California-based Healthy Dining, in collaboration with the National Restaurant Association, has launched the web site Healthydiningfinder.com – which is not the best of tools yet, but it is pretty good for right now. The reality is that all these restaurants should provide nutritional information to its customers based on menus or at the very least upon request. But they don’t.  And the Restaurant Association is pushing hard, lobbying, trying to make sure that restaurants do not have to do this.

Take a look at my academic paper on the topic which goes into detail about restaurant labeling.   What does Healthydiningfinder.com  do? Basically it features the “better for you” choices at a wide range of restaurants,  based on criteria developed by Healthy Dining. . So I did a search for a few zip codes, and it seems like the same chain restaurants come up. Hooters, Burger King, Chili’s, Panda Express, Arby’s, Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, etc.. Not exactly what I would consider “healthy” restaurants. To me this is a good idea, and may become better as the site develops over time with more restaurants. You can read the Healthy Dining’s press release below: