Restaurant Info Online: Darden Restaurants

If you are watching your waistline, you know that calories are an important thing to pay attention to. But how do you know how many calories you are downing at lunch at the Olive Garden or Red Lobster? You are about to find out. With the recent laws passed in various cities and states requiring restaurants to disclose their nutrition information, many restaurants are becoming more transparent. They are being "forced" to disclose calories, fat, trans fat, sodium, carbs, etc. to their customers.

Darden Restaurants is posting nutrition information for Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze, and LongHorn Steakhouse on their websites. I love the fact that this helps us all to make more informed choices about what we are eating. I hope all restaurants follow suit and let us know what is in the food we are eating. And hopefully this will create more healthy options at restaurants for us to choose from.

In case you are wondering, a yummy cheddar biscuit from Red Lobster is 150 calories, the same as a breadstick from Olive Garden. For some reason I thought those biscuits were more. They are just so tasty!

Here is a sampling of more:

Better skip lunch

• Olive Garden fettuccine alfredo: 1,220 calories; 75 fat grams
• Bahama Breeze calypso shrimp linguine: 1,220 calories; 56 fat grams
• Red Lobster classic fried-seafood platter: 1,090 calories; 62 fat grams
• LongHorn Steakhouse chop steak: 1,220 calories; 80 fat grams

Lighter Fare

• Olive Garden linguine alla marinara: 430 calories, 6 fat grams
• Red Lobster wood-fire garlic-grilled jumbo shrimp: 365 calories, 6 fat grams
• Bahama Breeze grilled ahi tuna with cucumber pepper-slaw: 340 calories, 5 fat grams
• LongHorn Steakhouse Sierra chicken: 410 calories; 12 fat grams

SOURCE: Darden Restaurants