WHEN it comes to choosing healthier options on a fast-food menu, it seems we are at a loss to pick those items with the lowest fat and calorie content.
A survey of consumers has found few knew that a large serving of coleslaw at KFC had more fat than either the fries or chicken burger. Even less knew that a veggie patty roll at Subway had more calories than the steak and cheese variety.
The Food
Commission is now calling for regulations to make fast-food restaurants display nutritional information on menu boards beside the name of the product and its price.
Fast-food chains said they were already making efforts to increase the information available to consumers through leaflets and on their websites.
Researchers from the Food Commission tested the knowledge of both the public and experts when it came to the nutritional content of popular choices at chains such as KFC, Subway, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Burger King.
When asked which KFC item has the most fat, only 22 per cent of 220 people correctly chose the large coleslaw, with 22.4 grams. This compared to 15.6g for a chicken fillet burger, 17.8g for a regular chicken popcorn and 19.4g for a large fries.
At sandwich chain Subway, consumers were asked to pick out the six-inch sub with the most calories. But only 4.5 per cent guessed it was the veggie patty sub with 414 calories, compared to 336 for a steak and cheese sub.
And from a selection of Burger King items, only a quarter (25 per cent) of people identified the Double Whopper with cheese as having the most fat with 57g.
Only one consumer was able to identify all the items with the highest values correctly, while 91 per cent got less than half right. But it was not only the public who were in the dark – the researchers also questioned 66 nutrition and obesity experts at the European Congress on Obesity in Geneva.
Out of five multiple choice questions on popular fast-food choices, not a single expert answered all of them correctly, with most getting only one or two answers right.
In cities such as New York and Seattle, chains like Starbucks and Subway already comply with regulations to make them show calorie content on menu boards at the point of sale.
The Food Commission now wants the same in the UK and Europe. Anna Glayzer from the commission said: "At the moment customers have to rely on guess work if they want to make healthier choices."
She added: "People are eating out more than they used to. If companies are genuinely serious about wanting to offer healthy choices, they need to give customers up-front information."
Carina Norris, a nutritionist, based in Fife, said that information available on websites and leaflets was welcome, but it also needed to be clearly displayed at the point where consumers were making menu choices.
"I think people are often unaware of the calorie and fat content of things like coleslaw and that information needs to be much more readily available. It is not about banning burgers, it is about giving people the facts to make healthy choices," she said.
A KFC spokeswoman said: "In order to help our customers make informed choices we provide extensive nutritional information online, as well as displaying information on our tray liners in store."
Pizza Hut said they had nutritional information on their website, with details also available in all restaurants by September.
McDonalds has information on food packaging as well as on its website. And a spokeswoman for Subway said: "Subway stores provide nutritional information to customers via in-store nutritional brochures and on the website in order to enable consumers to make an informed choice about the food they are buying."
IN NUMBERS808
calories in a six-inch individual pan pizza at Pizza Hut
22.4
grams of fat in a large serving of coleslaw at KFC
15.6
grams of fat in a KFC fillet burger
414
calories in a six-inch veggie patty sub at Subway
495
calories in a Big Mac from McDonalds
