FW: Urge Support for Bill to Put Nutrition Info on Restaurant Menus

[Guest guest]

For those of you who wish to have your voices heard by your

Congress-persons.... Not that any of you frequent fast food restaurants,

but others should know what they are eating. Then their choices will change

over time ..........

 

Richard

__________________________

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Urge your Senators and Representative to cosponsor the Menu

Education and Labeling (MEAL) bill which would provide people

with clear, easy-to-use nutrition information at fast-food and

other chain restaurants.

 

Eating out is a growing part of the diets of most Americans.

Yet, unlike in supermarkets, where most foods are required to

have nutrition labels, few restaurants provide nutrition

information (with the exception of some chain restaurants that

have hard-to-use pamphlets or inconvenient websites). As a

result, people may be getting more fat, sodium, and calories

than they realize. For example, did you know that a large shake

at McDonald's has 1,010 calories, which is half the calories

most people should consume in an entire day?

 

Ask your Senators and Representative to cosponsor the MEAL bill,

which would provide consumers with clear, easy-to-use nutrition

information at fast-food and other chain restaurants and empower

them to eat well when they eat out.

 

You can take action on this alert either via email (please see

directions below) or via the web at:

http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/CosponsorMEALbill/wub5854o7k37tj

 

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.

http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/CosponsorMEALbill/forward/wub5854o7k37tj

 

Urge your Senators and Representative to Cosponsor the MEAL bill

 

INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE WEB:

If you have access to a web browser, you can take action on this

alert by going to the following URL:

 

http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/CosponsorMEALbill/wub5854o7k37tj

 

INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA EMAIL:

Just choose the " reply to sender " option on your email program.

 

Your letter will be addressed and sent to:

Your Congressperson

Your Senators

 

----THIS LETTER WILL BE SENT IN YOUR NAME----

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

 

I urge you to co-sponsor the Menu Education and Labeling (MEAL)

bill introduced by Senator Harkin (D-IA) and Representative

DeLauro (D-CT) that would require fast-food and other chain

restaurants to list calorie counts on menu boards and calories,

saturated plus trans fat, and sodium on printed menus. The bill

applies only to standard menu items - not to daily specials -

and only to large chains with 20 or more outlets.

 

Two-thirds of the largest chain restaurants do not provide

nutrition information to their customers, and those that do

provide only hard-to-find, hard-to-read posters or brochures, or

inconvenient websites. There is good nutrition information in

supermarkets, but in restaurants, people can only guess what

they are eating. Providing clear, easy-to-use nutrition

information at fast-food and other chain restaurants would help

people make healthier choices. Such information would be a boon

to the millions of people who watch what they eat to manage

medical conditions such as diabetes, high cholesterol, and high

blood pressure.

 

Also, people may be getting more fat, sodium, and calories from

restaurant foods than they realize. For example, one large

McDonald's shake has more calories than three McDonald's

hamburgers and a small French fry combined.

 

Nutrition information is needed on chain-restaurant menus.

Americans eat out twice as often today as they did in 1970 and

now get about one-third of their calories from outside the home.

Children consume almost twice as many calories when they eat at

a restaurant compared to a meal at home. And, when people eat

out, they do not eat as well as they do at home. They consume

more calories and saturated fat, fewer nutrients, like calcium,

and less fiber.

 

I urge you to co-sponsor the Menu Education and Labeling bill,

which would provide consumers with clear, easy-to-use nutrition

information at fast-food and other chain restaurants and empower

them to eat well when they eat out.

 

----END OF LETTER TO BE SENT----