ArticlePublic health nutrition2021
Prevalence and nutrient composition of menu offerings targeted to customers with dietary restrictions at US fast casual and full-service restaurants.
Article in Public health nutrition, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Development of a Three-Component Nutrient Density Calculator (NDC) for Mixed Dishes to Guide Innovation and Reformulation of Recipes.Nutrients · 2026Article
- How Salty Is Too Salty? Designing Sodium Warning Label Policies to Identify High-Sodium Items on Restaurant Menus in the United States.Nutrients · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo examine the prevalence and nutrient composition of menu offerings targeted to customers with dietary restrictions at US fast casual and full-service chain restaurants.
designWe used 2018 data from MenuStat, a database of nutrient information for menu items at large US chain restaurants. Five alternative diets were examined: gluten-free, low-calorie, low-carbohydrate, low-fat and vegetarian. Diet offerings were identified by searching MenuStat item descriptions and reviewing online menus. For each diet, we reported counts and proportions. We used bootstrapped multilevel models to examine differences in predicted mean kilojoules, saturated fat, Na and sugars between diet and non-diet menu items.
settingForty-five US fast casual and full-service chain restaurants in 2018 (including 6419 items in initial analytic sample across small plates, salads and main dishes).
participantsNone.
resultsThe most prevalent diets were gluten-free (n 631, 9·8 % of menu items), low-calorie (n 306, 4·8 %) and vegetarian (n 230, 3·6 %). Compared with non-diet counterparts, low-calorie main dishes had significantly lower levels of all nutrients examined and vegetarian main dishes had significantly lower levels of all nutrients except saturated fat. Gluten-free small plates had significantly fewer kilojoules, grams of saturated fat and milligrams of Na compared with non-diet small plates.
conclusionsA small proportion of fast casual and full-service restaurant menus are targeted towards customers with dietary restrictions. Compared with non-diet items, those classified as gluten-free, low-calorie or vegetarian generally have healthier nutrient profiles, but overall nutrient values are still too high for most menu items, regardless of dietary label.
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