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Fast food restaurants for some time have posted calorie contents on their burgers and fries so you know what you're eating and can make good decisions.  But now experts are saying that nutrition guidelines are needed for full-service restaurants, as well. For example, did you know that Outback slathers your steak with butter before grilling it?   Food prepared away from home is typically higher in calories and lower in nutrition than food prepared at home, but it now makes up more than one-third of all calories purchased in the United States, according to newswise.com.  Now we can see why. "Consumers tend to view full-service restaurants as providing healthier, higher quality food than fast-food restaurants, but some studies have found much higher calorie, fat, and sodium levels in food at full-service restaurants," the Website reports. Nutrition information provided at full-service restaurants has lagged behind fast-food restaurants. “The need to educate custome...

It's pretty interesting.  Why do people who normally eat fruits and vegetables, and chicken and fish, when they do eat meat, devour french fries and hot fudge sundaes when they go out to fast food restaurants? Stephanie Clifford at The New York Times reports that " American consumers, even otherwise healthy ones, keep choosing caloric indulgences rather than healthy foods at fast-food restaurants." Restaurants have added salads and fruit and other healthier foods for some time.  But, as Clifford notes, "i t’s the sugary, fatty items that are flying — or waddling — out the door." Would you believe, as Clifford points out, that you can now have a bacon and egg sandwich between two glazed doughnuts?  You can, at where else, Dunkin Donuts. McDonald's CEO Donald Thompson recently told Cifford that although the chain had dedicated "one-sixth of its advertising time to salads, they make up 2 to 3 percent of sales, and don’t drive growth. "  Then...

Restaurant visits are slipping and guess who they're blaming?  Millenials. It's turning out that 18-to-30-year-olds just aren't going to restaurants much.  Fifty to 60 million of these young people are going out to restaurants far less than baby boomers did at that age, according to Stephanie Strom. And restaurants are hurting. Strom reports that research has shown that "restaurant visits among millennials have fallen 16 percent over the last four years, failing to pick up even as the economy has improved. The outlook for the restaurant industry over the next 10 years is dismal,” Bonnie Riggs, a restaurant industry analyst at a consumer marketing firm, told Strom.       Sales are expected to grow less than 4% in the next 10 years for places like McDonald's and even fast-casual outlets like Chipotle, a very bad thing for restaurants. In fact, McDonald's sales in stores open a year fell 1.2%, after rising every quarter for almost the last decade...