The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which analyzed menu items in popular chain restaurants in the U.S., said some of the items contained as many calories in just one plate as a person would require for the entire day.

The group suggested that the governments at the local, state and national levels should do good to force these restaurants to list nutritional data on their menus. This will help customers to evaluate the items and plan to eat them.

The group cited instances of offerings made by the so-called "table-service" chain of restaurants like Ruby Tuesday's and Uno Chicago Grill.


Michael Jacobson, executive director of the group, said these eateries stuff their dishes with extra unhealthy ingredients. Table-service restaurants have launched into a whole new era of extreme eating, he said, adding if there has to be any successful fight against the epidemic of obesity and the tremendous prevalence of heart attacks and strokes, then something drastic has to be done about restaurant foods.

The group gave two examples of the food items -- an appetizer from Uno Chicago Grill and an entree called Fresh Chicken & Broccoli Pasta from Ruby Tuesday's. While the former, which Jacobson described as a cross between a pizza and stuffed potato skins, with a deep-dish pizza crust crammed with mozzarella and cheddar cheese, mashed potatoes, bacon and sour cream, contained 2,050 calories, the latter came loaded with cheese and other stuff and loaded with 2,060 calories.

The average daily calorie requirement, according to dieticians and food specialists, is about 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men.

Meanwhile, the National Restaurant Association, with a membership of 935,000 restaurants and food service outlets nationwide, called the finding "outrageous." In a press statement, it said, "Pointing to a select few menu items at a select few restaurants as being high in calories and generalizing that to all restaurant fare is misleading, inaccurate and does the public a grave disservice."

Diet experts said the trend of packing more calories per plate is a disturbing one. Many of them said once in a way such diets are tolerable, but with the tendency these days to "eat out' frequently, regular intake of these foods could be a dangerous practice.