It should be required by federal law...

cuinboston2014

I haven't read all the other fun responses but No. It shouldn't be required.

I appreciate it at some places some times. I appreciate that some times I can look up nutrition facts before I go or while I'm there. I also appreciate that the restaurants don't actually weigh the portions they are serving so the nutrition facts can still be inconsistent.

I also have learned what healthier options are. I have learned if the menu doesn't list what I want, I can pick something and modify it and end up with grilled chicken breast, some tomatoe sauce, veggies, and have it be OK. I don't need someone to tell me what I've learned after losing weight and being healthy.

Furthermore, when my husband and I go out for date night, sometimes I don't care what I eat. But, if I had the calorie counts there I wouldn't want the 1000 calorie dinner even if I had enough calories for it. Sometiems I don't want to think about it. Leave my menus alone!!!

it would also take more than a couple hours to figure this out. Imagine listing all the ingredients for every item and then going through every single item on a menu. It's not like the menu is made up of bananas, milk, and protein powder.

Acg67

It's done here in California.

... only in chain restuarants with more than 20 locations. I was there last week and most places I went did not have it.

But in for the coddling with the information dump that most people will ignore. In California every single restaurant had a carcinogen warning and the end result is a popluation of inured people.

But if a carcinogen counting website ever catches on, California will be the state for dining out. Also, I've just bookmarked California's carcinogen list for the next time I find some new and bizarre ingredient on a list of whatever I'm planning to eat.

sigh.

The point went into geosync there.

Not really. I was pointing out that the two are different. I understand becoming inured to warnings. But that happens to people who can do little or nothing to change their situation for the better based on those warnings. When it comes to counting calories, sites like MFP allow us to use the provided information to benefit our health.

Dr Bruce Ames on "toxic chemicals" fearmongering

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g1denSoAbc

Jestinia

It's done here in California.

... only in chain restuarants with more than 20 locations. I was there last week and most places I went did not have it.

But in for the coddling with the information dump that most people will ignore. In California every single restaurant had a carcinogen warning and the end result is a popluation of inured people.

But if a carcinogen counting website ever catches on, California will be the state for dining out. Also, I've just bookmarked California's carcinogen list for the next time I find some new and bizarre ingredient on a list of whatever I'm planning to eat.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1143069-if-toxins-scare-you-stop-eating?

Yes indeed, there are things that cause cancer which we cannot avoid, some foods have harmful chemicals in them before we start mucking around with them. Others have had harmful chemicals bred out by humans. Yay us! However, we should do what we can to keep our toxicity burden low. And that requires someone unbiased to do the research and publish the information as best they can.

unbiased research to bolster your confirmation bias?

One problem is that we need far more well done, replicated, unbiased studies. But there are a few that exist, at least for some chemicals:



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247384/

Cadmium is a cumulative nephrotoxicant that is absorbed into the body from dietary sources and cigarette smoking. The levels of Cd in organs such as liver and kidney cortex increase with age because of the lack of an active biochemical process for its elimination coupled with renal reabsorption. Recent research has provided evidence linking Cd-related kidney dysfunction and decreases in bone mineral density in nonoccupationally exposed populations who showed no signs of nutritional deficiency. This challenges the previous view that the concurrent kidney and bone damage seen in Japanese itai-itai disease patients was the result of Cd toxicity in combination with nutritional deficiencies, notably, of zinc and calcium. Further, such Cd-linked bone and kidney toxicities were observed in people whose dietary Cd intakes were well within the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) set by the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives of 1 μg/kg body weight/day or 70 μg/day. This evidence points to the much-needed revision of the current PTWI for Cd. Also, evidence for the carcinogenic risk of chronic Cd exposure is accumulating and Cd effects on reproductive outcomes have begun to emerge.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jat.1135/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false


Abstract
Many compounds in the environment have been shown capable of binding to cellular oestrogen receptors and then mimicking the actions of physiological oestrogens. The widespread origin and diversity in chemical structure of these environmental oestrogens is extensive but to date such compounds have been organic and in particular phenolic or carbon ring structures of varying structural complexity. Recent reports of the ability of certain metal ions to also bind to oestrogen receptors and to give rise to oestrogen agonist responses in vitro and in vivo has resulted in the realisation that environmental oestrogens can also be inorganic and such xenoestrogens have been termed metalloestrogens. This report highlights studies which show metalloestrogens to include aluminium, antimony, arsenite, barium, cadmium, chromium (Cr(II)), cobalt, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenite, tin and vanadate. The potential for these metal ions to add to the burden of aberrant oestrogen signalling within the human breast is discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Here are two at least a partial counters to these (you're welcome, now you don't have to find it yourself):

