Chain Reaction
Sandy Beall eats dinner out five times a week and regularly laments the choices he sees on the menus--unless, that is, he's eating at a Ruby Tuesday, the restaurant chain he founded in 1972 and still runs. It's not that Beall (pronounced Bell) is a culinary snob. Far from it. "I love all kinds of food," he says. But like millions of other Americans--and millions more who should be--he's watching his weight, and he notes the obvious: "It's a real challenge to find good restaurant food that will help you maintain a healthy body."
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Beall, whose 684 outlets in 41 states feed some 385,000 people a day, isn't sure when the nutritional shortcomings of casual eateries like, well, his became an important front in America's battle with obesity. But things have clearly reached that point. Some 40% of the calories that Americans consume are ingested outside the home, and as that figure has risen, so has the nation's collective weight problem.
Some fast-food enterprises, including McDonald's, have cut portion sizes in a nod to obesity concerns. Frito-Lay and others have reduced the trans fats that have been linked to heart disease. Coca-Cola is promoting exercise. But no company on the belt-busting end of the food business has taken the fat fight more seriously than Beall's Ruby Tuesday. In his latest assault, Beall in April became the first chain restaurateur to print nutrition facts on the menu plainly, and perhaps painfully, between an item's description and its price. Classic, slow-cooked "hang off the plate" ribs? Yum. Calories: 1,437. Fat: 92 g. Net carbohydrates: 72 g. Yech.
It's not clear that Ruby Tuesday's diners want such stomach-turning information. But Beall, 55, the son of a nuclear engineer and himself a college dropout and restaurant-industry lifer, is giving it to them--and more. In November, Ruby Tuesday became the nation's largest casual-dining chain to start frying foods in canola oil, which is free of trans fats. The company posts nutrition tips on every table. After just a few months of testing, Beall this spring unveiled an expanded "smart eating" menu featuring fish, fresh vegetables and lean proteins such as turkey. He has ambitious plans to turn the website into a clearinghouse of nutritional information--not just on Ruby Tuesday's dishes but on a wide variety of foods. By August, Ruby Tuesday plans to have nothing but smart-eating dishes on its kids' menu and kid-friendly nutrition information in the form of crossword puzzles and other games on place mats.
Nutritionists applaud Beall's efforts--to a point. "This is terrific," says Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "But let's not forget that Ruby Tuesday also sells a colossal burger that is a pound of meat [14 oz. to be precise] with cheese--a real heart stopper. Some of their food is healthier, but this is not health food." Jacobson insists that too many people will look past the calorie, fat, carb and fiber counts on the menu. What's needed, he says, is sanity in portion sizes.
To which Beall answers: "Self-control has to come into play at some point. Everyone wants and needs a different amount of food." He argues that people who eat out only once a month may want to splurge and eat more than usual and that there's no harm in that.
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