) ribs will be a bit harder to find, as many franchisees have decided to forgo the limited-time item. [More]
Salt Labels Could Appear Next To Menu Items In NYC’s Chain Restaurants As Soon As December
By 7.30.15
It’s been a little more than a month since New York City’s Department of Health unveiled a proposal that would require all chain restaurants to add a salt shaker symbol (or something similar) on the menu next to items that contain more than the recommended daily limit of 2,300 milligrams of sodium, or about 1 teaspoon of salt. Though there’s been plenty of pushback, that proposal could become the law of the land as soon as December. [More]
FDA Giving Businesses Another Year To Comply With Rules Requiring Calorie Counts On Menus
By 7.9.15
Restaurants and other businesses that were living under a deadline to include calorie counts on menus and displays will get a bit of wiggle room to comply with the rule passed by the Food and Drug Administration last fall. The agency now says food purveyors will have another year to get their acts together, extending the previous deadline from Dec. 1, 2015 to Dec. 1, 2016. [More]
NYC May Become First U.S. City To Require High-Sodium Warning Labels At Chain Restaurants
By 6.10.15
The health war wages on in New York City, where the ghost of the failed ban on large sodas is said to still haunt city hall, moaning the name of a certain former mayor. This time, city officials are taking on sodium, proposing a requirement that chain restaurants put a label on menu items that are high in salt. [More]
McDonald’s Confirms Testing Of All-Day Breakfast In San Diego Area
By 3.30.15
Following earlier unconfirmed reports that it would be trying out all-day breakfast, McDonald’s has confirmed the test. [More]
Tourists: Read The Menu Before Ordering So You Won’t Need To Call The Police Over A Big Bill
By 8.1.14
When that gelato is more expensive than you think it should be, who you gonna call? Well, no one, or at least you shouldn’t if you failed to read the menu before ordering it. After all, numbers are written in a language everyone can understand, even if you don’t speak the language. [More]
The Pasta Crapresse At This Restaurant Is Surprisingly Tasty
By 1.27.14
Don’t let the menu at this New York state restaurant fool you — the pasta crapresse does not live up to its name. [More]
Restaurant Receipts Now Tell You What You Should Have Eaten Instead
By 12.2.13
Do you have that one friend who, after hearing what you ordered at a restaurant, always manages to find a way to say something like, “I would have gotten the dressing on the side and saved 100 calories”? Well now you can do away with those so-called friends, because a new generation of restaurant receipts has replaced them. [More]
Restaurants May Scan Fish DNA To Verify Identities
By 11.28.11
Due to deceptive labeling practices, diners can’t be sure the fish they eat at restaurants are what they’re identified as on menus. Mistakes and trickery at various levels of the supply chain lead to cheap fish often being mislabeled as more expensive varieties. Now restaurants around the world are trying to rebuild confidence by using DNA tests to certify their fish labeling. [More]
Only In LA: A Bottled Water Menu
By 8.31.11
In a land where image is everything, of course there’s a fancy restaurant with a bottled water menu. Yes, I’m looking at you Los Angeles, combination chimera, sphinx, harlot, and now, purveyor of “Vichy Catalán sparkling (1000ml), Spain, $12. Ancient water with an astonishing 3,052 milligrams per litre of Total Dissolved…” More like TDBS! [More]
Starbucks' Prices Going Up
By 9.27.10
Citing a 13-year high in the price of its coffee beans, plus “significant volatility” in other ingredients like dairy, Starbucks last week said it plans to raise prices on certain “labor-intensive and larger-sized” beverages. The small tall coffee will remain at its current price for now, says the company. I wonder if those truncated menus the company introduced a few weeks ago were really about hiding the least expensive option from consumers, especially since it isn’t being included in the price hike? [More]
