How Accurate Are Calorie Listings On Restaurant Menus?

With a growing emphasis on healthy eating, more restaurants have been posting the calories next to some items on their menus. It's a healthy trend, if the calorie counts are correct.

But a new study suggests they aren't always accurate, often understating the number of calories in an item. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that while stated calories on restaurant menus and websites were accurate on average, 19 percent of individual samples differed from laboratory measurements by more than 100 calories and lower calorie foods tended to contain more than listed.

The study compared laboratory measurements of calories in 269 food items with the restaurants’ stated calories. Researchers randomly collected their samples from national fast-food restaurants and sit-down chain restaurants in Boston, Indianapolis and Little Rock, AR.

Essentially accurate

“On average, the food items measured ten calories higher than the restaurants’ stated calories. That’s essentially accurate,” said senior author Susan B. Roberts. “However, 19 percent of food items contained at least 100 calories more than listed, which suggests calories for individual foods can be unreliable. One item contained 1000 calories more than listed.”

More troubling For example, based on the data, the researchers were able to predict a sit-down restaurant item listed as approximately 300 calories, and therefore potentially suitable for weight loss or prevention of weight gain, could contain approximately 90 calories more than listed.

Additionally, items often viewed as healthier from both sit-down and fast food restaurants, such as salads and soups, tended to have more unreliable calorie listings.

Low calorie foods have most discrepancies

“We were pleased to see that average calorie listings are accurate,” says Roberts, “but we think it is very important that lower calorie foods not contain more calories than listed because such foods are purchased by people trying to control their weight. They will find that harder to do if they are eating more than they think.”

While fast food has a reputation for having a lot of calories, the researchers found that when fast food restaurants posted calorie information, it tended to be more reliable that data from sit-down restaurants.

Roberts says that's likely because of the precision with which fast food is prepared. There is almost no deviation from the recipe, whereas chefs in a sit-down restaurant tend to improvise with ingredients from time to time.