Sizing up Big Macs. (On the Web: www.cspinet.org).

When most of us pick up a packaged food at the grocery store, we almost instinctively read its Nutrition Facts label. In clear print, the label tells us how much of a day's worth of calories, fat, sodium, and other nutrients a serving of the food contains. Marvelous as those labels are, they aren't on enough foods.

One glaring absence is on packages of flesh meat, one of the biggest sources of saturated fat in the American diet. Nutrition Facts labels could guide people to leaner ground beef and poultry, steaks, and chops. A fatty steak could easily have four times as much fat as a lean steak, but without labels, you'd never know it.

Restaurants are an even bigger omission. Studies show that when people eat out--which they are doing more frequently--they eat more fat, less fiber, and fewer vitamins and minerals than when they prepare food at home. From the Aussie Cheese Fries at Outback Steakhouse to the Super Big Gulps at 7-Eleven to the Classic Triple Cheeseburgers at Wendy's, restaurants and cafeterias provide Americans with about a third of their calories. And most do it without disclosing even a single nutrition fact. That's because the restaurant industry convinced Congress to exempt its food from the 1990 Nutrition Labeling and Education Act.

Obviously, menus don't have the space for a full set of numbers for every item. But why couldn't they list calories, fat, and sodium? And fast-food chains could easily disclose calories, the nutrition fact people most want and (given rising obesity rates) one of the facts they most need. Surely there's room on the menu board at McDonald's for:

BIG MAC 590 CALORIES $2.39

That simple measure would allow diners to take nutrition into account when they order. At Starbucks, for example, you might go for a Grande Skim Latte (160 calories) instead of a Venti White Chocolate Mocha (600 calories). At McDonald's, instead of blowing more than 600 calories on a McFlurry, you might settle for a 150-calorie Ice Cream Cone. And at a steakhouse like Outback, the 1,280 calories, 94 grams of fat, and 620 milligrams of sodium in a prime rib might tempt you to switch to a sirloin steak (410 calories, 18 grams of fat, and 470 mg of sodium).

The bottom line: Nutrition information on menus moves us one step closer to smaller waistlines and healthier hearts.

And why stop at chain restaurants? Vending machines could also disclose calories, right next to the price of each beverage, candy bar, or bag of chips.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, publisher of Nutrition Action Healthletter, is urging Congress and state and local legislatures to pass laws requiring nutrition labeling at chain restaurants and on vending machines. Some large chains already provide fat, calories, and other numbers for their customers. But in most cases, it's on Web sites or in hard-to-find pamphlets. If those numbers were right on the menu or menu board, people could easily see them.

I urge you to write letters to your local newspapers, encouraging your city or state to require nutrition information on the menus of fast-food and other chain restaurants and on vending machines. To help push for a national requirement, go to www.cspinet.org and click on "E-mail Congress & Policymakers."

Michael F. Jacobson D.
Executive Director V
Center for Science in the Public Interest