Children's meals at chain restaurants are unhealthy, with Goodday and Wowprime Group making the list
As the Lunar New Year approaches, parents taking children to chain restaurants during the Spring Festival should pay attention to whether the meals are balanced. The Executive Yuan's Consumer Protection Committee recently conducted a nutritional survey of children's meals at 18 chain restaurants on the market. The results found that not only did most meals exceed calorie limits, but even an adult eating one meal would blow past the recommended intake. In addition, most meals also lacked sufficient vegetables and fruit. Among them, goodday California Mexican restaurant was the most serious, and five restaurants under the Wang Pin group, including Ikki and Tasty, also made the list.
The Consumer Protection Committee urged that when parents are out and ordering children's meals for kids, they can consider ordering some items a la carte, or sharing one set meal with the child, to reduce fat and calorie intake. Hsieh Pei-chun, section chief of the Community Health Division of the Health Promotion Administration under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, pointed out that local health bureaus regularly send dietitians to communicate with restaurant operators. Many operators assume consumers like foods that are fried and high in sugar and salt, so consumers can take more initiative and reflect this to restaurants, using end-consumer purchasing power to influence operators.
goodday children's meal fat content exceeds recommendation by 4 times
The Consumer Protection Committee sampled 18 chain restaurants this time, including children's meals at restaurants such as Moto Teishoku, Katsuhana, Ootoya, Ikki, Curry Master, Pin Tian Ranch, Tasty, Mr. Onion, AuMec, Tokiya, and Double Saint, and compared their nutritional intake against the nutritional reference for "School Lunch Food Content and Nutrition Standards" for elementary school grades 1 to 3.
Among the 18 restaurants, 15 had meals whose calories exceeded the recommended amount of 670 kcal for children in elementary school grades 1 to 3. Among them, Tasty, goodday, and Double Saint exceeded the calorie limit by more than 2 times. The children's meal at Tasty under the Wang Pin group reached as high as 1699 kcal. If an adult ate it, it would likely also exceed the recommended intake for one meal.
Children's meals at many chain restaurants typically include foods such as French fries and fried chicken. This sampling also found that most meals seriously exceeded standards for fat, sugar, and sodium. Wang Te-ming, a consumer protection officer at the Executive Yuan's Consumer Protection Committee, named goodday California Mexican restaurant, whose children's meal had fat content as high as 98.7 grams, more than 4 times over the standard, "and its sodium content reached as high as 2300 mg, already equivalent to an adult's recommended daily intake, which is very serious."
Most restaurants lack vegetables and fruit
Not only that, most restaurants also had insufficient vegetable and fruit content. Among them, the children's meals at Ootoya, AuMec, and Second Floor Cafe had no vegetables at all. "Although 10 of the 18 restaurants had fruit, 7 provided fruit juice. If the juice comes from concentrated juice, children who drink it will still have the problem of excessive sugar." consumer protection officer Chang Yu-ling said.
Chang Yu-ling said that after the Consumer Protection Committee conducted the sampling, Mr. Onion, California Style Western Restaurant, and Royal Host, 3 restaurants in total, immediately switched to meals with more balanced nutrition. Ikki, Pin Tian Ranch, Tasty, Tokiya, and HOT7 under the Wang Pin group indicated they would make improvements after the new year.
Chang Yu-ling emphasized that if parents want to buy children's meals for children, they might consider restaurants that allow a la carte ordering, and when ordering, pay attention to the ratio of fruit, vegetables, and meat, or share one meal together with the child. In addition, if taking children to eat children's meals, just as with ordinary adults eating at all-you-can-eat restaurants, the nutritional content of the meal before and the meal after should also be adjusted accordingly.
Hsieh Pei-chun, section chief of the Health Promotion Administration, said that children's meals often have the problem of excessively high sugar and sodium content. Besides being added during food preparation, chain restaurants often include sauce packets such as ketchup and sweet-and-sour sauce. These sauce packets are also too high in sugar and sodium, so parents must pay more attention. In addition, proactively reflecting to restaurants that meal nutrition is unbalanced and using consumption to influence producers is also a way to urge restaurants to make improvements.