Dining Out at the Salt Lick

On Saturday herself and I are going out to dinner with some very old friends who we haven't seen for several years. Because of where they live and where we live we are meeting at a half-way point and going to a restaurant there.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours looking at what's in available in that neighbourhood and trying to pick a place that wasn't either absurdly expensive (its Vancouver) or a greasy spoon or a brand new joint with no reputation.

I eventually had to settle on a chain location.

So then I tried to find out what there might be on their menu that I could eat without aggravating my blood pressure.

They don't make it simple to do.

But at least they offer the information, hard to find on their website as it is.

I just looked at 5 or 6 other restaurants, widely known names that you would recognize, and found no nutritional information whatever.

There are around 5 million people with hypertension in Canada. Sodium is a contributing factor in all cases and salt is the major source of all sodium.

Bearing in mind that the RDA is around 2400 mgs look at some of the salt content in a few of these menu items at the place we're going on Saturday.

Hot chicken caesar salad - 1531 mgs
Mediterranean linguine with chicken - 2161 mgs
Hunan kung pao with shrimp - 4152 mgs
Braised hickory back ribs - 2958 mgs
Fresh halibut with tomato olive balsamic stew - 1199 mgs

Nor are desserts left out - chocolate sticky toffee pudding has 650 mgs.

The appetizers are the worst. I won't be having any of them. Not even the breads.

I'm left with a small sirloin at 132 mgs, some mediterranean vegetables at 341 mgs and no dessert.

I'm not even taking calories into account and believe me they're off the chart too.

Obesity has been called an epidemic. Diabetes is on the rise. Cholesterol from ingested fats kills more people every year.

Yet big name, popular Canadian restaurants decline to make the nutritional information of their menus easily available.

Yes, I watched Wendy Mesley's Marketplace last evening.

We decided years ago that fast food outlets had to post nutritional information so we would know what we were getting.

Family and fine dining restaurants need to do it too.

They're making an unacceptable contribution to the epidemics of obesity, hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol each of which cost our health care system more every year and each of which cause more needless deaths.