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.