Curbside Delivery: Not the Same as Home-Cooked
The New York Times reports restaurants like Applebee's and Chili's are delivering food to people in their cars to eat at home. As Melanie Warner reports this change is not necessarily for the better:
While restaurants promote their offerings as a healthier, higher-quality alternative to fast food, some nutrition experts say that platters from places like Applebee's or Outback are likely to be less healthy than meals cooked at home. Margo G. Wootan, nutrition director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group, says that portion sizes at casual dining restaurants are much larger than those most people serve themselves at home.
"The U.S.D.A. has done some studies looking at people's diets at home versus eating at restaurants, and they found that when people eat out they don't eat as well," Ms. Wootan said. "They eat more calories, more saturated fat and fewer nutrients like calcium and fiber." She added that most chains still fried food in oil that contains trans fat and that, among the restaurants offering curbside, only Ruby Tuesday provided consumers with access to calorie counts or other nutrition information.
