First Lady Michelle Obama today called an announcement by a major restaurant company to give its menus a healthy makeover a "breakthrough" moment for the entire industry, and urged her fellow parents to push other chains to follow suit.
Obama joined officials from Darden Restaurants, the parent company of big-name chains such as Red Lobster, at a Maryland Olive Garden to help announce the company's new menu revamp.
Darden plans to reduce the calories and sodium in its dishes by 10 percent over five years and 20 percent over 10 years, officials announced. Kids' menus also will be overhauled to automatically include a serving of fruits or vegetables and eight ounces of 1 percent milk with every dish, unless a parent requests otherwise.
Obama said the announcement is huge because it not only makes the kids' dishes healthier, but improves the nutritional quality of the entire menu.
"I'm here today because this is a big deal," Obama said. "I'm here because this is a breakthrough for the restaurant industry."
More families are eating out than ever before, Obama said. Statistics show that $1 out of every $2 spent by Americans on food is spent dining out, amounting to one-third of people's total caloric intake.
The reasons for this are clear, Obama said. Families lead hectic lives. Both parents often work full-time, and kids' schedules are usually packed between school and outside activities. With little time and drained energy, parents rely on take-out or sit-down restaurants to feed their kids.
"And most important, no one had to do the dishes afterward," Obama joked.
Darden's committment will give parents more choices, and make it easier for parents to give their kids healthy meals, Obama added.
Food advocates largely echoed Obama's praise, and urged other restaurants to follow suit. In a statement, our friends at the Center for Science in the Public Interest said other restaurants should "clean up their menus to make it easier for adults and children to choose healthy option."
"Eating out is linked to obesity due to excessive portion sizes and the dominance of high-calorie, fatty, salty options on the menu," the statement read. "Unfortunately, kids' food has become synonymous with unhealthy food. It should be just the opposite."
CSPI has pushed the restaurant industry to make healthy-minded changes to its menus for years. The watchdog group holds its "Xtreme Eating Awards" each year to spotlight the most unhealthy chain menu items.