Canadian restaurant meals contain over half recommended daily calories

By now it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that eating out at restaurants is a horrible way to keep a diet, eat healthy or monitor calories.

In addition to the obvious challenge of not knowing the nutritional value of your meal, overzealous portion sizes mess with your instincts of how much food to eat.

This is why a recent study from the University of Toronto, evaluating the nutritional content of 685 breakfast, lunch and dinner meals and 156 desserts from 19 sit down restaurants, is ever telling.

The researchers found that the average meal has 1,128 calories --over half of the recommended daily calories for most adult men and women in Canada.

A typical lunch contained more than 1,000 calories on average, but a typical breakfast had even more with 1,226 calories.

Also see: Beware this word on fast food menus

"This was a little surprising, but the volume of food served in many breakfast options is comparable to those served at dinnertime," study author Mary Scourboutakos tells ABC.

Additionally, the meals contained 151 per cent of the amount of sodium an adult should consume in a single day, with a whopping 2,269 milligrams.

They also contained 89 per cent of the daily recommended amount of fat, averaging 58 grams per meal.

"Though recommendations suggest that approximately 20 to 35 per cent of energy should come from fat, in this study, 45 per cent was derived from fat," write the authors.

The study was lead by nutrition professor and department chair Mary R. L’Abbe, whose work was published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Also see: Salads that are worse for you than a Big Mac

"Overall, the results of this study demonstrate that calorie, fat, saturated fat and sodium levels are alarmingly high in breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals from multiple chains," write the authors.

This study falls on the heels of another recent study conducted by the Center for Science in the Public Interest in the U.S., which suggests that salt levels in fast food restaurant meals and processed foods have not dropped significantly since 2005 despite greater public awareness about health issues.

And another study released Monday suggests that small independent restaurants in Boston are no better than chain restaurants when it comes to calorie counts.

That study evaluated 157 meals at small Mexican, American, Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Thai restaurants between June and August 2011, and found the average meal to contain 1,327 calories.

What are your thoughts on eating out and watching calories? Do you find it easy to make healthy choices at restaurants?