Carino’s Italian Grill is one of the many casual Italian dining options available to restaurant-goers in this country. And, like many national chains, their nutritional information is hard to find. Their web site only provides nutritional information about their low-fat menu. That’s a lot like GMC promoting their vehicles that get decent gas mileage, while conveniently forgetting about the Hummer that gets very poor mileage.
Companies can spin the message any way they want, but the way I see it, is that they need to do more to make their customers aware of what’s on the plate. What if restaurants listed their menu items by fat/calorie content rather than by food category or time of day? I think you’d see more people ordering healthier meals.
I’m not a big advocate of more government regulations, but unless the restaurant industry can develop a plan for open communication about nutrition facts, I think the government should get involved with setting minimum standards of communication. A good place to start would be to require all quick-serve and casual dining restaurants provide nutritional information when requested.
So, I’ve sent an email to Carino’s, kindly asking them to provide nutritional information for their complete menu, not just their low-fat menu. If (or when) that occurs, I’ll post the information here. Until then, here’s the nutritional information for Carino’s low-fat menu.
4 Comments
While I agree with your frustration in wanting to know what the nutritional value is in the menu items, I strongly disagree with the government’s intrusion into private business more than they already are.
If a restaurant chooses not to publish the nutritional values, this should be their choice, not the government’s. If people are that concerned, they should choose a restaurant that does publish it and write to the restaurant that doesn’t and voice their displeasure. Besides, savvy consumers know that something that lists a cream based sauce is going to be high in fat. Simply use common sense - don’t eat cream based, battered and fried items, stay away from the bread and butter and high fat salad dressing.
If you’re that concerned, stay home and cook your own food. You’ll know exactly what your getting!
@Beverly: I agree that the best way to know what you are eating is to stay home and cook it yourself. However, there are times when you can’t (or don’t want to) prepare a meal yourself. Being open and honest about nutritional value of menu items is a great customer service gesture for restaurants. We all need to do our part to promote a healthy lifestyle.
First and foremost, that starts with each person understanding the effects of their chosen meal on their bodies. But the restaurants preparing the meal can also play a role.
Thank you! I knew I couldn’t be the only one wanting this information from Johnny Carino’s (not to mention other restaurants)!! I completely agree that there are consumers that would like to know exactly what they are eating. I don’t think it’s as simple as knowing a dish with a cream based sauce is obviously less healthy. I often find that many entrees are very deceiving. I have ordered a grilled chicken sandwich (no cheese) from well-known restaurant thinking I was making a wiser choice, only to find out I could have eaten a hamburger for the same nutritional value! Consumers shouldn’t have to stay at home in order to enjoy a lighter meal! That just isn’t very realistic in today’s society. I agree that restaurants should be responsible for providing this information to consumers and why not support a healthier lifestyle??
They do need to provide nutritional value. A lot of times my husband and I will order two different meals and share. One of them is from the healthy menu and the other is from the rest of the menu. We still need to know the nutritional value of both. And that should include fiber counts which not all restaurants provide even on the healthy menu. Some people will order a higher calorie meal and just eat a portion but they do need to know the value of that meal in order to know how much of a portion is reasonable. Nutrition is not just eating off the low calorie things that the restaurant decides is healthy! Healthy for different people means different things!
“Diets” do not have to be the low carb or low fat kind. We look at the total picture and without that nutritional value, a decision cannot be made. Therefore the business loses out entirely.
We are not interested in the recipe, just the nutritional counts. And nutritional counts are not always the same depending on what the restaurant has to work with - a ball park figure is fine.
I have a life threatening issue with MSG so would be interested to see if it is in the dish. In the past I have even asked about that and was still served a meal with MSG and got deathly ill later.