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Bret Thorn
COLUMBUS Ohio Family-dining chain Bob Evans has joined several other restaurant chains offering more healthful fare with its new Fit from the Farm menu.
All items on the new menu have no more than 650 calories and 750 milligrams of sodium. In addition, each has 35 percent or less total calories from fat and less than 10 percent of total calories from saturated fat. The exact amount of each is listed next to the menu item.
Also, none of the items contains trans fat or monosodium glutamate, the chain said.
Bob Evans’ senior vice president of marketing, Mary Cusick, pointed out that guests following a 2,000-calorie daily diet could eat three meals a day from the new menu.
For breakfast, the menu offers a “Pick-Three Breakfast Combo” that lets guests pick three items out of seven, any of which will fit the menu’s criteria.
Other breakfast options include a fresh fruit plate with yogurt or cottage cheese, a vegetable omelet, a fruit-and-yogurt crepe with oatmeal, and blueberry banana French toast.
Among the lunch items on the menu are an apple-cranberry spinach salad with reduced-fat raspberry vinaigrette; pasta with chicken, spinach and tomato; and a choice of three soups that can be paired with any of six side dishes.
For dinner, options include a grilled salmon fillet, a potato-crusted flounder and a grilled chicken breast, each served with a plain baked potato and steamed broccoli.
There are 569 Bob Evans restaurants in 18 states, mostly in the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
Posting of calorie information on menus and menu boards is now required of chain restaurants in New York City, California and other areas. Meanwhile, a federal health care reform bill now in Congress would mandate menu labeling nationwide.
Anumber of chains -- including Starbucks, Corner Bakery, Applebee’s Dunkin’ Donuts, Taco Bell and KFC – have reworked their menus or introduced new items in response to legislative actions and public demand for more healthful restaurant food.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
