Statement from Applebee's President Mike Archer about Obamacare

[Ms. Toad]

44. It is better, as far as I am concerned, than not making the information available.

I can choose to avoid the meal with 5100 mg of sodium. (And since my current limit is 1500, I would.)

I have no options at all to dine with family or friends in most restaurants which simply do not provide the information. We went out to eat before a performance of the Capital Steps - the other two chose the restaurant: Chinese. I had white rice - it was the only thing on the menu I could reliably determine the sodium content. Most Chinese, Indian, Thai, etc. restaurants do not have nutritional information online, and in many instances there are language barriers so I cannot even be sure when I ask about sodium whether they understand me. My daughter came home from college for a meal & we chose a restaurant to eat at that didn't have nutrition information online, but I found enough information online to be reasonably certain there was one item I could eat. There was more than an hour wait, so we had to switch on the fly. I ended up getting a plain chicken burrito, opening the burrito and picking out the chicken - again - there was no way of knowing the sodium content.

5100 mg is high, and Applebes should lower the sodium content in most of their foods - and they should offer a selection of meals in the 3-500 mg range (the meal allotment for anyone on a low sodium diet).

But - I'll take a restaurant with high sodium content in most foods as long as it makes the information available over one which does not any day. I'm disciplined enough to make wise choices if the information is available - what I can't deal with is not being able to get the information.

And FWIW - in food terms, lite generally means low calories/fat/sugar. When restaurants make "lite" meals they typically bump up salt or MSG to make up for the decrease in flavor they associate with cutting out calories/fat/sugar. On a controlled sodium diet, a "lite" food is the last thing I would look at.