How to log restaurant and takeaway meals

A meal you did not cook is the hardest one to log. You did not see the pan, you do not know the recipe, and the portion was someone else’s decision. There are two cases: the menu gives you a number, or it does not. Both have a workable answer.

When the menu shows calories

United States

The FDA’s menu labeling requirements apply to restaurants and similar retail food establishments that are part of a chain with 20 or more locations, doing business under the same name and offering substantially the same menu items. The compliance date for the rule was May 7, 2018.

Covered establishments must:

• Disclose the number of calories in standard items on menus and menu boards.
• List calories next to self-service foods and foods on display.
• Provide, on request, written nutrition information for standard menu items: total calories, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, sugars, fiber and protein.
• Display a statement that 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice, but calorie needs vary.

The third point is the useful one for macros. The written information includes fat, carbohydrate and protein, and you may have to ask for it.

England

The Calorie Labelling (Out of Home Sector) (England) Regulations 2021 came into force on 6 April 2022. According to the government’s implementation guidance, they apply to businesses with 250 or more employees that offer non-prepacked food or drink suitable for immediate consumption.

Those businesses must display:

• The energy content of the food in kilocalories (kcal).
• The size of the portion the figure refers to.
• The statement “adults need around 2000 kcal a day”.

Calories must be given per portion, such as per item or per scoop, and not per 100 g. For food meant to be shared, such as a platter or a whole cake, the figure covers the whole item, along with how many people it is intended to serve. So read the small print before you log a sharing dish as your own.

The guidance also says a business may provide a menu without calorie information at the express request of the customer. If you would prefer not to see the numbers on a night out, you can ask.

How much to trust the number

A menu figure is a description of the standard recipe. Your plate was assembled by a person during a busy service.

A 2011 study in JAMA by Urban and colleagues tested this. They bought 269 food items from 42 quick-serve and sit-down restaurants in three US states and measured the energy in a laboratory.

• Overall, stated energy contents were not significantly different from measured ones. The average difference was 10 kcal per portion.
• Individual foods varied. Of the 269 items, 50 (19 percent) contained at least 100 kcal per portion more than stated.
• The authors conclude that stated energy contents were accurate overall, with “substantial inaccuracy for some individual foods”.

The study dates from 2010 and covers one country, so read it as an illustration, not a current audit.

England’s guidance is open about the same issue. It says that “in view of the inherent variation in ingredients, processing of foods, and exact portion size a tolerance of plus or minus 20% would be considered an acceptable margin of difference between actual and declared calorie values”.

The takeaway: use the menu number. It is far better than a guess. Just do not treat it as the figure for your particular plate.

When there is no number

Independent restaurants, street food and dinner at a friend’s house come with no figures. Estimate by parts.

1. Split the plate

Name the pieces: the starch (rice, pasta, bread, potatoes), the protein, the vegetables, and the fat or sauce. A dish that looks complicated is usually four or five simple things.

2. Size each part

Use references you can carry in your head. The British Dietetic Association compares 90 g of cooked meat to a deck of cards, 150 g of cooked rice or pasta to two to three tablespoons, and 30 g of hard cheese to a small matchbox. Count how many of those reference portions are on the plate. More references are in how to estimate portions.

3. Add the invisible parts

Fat is the part you cannot see. It provides 9 calories per gram, according to the National Agricultural Library of the US Department of Agriculture, against 4 for carbohydrate and protein. The BDA lists a tablespoon of oil as 15 ml, or 11 g, which is roughly 100 kcal. Add an allowance for cooking oil, butter, dressings and creamy sauces.

4. Count drinks and extras

Bread before the meal, a shared starter, a dessert split three ways and drinks are easy to forget. Log your share.

Why restaurant portions vary

• Portions are set by the kitchen. The NIDDK defines a portion as how much food you choose to eat at one time, “whether in a restaurant, from a package, or at home”. In a restaurant, someone else chose the starting amount.
• Recipes differ between places. The same dish name can mean different ingredients and different amounts of fat in two kitchens.
• Even one kitchen varies. England’s guidance names ingredients, processing and exact portion size as sources of variation.

The NIDDK’s tips for eating out are practical here: share a meal with a friend or take half your meal home, and pick the small size when there is a choice. Half a dish taken home is also half a dish to log.

Keep it low-stress

Meals out are often the most social ones of the week, and a log should not get in their way.

• Decide before you sit down. Either glance at the menu figure and log it, or decide this meal goes unlogged.
• Log once. Enter your estimate at the table or right after, then put the phone away.
• Do not compensate. A log records what happened. It is not a ledger to settle at the next meal.
• A missed entry is fine. In the Lally study of habit formation, missing one opportunity did not materially affect the process. More in building a logging habit.

If tracking makes eating with other people stressful, that is a sign to step back from it, and worth raising with a doctor or dietitian.

How Luca helps at the table

Luca is an AI calorie tracker for iPhone, coming to the App Store. For a restaurant plate you can take a photo and get an estimate of calories, protein, carbs and fat with an item list in seconds, or log by voice or by typing a description. Photo estimates are approximate, and every item and number can be edited, so if the menu gives a calorie figure you can put that in. See eating out and how it works.

This article is general information, not medical or dietary advice.

Sources

1. FDA, Menu Labeling Requirements
2. GOV.UK, Calorie labelling in the out of home sector: implementation guidance
3. Urban et al. 2011, Accuracy of stated energy contents of restaurant foods (JAMA)
4. NIDDK, Food Portions: Choosing Just Enough for You
5. British Dietetic Association, Portion sizes food fact sheet
6. National Agricultural Library of the US Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Information Center: calories per gram
7. Lally et al. 2010, How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world (European Journal of Social Psychology)