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691502000595

Abstract
Dioxins are highly toxic by-products of incineration processes and of production of chloro-organic chemicals. Accidental poisonings have occurred repeatedly. The main human exposure is via the dietary route. Species comparisons of toxic effects on the basis of ingested doses are not possible because of the highly differing toxicokinetics between humans and experimental animals. On the basis of internal doses or body burdens acute toxic and tumorigenic responses are observed at similar levels in humans and rats. PCB/PCDD/F contamination at levels which have been reported of marketed chicken meat and eggs in 1999 in Belgium may have increased body burdens by approximately 10%. However, it is estimated that a several hundred-fold higher uptake would be necessary to reach body burdens leading to overt toxicity in normal human subjects.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15287390500360042#.U2jzSPldVjI

Abstract
Recent National Toxicology Program (NTP) cancer bioassay data for 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p‐dioxin (TCDD), 2,3,4,7,8-pentachlorodibenzofuran (4-PeCDF), 3,3′,4,4′,5-pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB 126), and a mixture of these three compounds offer opportunities to assess the accuracy of current World Health Organization (WHO) 1998 toxic equivalency factors (TEFs) for these compounds under a variety of assumptions. An evaluation of the current TEF values for these compounds using body burden in nanograms per kilogram as the dose metric is presented. Average lifetime body burdens were estimated for all compounds at all dose groups based on measured tissue concentrations at 4 time points during the 2-yr NTP studies. Poly-3 adjusted tumor incidences for hepatocellular adenomas, cholangiocarcinomas, and the two tumors combined were modeled using a quantal multistage model and the Hill model with lifetime average body burden as the dose metric. Benchmark doses for a 10% response (BMD10) for each compound and the mixture were estimated. With TCDD as the reference standard, relative potency (REP) estimates were derived from ratios of the BMD10 estimates for PCB 126, 4-PeCDF, and for the toxic equivalent (TEQ) mixture. On a body-burden basis, PCB 126 and 4-PeCDF were 2- to 3-fold and 10- to 12-fold less potent than predicted based on the WHO TEFs, respectively, while the TEQ mixture was approximately 3- to 5-fold less potent than predicted by the TEFs. The current WHO TEF values, which were derived from data on noncancer endpoints evaluated on an administered dose basis, overpredict the carcinogenic potency of these compounds on a body-burden basis compared to TCDD.

Jestinia

It's done here in California.

... only in chain restuarants with more than 20 locations. I was there last week and most places I went did not have it.

But in for the coddling with the information dump that most people will ignore. In California every single restaurant had a carcinogen warning and the end result is a popluation of inured people.

But if a carcinogen counting website ever catches on, California will be the state for dining out. Also, I've just bookmarked California's carcinogen list for the next time I find some new and bizarre ingredient on a list of whatever I'm planning to eat.

sigh.

The point went into geosync there.

Not really. I was pointing out that the two are different. I understand becoming inured to warnings. But that happens to people who can do little or nothing to change their situation for the better based on those warnings. When it comes to counting calories, sites like MFP allow us to use the provided information to benefit our health.

Dr Bruce Ames on "toxic chemicals" fearmongering

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g1denSoAbc

Bookmarking for later, thanks!

SapiensPisces

I don't know how people ever went out to eat in the past and didn't end up morbidly obese. They must've had some kind of nutritional ESPN or something...

Just use some common sense! If you know the portion of food you're about to eat is huge and full of cream, fat, etc., just eat less and get a side of steamed veggies if you want more food. OR workout more so you have more calories to use for the day. This isn't rocket surgery people.

But how else are you going to figure out that a blue cheese dressing laden fried chicken salad piled with bacon may not be the low cal option?

EvgeniZyntx

It's done here in California.

... only in chain restuarants with more than 20 locations. I was there last week and most places I went did not have it.

But in for the coddling with the information dump that most people will ignore. In California every single restaurant had a carcinogen warning and the end result is a popluation of inured people.

But if a carcinogen counting website ever catches on, California will be the state for dining out. Also, I've just bookmarked California's carcinogen list for the next time I find some new and bizarre ingredient on a list of whatever I'm planning to eat.

sigh.

The point went into geosync there.

Not really. I was pointing out that the two are different. I understand becoming inured to warnings. But that happens to people who can do little or nothing to change their situation for the better based on those warnings. When it comes to counting calories, sites like MFP allow us to use the provided information to benefit our health.

Of course the two are different. I wasn't referencing one as equivalent to the other. I was point out that one, currently present, wasn't very useful.



Clearly signs like the above, postede in a restaurant, gas station or store aren't particularly actionable. (Please, I'll have the daily special but hold the carcinogens.)

The point was that, as legislation, perhaps, just maybe a mandated warning sometimes isn't useful or effective.... but off you went.

