WASHINGTON - Parents seeking healthier restaurant meals for their kids can start to look beyond chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese.
At least 19 restaurant chains - including Burger King, Chili's, IHOP and Friendly's - said Wednesday that they will include healthier options on their children's menus. At least 15,000 restaurant locations will focus on increasing servings of fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains and low-fat dairy. The items will have less fats, sugars and sodium.
Less-healthy foods like burgers and fries will still be on the menu, but the restaurants say they will do more to promote healthier options.
Chili's, for example, will highlight a chicken sandwich with a side of pineapple or mandarin oranges on its kids' menu. Burger King has recently reformulated children's chicken nuggets so they contain less sodium, and employees taking orders will ask if customers want healthier apple fries instead of just the standard "fries with that?"
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The effort is part of a new National Restaurant Association initiative to give kids more healthy options at restaurants and to make it easier for parents to find those options.
To be part of the program, restaurants must include at least one kids' menu item that is 600 calories or less and meets other nutritional requirements. A side dish with fewer than 200 calories must also be included.
"This could provide a great push toward healthier offerings at restaurants," said Robert Post, the Agriculture Department official in charge of developing the department's dietary guidelines, which came out earlier this year. Those urged Americans to eat less salt.
"We hope this is a trend toward new items and voluntary reformulations," Post said.
Chain restaurants large and small signing up for the initiative are Au Bon Pain, Bonefish Grill, Burger King, Burgerville, Carrabba's Italian Grill, Chevys, Chili's, Corner Bakery Cafe, Cracker Barrel, Denny's, El Pollo Loco, Friendly's, IHOP, Joe's Crab Shack, Outback Steakhouse, Silver Diner, Sizzler, T-Bones Great American Eatery and Zpizza.
Several restaurant chains haven't committed yet to joining the effort. Maggiano's, owned with Chili's by Brinker International, is not part of the program. Neither is McDonald's, the world's largest burger chain.
On StarNet: Read the Arizona Daily Star's special report on the link between poverty and obesity at go.azstarnet.com/obesity
