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Eating well at fast food restaurants can feel like a monumental task - nutrition information is often difficult to find. My friends at Wellsphere just launched Wellternatives – a new free healthy eating service that recommends healthy alternatives for your favorite dishes at hundreds of thousands of chain restaurants. They designed it so that anyone can use their cell phone to receive suggested ‘Wellternatives’ along with calorie and nutrition information for free. It’s quick, fun and easy to use, and works from any cell phone! They also added Wellternatives to their website, along with complete menu listings and ratings, at http://www.wellsphere.com/wellternatives.s

You’ve probably heard about how the restaurant chains all over the country are battling with government officials to keep from having to post their nutrition data. It’s pretty ridiculous for consumers to have to suffer while executives and lawmakers battle it out in court. A recent survey done by Aramark shows that 83% of diners want restaurants to make nutritional information available to them – so Wellsphere decided to give people the information they need to make better menu choices – anytime, anywhere.

So starting today, anyone with Internet access or a mobile phone can get nutrition information for their favorite chain restaurant’s menu items, and even a recommendation for a healthier alternative – for free. One of the keys to making this helpful for people is that they built our recommendation algorithm to not only consider key nutritional factors, but to also take into account taste preference profiles, portion sizes and types of food. That way they can give people healthier alternatives from the same restaurant that they will find just as satisfying and delicious as what they usually eat.

I’d encourage you to give Wellternatives a try by sending a text to 878787 with the word ‘diet’ followed by the name of the chain restaurant and menu item, or visiting www.wellsphere.com/wellternatives.s.