Jestinia

It's done here in California.

... only in chain restuarants with more than 20 locations. I was there last week and most places I went did not have it.

But in for the coddling with the information dump that most people will ignore. In California every single restaurant had a carcinogen warning and the end result is a popluation of inured people.

But if a carcinogen counting website ever catches on, California will be the state for dining out. Also, I've just bookmarked California's carcinogen list for the next time I find some new and bizarre ingredient on a list of whatever I'm planning to eat.

sigh.

The point went into geosync there.

Not really. I was pointing out that the two are different. I understand becoming inured to warnings. But that happens to people who can do little or nothing to change their situation for the better based on those warnings. When it comes to counting calories, sites like MFP allow us to use the provided information to benefit our health.

Of course the two are different. I wasn't referencing one as equivalent to the other. I was point out that one, currently present, wasn't very useful.



Clearly signs like the above, postede in a restaurant, gas station or store aren't particularly actionable. (Please, I'll have the daily special but hold the carcinogens.)

The point was that, as legislation, perhaps, just maybe a mandated warning sometimes isn't useful or effective.... but off you went.

I agree, this is pretty useless. I want detailed information or what good will it do me?

Also, while I do think we need more good studies on things that cause cancer, we also need more on ways to make our bodies resist cancer and other disease.

You probably heard of this already, but just in case:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/05/health/young-blood-mice-aging/

Three new studies describe how the blood of young mice may help rejuvenate the brains and muscle tissues of older mice. For now, it has only been tried in rodents, but this line of research might one day lead to therapies for medical conditions often found in aging humans.

George_Baileys_Ghost

All I know is, if 1984 would hurry up and get here, it would be a brave new world, and none of us will ever have to think for, or take responsibility for ourselves ever again.

Fingers crossed and hoping for Utopia!

NorthCountryDreamer

I shared a desert at Chili's with a friend recently. After dinner I learned that that desert was 1,400 calories. I think it would be great to have a break down of calories, fat, protein and carbs. I would have made a better choice. I feel more strongly about providing real food and eliminating processed stuff.

SarahNicoleW94

I find it so annoying! I sort of have to guess, or find meals similar online and try to add them up!

Jestinia

All I know is, if 1984 would hurry up and get here, it would be a brave new world, and none of us will ever have to think for, or take responsibility for ourselves ever again.

Fingers crossed and hoping for Utopia!

I thought we were already there, with people who argue against giving consumers more information because it will make them less responsible for themselves. Doublethink if I ever heard it. How can I, in a state of ignorance, take more responsibility for myself than if I had the detailed information available to me?

capnrus789

Expensive? it would take about 2-4 hours (depending on menu size) to sit down with a menu and go through every item and calculate the totals. Then you could print out 1 copy for each table and laminate it and it could cost less than 50 bucks.

There is no excuse not to let your customers know whats in what they are eating.

Can't imagine how many small business you'd put out of business with a requirement like there. Way to go economy killer, hope your'e proud.is

rml_16

All I know is, if 1984 would hurry up and get here, it would be a brave new world, and none of us will ever have to think for, or take responsibility for ourselves ever again.

Fingers crossed and hoping for Utopia!

I thought we were already there, with people who argue against giving consumers more information because it will make them less responsible for themselves. Doublethink if I ever heard it. How can I, in a state of ignorance, take less responsibility for myself than if I had the detailed information available to me?

You might want to learn how to use Google. It's quite helpful in these situations and makes government mandates such as the one proposed here quite unnecessary.

www.google.com

If you need additional help, just PM me.

vmclach

Yeah I forgot, as consumers, we don't have the power to chose where we eat.. :-/

Jestinia

Expensive? it would take about 2-4 hours (depending on menu size) to sit down with a menu and go through every item and calculate the totals. Then you could print out 1 copy for each table and laminate it and it could cost less than 50 bucks.

There is no excuse not to let your customers know whats in what they are eating.

Can't imagine how many small business you'd put out of business with a requirement like there. Way to go economy killer, hope your'e proud.is

So you would not object to this proposal if only large and profitable businesses were required to abide by it?

George_Baileys_Ghost

All I know is, if 1984 would hurry up and get here, it would be a brave new world, and none of us will ever have to think for, or take responsibility for ourselves ever again.

Fingers crossed and hoping for Utopia!

I thought we were already there, with people who argue against giving consumers more information because it will make them less responsible for themselves. Doublethink if I ever heard it. How can I, in a state of ignorance, take more responsibility for myself than if I had the detailed information available to me?

Ah yes...freedom by government mandate. I recognize this method, comrade. It is very effective indeed!

EvgeniZyntx

It's done here in California.

... only in chain restuarants with more than 20 locations. I was there last week and most places I went did not have it.

