COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. --
One local restaurant chain is adding something new to their menu: calories.
Panera Bread is placing new menu boards in all 28 of its locations throughout Colorado which display the amount of calories in each food item.
There is a nationwide push to place calorie content on menus across the nation, but smaller restaurants say the task is nearly impossible.
Panera Bread said they want to be transparent about the food that they are offering. New menus clearly show customers exactly how many calories they are eating.
“Everyone wants to make the healthiest choice they can for themselves and for their family,” Missy Robinson, marketing manger for Panera Bread, said.
Robinson said the new information has been eye-opening for both customers and the company.
“We were able to look at a few of those items and reformulate them. Our apple salad, our tuna sandwich, they've all been reformulated and it's cut the calories by half,” Robinson said.
Panera hopes by being honest about the calories in their food, it will help people make the right choices, and dietitians agree.
“I think its a great idea that restaurants put calorie counts on their menu because how else is the consumer going to have any idea what to choose off of that menu?” Martha Rosenau, Registered Dietitian and Owner of Peak Nutrition, said.
Several cities across the country have already enacted laws requiring restaurants to put calorie content on their menus, but some said it's the individual's responsibility to know what they are eating
“We've always believed that our customers have the intelligence to figure out 'ok if I’m watching my weight I probably wont have that cheeseburger and a shake,'” James Conway, store manger of Conway’s Red Top, said.
For small restaurants like Conway's Red Top it’s much harder to figure out calorie content and quite expensive.
“We had one estimate done, for six items on our menu it would cost us $2,000,” Conway said.
So while some restaurants are jumping on the calorie revealing band wagon, don’t expect calorie counts at all your favorite restaurants.
“They would have to submit their recipes to an independent agent in order to find out how many calories they're delivering. And they would also have to be doing portion controls so that each time the dish came out the exact same amount of food landed on a persons plate,” Rosenau said.
Conway said if they were forced to put calorie contents on their menus the extra expense could force them out of business.
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