Displaying restaurant offerings including a cheese-laden
chicken-and-pasta dish they dubbed "Angioplasta," officials at the Center
for Science in the Public Interest said such dishes help fuel national
epidemics of obesity and heart disease.
They urged local, state and national governments to make restaurants
list nutritional data on their menus.
Michael Jacobson, the group's executive director, took aim at
"table-service" chain restaurants like Ruby Tuesday's and Uno Chicago
Grill. Such places increasingly stuff their dishes with extra unhealthy
ingredients, he said.
"What we're finding is that table-service restaurants have launched
into a whole new era of extreme eating," Jacobson said. "If we're going to
deal with the epidemic of obesity and the tremendous prevalence of heart
attacks and strokes, we're going to have to do something about restaurant
foods."
Jacobson's group often criticizes at a variety of restaurant foods.
Some critics deride the group as self-appointed food police.
Jacobson said restaurants have had more than enough time to voluntarily
provide nutritional data such as calorie, fat and salt content but many do
not.
"Restaurants have every right to make these foods and you have every
right to eat them," Jacobson said. "But I think at the very least these
restaurants should give consumers the information that would enable them
to make some decent eating choices."
