An effort is underway with legislation, The Labeling and Education Act—LEAN Act—recently introduced in the U.S. Senate (S. 558) and House of Representatives (HR 1398), to require chain restaurants with more than 20 locations to provide Americans with detailed nutrition information, such as calories and grams of carbohydrate, fat, sodium and more.

When it comes to food scales, there’s low-scale and up-scale. The low-scale ($5 - $10) type postage or “diet” scales simply help you figure a food’s weight. That’s valuable information. For example, when you weigh meats, you not only zero in on the portion you should eat but you also 'see' what certain amounts of food look (and should) look like. This improves your guestimating (as I call it) skills both at home and when you eat out.

So off we went, against my better judgement, to the new Friday’s. As expected, perusing the menu and visually eyeing the heaping platters being delivered to tables around us, that dodging large portions and mounds of fries would be challenge numero uno. Menu creativity, one of my key healthy restaurant eating strategies in Eat Out, Eat Right, needed to be implemented. Step one: order a few (less than the number of diners at the table) interesting and healthy items and share.

No doubt both first- and second-hand smoke from tobacco is a health hazard. Also, no doubt that exposure, in a smoke filled environment, to second-hand smoke cannot be selectively avoided, unless you avoid the setting. Not the case when it comes to food.