Starbucks and other chains add nutritional info to menu

Starbucks, McDonald's and Tim Hortons are joining restaurant chainsin providing nutritional information on their menu items.

The province announced Wednesday it is expanding its 'Informed Dining' program to 19 national restaurant chains. The program provides sodium content and caloric data on menu choices and will now be featured in 2,000 restaurant outlets in B.C.

When the program first launched in 2012, it was only adopted by 300 outlets.

Health Minister Terry Lake said Wednesday that consumers want to make informed choices.

"Some things that appear very healthy, when you dug down into the nutritional information, it was quite a surprise that it wasn't as healthy as people thought," he said.

The province has partnered with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of BC & Yukon and restaurants to voluntarily provide calorie and sodium information for all standard menu items and dailyguidelines for calorie and sodium requirements.

Participating restaurant chains

• A&W
• ABC Country Restaurant
• Booster Juice
• Boston Pizza International
• Harvey's
• Montana's
• Swiss Chalet
• Dairy Queen Canada
• De Dutch
• Earl's Restaurants
• Keg Restaurants
• Little Caesars
• McDonald's
• Pizza Pizza
• Quiznos
• Starbucks
• Subway
• Tim Hortons
• White Spot Restaurants