It took two months to reconstruct it. Before Lichten re-input the information, she had to take a course in a new computer program. While working on that project, she changed the book dramatically and decided to call all the restaurants and update the information again. The book finally went to the printer in December and hit the bookstores in April. She's planning to update it every 18 months because restaurants frequently change menus.
Nutrition information seems to be changing quickly, too.
Ethnic restaurants include Cajun, Creole, Chinese, Indian, Italian, Mexican and Middle Eastern. Lichten said she felt the need to do Dining Lean because of the growing influence of meals eaten away from home and because more than 100 health-oriented cookbooks are in print, but fewer and fewer people are eating at home. She's about to go into the second printing. The percentage of U.S. food dollars spent in restaurants has increased from 39 percent in 1980 to 50 percent in 1997. She developed the Calorimeter for the book as an easy method to use the charts that illustrate calories in a specific portion.