What's more fattening than two Big Macs?

 Which of the following items served at MacDonald's has the most calories?

• Two Big Macs
• Two Egg McMuffins
• One Large Chocolate Milkshake
• Four regular Hamburgers

In a survey of Californians only 1 in 10 got this right. It's not surprising since the answer is the chocolate milkshake.

This was one of four questions asked by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy(CCPHA) of part of its campaign to improve food labelling. In the survey, two thirds of respondants got none of them right. Not a single person got all four right.

Not even the top man at the CCPHA, Dr Harold Goldstein who said: 'I have a doctorate in public health, and I failed this quiz.'

Who could have guessed for example that of four items on the menu at Denny's, a steak house franchise, the country fried steak with eggs would have fewer calories than the omelette, or three slices of french toast with syrup or three pancakes with syrup?

Part of the problem is that foods are described in misleading ways. For example, at Chili's, another US fast-food franchise, the so-called Guiltfree Chicken Platter actually has more salt in it than both the Cajun Chicken Sandwich and, incredibly, the Classic Steak Combo and Chicken Fajitas.

How would British menus fare given this treatment? Do menus give us enough information about what we're going to eat to enable us to order what we really want?

We know from last month's Which? survey that many savoury foods actually contain more sugar than sweet foods. Asda's sticky chilli chicken, for example, and Tesco's beef with chilly sauce both have more fat per 100g than vanialla ice cream. Would you have guessed that?

Still more surprising is that the Alpen Rasberry and Yoghurt bar contains TWICE AS MUCH sugar per 100g as ice cream. Not that you could work it out from the bar's label which breaks the sugar down into dextrose, lactose, glucose and so on. Rule of thumb: when reading a food label anything ending in 'ose' is a form of sugar. Another example is fructose.

It's all very confusing. No wonder, 84% of Californians want politicians to ensure that fast-food and chain restaurants post nutritional information on menus and menu boards. What do you think?

The CCPHA want to see menuboards like the one below in all restaurants...