"The Menu Education and Labeling (MEAL) Act would give you information about calories, fat, trans fat, sodium and carbohydrates. It's being introduced by Council member Phil Mendelson, who has tried to get similar legislation passed twice before. Those bills died in committee."

"But with the New York City Board of Health requiring restaurants to provide nutrition information later this year, Mendelson and some consumer advocates think that the time may be right for a similar bill in the District."

""People are flying blind at restaurants without calorie information on the menu," says Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). "There's no way that you can guess that a tuna salad sandwich has 50 percent more calories than a roast beef sandwich. Or that the Bloomin' Onion appetizer has more than twice the calories of the fried mozzarella sticks.""

"Every day, about 132 million Americans eat out, according to the National Restaurant Association. While fast-food restaurants are often blamed for providing high-fat, high-calorie meals, a CSPI report issued last week showed that some meals at sit-down chain restaurants pack more than a day's worth of calories and fat."

""People shouldn't have to lose their place in line," Wootan says, "or squint at some hard-to-read poster at the back of the restaurant to find out nutritional information.""

"Even nutrition experts get fooled. Just ask Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition at New York University. As part of an experiment, she dined at a fine New York restaurant with other food and nutrition experts. Among the dishes served: a half-cup of mouth-watering risotto. When the
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