CBS 60 Minutes reports on the growing concern about calories in restaurant foods; calories that some restaurants refuse to reveal. Read more on the story below, after the jump.

People are getting many more calories from the food they eat out than they think, especially when they think they are eating in some place healthy, says a Cornell University food and marketing professor. This kind of public misperception is great enough that health officials want to force food chains to put calories on menu boards.

60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl reports on the battle brewing between health advocates and the restaurant industry over calorie disclosure this Sunday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

“When people are eating in a restaurant that they think is healthy, people grossly underestimate how much they eat by about 50 percent,” says Brian Wansink, the Cornell professor. In one test at a food court, Wansink asks a customer to guess the caloric content of his 12-inch sub with mayonnaise, chips and juice from Subway, a chain that bills its food as a healthier fast-food choice. The young man expresses shock at learning the meal he thought was about 300 calories was 1,390. “That’s more than half [the calories] … you’re supposed to eat in a day?” he asks.

It is just such underestimating and overeating that helps fuel the nation’s epidemic of obesity believes New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden. He initiated a regulation in New York City requiring fast food chains to post the calories on their menu boards. Seattle passed a similar law, as did the California State legislature (though vetoed by the governor), plus 18 other states and municipalities are considering menu labeling. It is a fact that many chains already disclose nutritional information on Web sites or in-store in brochures and tray liners, but Frieden says no one sees it. “What restaurants are doing now is a sham. They’re putting information on Web sites and they know perfectly well that very few people see it there.”

Visit the CBS Web site for the rest of the article, video and photos.

For more information about NYC Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden’s efforts and to read the legal papers, visit the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) Web site.

Beyond mere weight loss and wellness, life extension is a powerful motivation to do what is difficult; restrict one’s daily calorie intake.

Calorie restriction research goes back more than 70 years to pioneering experiments on mice at Cornell University. Restricting your food intake does appear to extend life, although no one’s totally sure how.

“If we base ideas on calorie restriction, in animals, and even in monkeys, which are relatively close to us, we see that calorie restriction slows down virtually all diseases of aging,” researcher on aging at Harvard David Sinclair said.

Eat less, live longer? Easier said than done.

Brian Delaney is the president of the Calorie Restriction Society. He says it’s easy to live on a calorie restricted diet, simply figure out what your normal intake of calories would be and then reduce it by 20 to 30 percent – or maybe even a bit more.

“But then you don’t want to take it too far because then it’s frankly starvation,” he said.

Members of Delaney’s group generally consume fewer than 2,000 calories a day and some go as low as 1,000 calories. Will they live longer? Is what’s good for dessert-deprived monkeys also good for people?

“The CR diet could allow a human being to live to be maybe 135 or 140 years, but we don’t know yet because we have not done that long a study in humans,” Delaney said.

The article continues.

Brian Wansink, director of Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab, is the author of a new book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. Fat Loss Victory highly recommmends both the book, and a visit to the website, Mindless Eating , which has a wealth of information and resources. Wansink explains the concept of “mindless eating:

Most of us don’t overeat because we’re hungry. We overeat because of family and friends, packages and plates, names and numbers, labels and lights, colors and candles, shapes and smells, distractions and distances, cupboards and containers.

Our studies show that the average person makes around 250 decisions about food every day – breakfast or no breakfast? Pop-tart or bagel? Part of it or all of it? Kitchen or car? Yet out of these 200+ food decisions, most we cannot really explain. Mindless Eating shows what these decisions are and how to make them work for you rather than against you.

The fact we like comfort foods is predictable, but it is also somewhat predictable which foods we will like, when and why we like them, and when all of it backfires. For starters, we found that men prefer meal-related comfort foods like steak, pasta, pizza, burgers because they make them feel special and well-taken care of. Women, on the other hand, don’t think of these as comfort foods. These foods reminded them of work – cooking and clean-up. Women much preferred the convenience of the snack foods, like cookies, chocolate, and ice cream. Eating ice cream from the container equals no cooking and no clean-up.

A recent USA Today article discusses Wansink’s “McSubway” project:

Wansink and his colleagues have reported some of their findings and are releasing more information in October’s Journal of Consumer Research.

In one study, the researchers gave 46 graduate students a coupon for a McDonald’s Big Mac, which at the time had about 600 calories, or a Subway 12-inch Italian sub with meat, cheese and mayonnaise, which had about 900, he says. The students weren’t told the number of calories in their sandwiches. Participants also were given a menu and asked to indicate what extras they would like to order, if anything.

Those given the Subway coupon were more likely to order a large drink and less likely to order a diet soda. They also were more likely to eat chocolate-chip cookies.

Those with the Subway coupon ended up ordering a meal with an average 1,011 calories. Those with the McDonald’s coupon got meals with an average of 648 calories.

In another test, people ate more snacks later in the day if they had eaten a Subway sandwich than a Big Mac, even though both had been made to equal about 600 calories.

Though Subway has a health halo, “there’s also a health shadow that’s cast on McDonald’s. People know what they are eating may be indulgent, so they come much closer to estimating the right number of calories,” says Wansink, the author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think.

As Fat Loss Victory has always contended, keeping a food diary is essential for weight loss success, as it makes us conscious of our eating habits – what we eat, when we eat, and why we eat. Holding ourselves accountable for what we eat will help cut down on “mindless eating.”

It’s that simple equation we sometimes overlook, taking in more calories than we burn leads to weight gain. Red Bull and other energy drinks, while they may keep us awake and alert, are adding enormous amounts of calories as a recent study notes:

Red Bull, the world’s leading provider in energy drinks with more than 3 billion cans sold per year, uses its special makeup of Taurine, caffeine and sugar to enhance the drinker’s awareness, productivity and alertness.

However, recent analysis shows the 27 grams of sugar contained in one 8.3-ounce can of Red Bull may have an adverse effect on metabolism.

It’s simple: One or two cans per day, multiplied by 52 weeks, equals a grotesquely abnormal amount of sugar being ingested per year.

Are energy drinks like Red Bull giving you a jump start to your day, or they just holding you down?

Dr. Roger Spahr of Indianapolis, who specializes in physiology and digestion, said caffeine doesn’t stimulate weight loss, instead it clearly makes you more alert and raises your heart rate.

However, people who consume a lot of energy drinks and coffee typically see the same result: overweight. “People who consume large amounts of caffeine and sugar are typically overweight and are seen coming out of Starbucks or drinking sugar-loaded beverages in the car or behind a computer screen all day,” Spahr said.