Gallup: Americans overlooking nutrition info at restaurants

Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Despite increased efforts at transparency, most Americans still aren't paying close attention to nutritional information listed on restaurant menus, new research showed Wednesday.

New rules by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration require restaurants to post the nutritional information, but despite the effort Americans are no more likely to look at this information than they were five years ago, Gallup said in a survey Wednesday.

The research shows fewer than half of Americans, 45 percent, said they paid a "great deal" or "fair amount" of attention to the nutritional details on menus -- a slight increase over the 43 percent in 2013.

The FDA's menu policy to increase customer access to information took effect in May. New York City passed a calorie-count law for restaurants a decade ago and California passed a similar law in 2008.

When it comes to the information on food packaging, however, the numbers change sharply.

Gallup said 70 percent pay a "great deal" or "fair amount" of attention to nutritional figures on packaging, compared to just 30 percent who don't.

Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act in the 1990s to require labels on packaging.

Gallup said one possible reason for the difference in menu and packaging attention may be that people still are getting used to seeing it in restaurants.

Gallup polled more than 1,000 people for the survey, which has a margin of error of 4 points.