All Restaurants Should Be Required to Provide Nutritional Information!

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For people with diabetes, eating out is risky. Restaurants are not required to put any nutritional information on their menus, and they usually don't. It's often embarrassing and troublesome to have restaurant staff try to track down accurate information about a bowl of soup or a plate of spaghetti. Without a law in place, staff members could even dismiss the request, claiming the information is not available.

Too often, these frustrating scenarios leave people with diabetes to guess how many carbohydrates are in their meals. **Guessing incorrectly could result in imbalanced blood glucose levels, which could lead to a hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic episode.** In some cases, these severe issues can even lead to diabetic comas and death.

Right now, the FDA requires "chain restaurants and similar retail food establishments" to post calorie information on their menus and menu boards and have other nutritional information available in writing for those who request it. This information includes "total calories, calories from fat, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, fiber, sugars, and protein."

Arguably, nutritional information could stand to be made even more accessible in chain restaurants, but in other eateries, it's often nowhere to be found at all. Restaurants that don't fall into the "chain restaurants" category are free to leave nutritional information off their menus and make it altogether unavailable to guests. **That is unacceptable.**

People deserve to have this information readily accessible so they can make well-informed decisions without being mocked or ridiculed for being "high-maintenance" or "picky." All restaurants should be required to post nutritional information for all food and drink items served at their establishment, including calories, fats, proteins, and—most importantly—carbs. This small change could help prevent accidental complications for those with diabetes and other health concerns.

**Sign below to tell the FDA's Office of Nutrition, Labeling, and Dietary Supplements that every restaurant should be held to these standards.**