Be Very Careful With Nutritional Guides

When I was a little girl of five or six years of age I can remember playing a little game with my dad every Sunday night on our drive home from church.  I would take a church bulletin and roll it up into a "horn" and whisper into his ear, "Dairy Queen, Dairy Queen, This is your conscience bothering you.  You want Dairy Queen and a Peanut Buster Parfait!"  Every Sunday night I would do my same little chant and like magic he would turn into the Dairy Queen on our way home from church.  As a child this was one of the highlights of my week, and as an adult it is a very fond memory that I have with my family.

Well, I had an interesting experience yesterday on our way home from the lake house and I believe it is worth sharing.  My son and daughter-in-law and our two grandchildren were following us home and we decided to mke a pit stop at the Dairy Queen.  Everyone had ideas of what delightful ice cream treat that they would eat, but I really had not decided one way or the other until we pulled into the parking lot. 
 
I had about 205 calories left out of my 1400 calorie daily allotment and I remembered that you could order a Sugar Free Dilly Bar for under 200 calories.  I asked the server at the counter if they had any Dilly Bars in the Sugar Free variety and she said she thought they did.  She walked to the cooler in the back and returned with a box of them.  I looked at the nutritional guide and saw one had 190 calories.  I thought to myself, "Okay that would put me right where I need to be, I will continue to make good food choices on my journey to a new me and order one."  But the next thing out of the server's mouth threw me a curve ball.  She said "Honey if you want the nutritional values of any item on our menu I have a brochure with all of that information in the office, let me go get it for you."  She returned a minute later with a nice brochure that had everything from grilled hamburgers, foot long chili dogs, onion rings, and french fries, but the items that I was most interested in were the dairy treats,.  I saw the ice cream cones, ice cream sundaes, milk shakes, blizzards and everything in between.  I thought to myself, "If I can find something on this list that is 200 or less I would rather order one of the fresh ice cream products."  And here is where the train came off the track.

I ran my finger down the list and found that a medium cone (un-dipped) was 199 calories.  Wow!  This was great!  I could get a substantial ice cream and the cone without going over my allocated calorie count!  My husband ordered a large hot fudge sundae, and my son and his family placed their orders.  It was only after I was about half way through devouring my treat that I picked up the nutritional guide again to check out other items.  It was there to my horror that I saw my mistake!  The first column that read 199 calories was actually 199 GRAMS !!!  The next column over read 330 calories!! Oh No Say It Ain't So!!!  But is was right there in black and white.  I had been duped into thinking that I could get an oh-so-delicious Medium Ice Cream Cone for less than 200 calories!! Boy was I aggravated with myself. 

It was on our drive home that I really stopped to think about my mistake.  Was it a mistake?  Was I the only person in the world who had innocently mistaken the "grams" for the "calories"?  In my heart of hearts I believe that this is a clever way for Dairy Queen and other restaurants to "HIDE" their nutritional values when being mandated to provide a nutritional guide to the public.   Check out the new legistation that passed in '2010 by President Obama.

Calorie Data to Be Posted at Most Chains

 By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

Published: March 23, 2010

Buried deep in the health care legislation that President Obama signed on Tuesday is a new requirement that will affect any American who walks into a McDonald’s, Starbucks or Burger King. Every big restaurant chain in the nation will now be required to put calorie information on their menus and drive-through signs

In other words, as soon as 2011 it will be impossible to chomp down on a Big Mac without knowing that it contains over 500 calories, more than a quarter of the Agriculture Department’s 2,000-calorie daily guideline.

The legislation also requires labels on food items in vending machines, meaning that anybody tempted by a king-size Snickers bar will know up front that it packs 440 calories.  The measure is intended to create a national policy modeled on a requirement that has already taken effect in New York City and was to go into effect in 2011 in places like California and Oregon. The new federal law requires restaurant chains with 20 or more outlets to disclose calorie counts on their food items and supply information on how many calories a healthy person should eat in a day.

To read the entire article please visit   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/business/24menu.html

So next time I have a  question about what the nutritional values are for the foods that I am eating, I will be more careful of the information provided to me, after all it is my journey to a new me that I am focused on not the "grams" for the foods that I am eating that interests me most. 
One of the safest ways to get your nutritional values and calorie counts is by using www.myfitnesspal.com during my journey to a new me I have found this tool to be both easy to use and very reliable too!  So for all of you out there on your own journey b very careful of the distracting signs and nutritional guides along the way.  They may just get you off in the wrong direction!