Association Between Restaurant Menu Item Descriptions and Their Nutrient Content

Area of Science:

• Nutrition Science
• Food Studies
• Public Health

Background:

• Restaurant menu item descriptions often feature health and attribute claims, which are less regulated than packaged food labeling.
• This regulatory difference raises questions about the accuracy and nutritional implications of menu claims.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether restaurant menu items with health-related claims differ nutritionally from those without claims.
• To analyze the impact of various claim types (general health, ingredient, nutrient content, sourcing, vegan/vegetarian) on nutritional content.

Main Methods:

• Utilized MenuStat data from 2012-2018, encompassing 84,788 item-year observations from 96 major restaurant chains.
• Employed a matching algorithm to identify items with specific claims and applied mixed-effects models to assess nutritional content (calories, sodium, saturated fat, sugar, trans fat) across different dish types.

Main Results:

• While most claimed items were lower in calories, they were not consistently lower in sodium, saturated fat, sugar, or trans fat.
• Vegan or vegetarian desserts showed significantly higher sodium content compared to non-claimed desserts.
• Main and side dishes with claims often had equivalent or higher sugar content; however, some nutrient content claims were associated with lower saturated fat.

Conclusions:

• Restaurant menu items with claims frequently contain high levels of nutrients to limit.
• The restaurant industry should consider implementing greater transparency measures, such as sodium warning labels, to address excessive ingredient content.