Chain Restaurants Count Calories

For example, KFC introduced a grilled chicken meal with green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy that has only 395 calories, while Uno Chicago Grill offers a roasted vegetable and feta wrap on a whole wheat and flaxseed tortilla that clocks in at 550 calories. Next week, Starbucks will debut four, 400-calorie or under sandwiches, along with promoting drinks with less than 90 calories.

The Silver Diner chain has slashed the calories in its grilled flounder dinner, dropping it 34 percent to 718. Le Pain Quotidien now offers bite-size brownies with 77 percent fewer calories than the regular-size ones.

Restaurants have long been opposed to governments dictating menu choices, but the inclusion of a national menu-labeling law in the current health-care legislation has many rethinking their food options.

A new Stanford University study looking at millions of Starbucks transactions over a 14-month period found that highly visible posted calories lowered the average number of calories per transaction by 6 percent.

However, Time magazine reported recently that a new study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that some prepared foods might contain on average 8 percent more calories than package labels claim, while restaurant food could have as much as 18 percent more calories than posted. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not check calories claims by restaurants.