But in for the coddling with the information dump that most people will ignore. In California every single restaurant had a carcinogen warning and the end result is a popluation of inured people.

But if a carcinogen counting website ever catches on, California will be the state for dining out. Also, I've just bookmarked California's carcinogen list for the next time I find some new and bizarre ingredient on a list of whatever I'm planning to eat.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1143069-if-toxins-scare-you-stop-eating?

Yes indeed, there are things that cause cancer which we cannot avoid, some foods have harmful chemicals in them before we start mucking around with them. Others have had harmful chemicals bred out by humans. Yay us! However, we should do what we can to keep our toxicity burden low. And that requires someone unbiased to do the research and publish the information as best they can.

unbiased research to bolster your confirmation bias?

One problem is that we need far more well done, replicated, unbiased studies. But there are a few that exist, at least for some chemicals:



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247384/

Cadmium is a cumulative nephrotoxicant that is absorbed into the body from dietary sources and cigarette smoking. The levels of Cd in organs such as liver and kidney cortex increase with age because of the lack of an active biochemical process for its elimination coupled with renal reabsorption. Recent research has provided evidence linking Cd-related kidney dysfunction and decreases in bone mineral density in nonoccupationally exposed populations who showed no signs of nutritional deficiency. This challenges the previous view that the concurrent kidney and bone damage seen in Japanese itai-itai disease patients was the result of Cd toxicity in combination with nutritional deficiencies, notably, of zinc and calcium. Further, such Cd-linked bone and kidney toxicities were observed in people whose dietary Cd intakes were well within the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) set by the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives of 1 μg/kg body weight/day or 70 μg/day. This evidence points to the much-needed revision of the current PTWI for Cd. Also, evidence for the carcinogenic risk of chronic Cd exposure is accumulating and Cd effects on reproductive outcomes have begun to emerge.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jat.1135/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false


Abstract
Many compounds in the environment have been shown capable of binding to cellular oestrogen receptors and then mimicking the actions of physiological oestrogens. The widespread origin and diversity in chemical structure of these environmental oestrogens is extensive but to date such compounds have been organic and in particular phenolic or carbon ring structures of varying structural complexity. Recent reports of the ability of certain metal ions to also bind to oestrogen receptors and to give rise to oestrogen agonist responses in vitro and in vivo has resulted in the realisation that environmental oestrogens can also be inorganic and such xenoestrogens have been termed metalloestrogens. This report highlights studies which show metalloestrogens to include aluminium, antimony, arsenite, barium, cadmium, chromium (Cr(II)), cobalt, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenite, tin and vanadate. The potential for these metal ions to add to the burden of aberrant oestrogen signalling within the human breast is discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Here are two at least a partial counters to these (you're welcome, now you don't have to find it yourself):

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691502000595

Abstract
Dioxins are highly toxic by-products of incineration processes and of production of chloro-organic chemicals. Accidental poisonings have occurred repeatedly. The main human exposure is via the dietary route. Species comparisons of toxic effects on the basis of ingested doses are not possible because of the highly differing toxicokinetics between humans and experimental animals. On the basis of internal doses or body burdens acute toxic and tumorigenic responses are observed at similar levels in humans and rats. PCB/PCDD/F contamination at levels which have been reported of marketed chicken meat and eggs in 1999 in Belgium may have increased body burdens by approximately 10%. However, it is estimated that a several hundred-fold higher uptake would be necessary to reach body burdens leading to overt toxicity in normal human subjects.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15287390500360042#.U2jzSPldVjI

Abstract
Recent National Toxicology Program (NTP) cancer bioassay data for 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p‐dioxin (TCDD), 2,3,4,7,8-pentachlorodibenzofuran (4-PeCDF), 3,3′,4,4′,5-pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB 126), and a mixture of these three compounds offer opportunities to assess the accuracy of current World Health Organization (WHO) 1998 toxic equivalency factors (TEFs) for these compounds under a variety of assumptions. An evaluation of the current TEF values for these compounds using body burden in nanograms per kilogram as the dose metric is presented. Average lifetime body burdens were estimated for all compounds at all dose groups based on measured tissue concentrations at 4 time points during the 2-yr NTP studies. Poly-3 adjusted tumor incidences for hepatocellular adenomas, cholangiocarcinomas, and the two tumors combined were modeled using a quantal multistage model and the Hill model with lifetime average body burden as the dose metric. Benchmark doses for a 10% response (BMD10) for each compound and the mixture were estimated. With TCDD as the reference standard, relative potency (REP) estimates were derived from ratios of the BMD10 estimates for PCB 126, 4-PeCDF, and for the toxic equivalent (TEQ) mixture. On a body-burden basis, PCB 126 and 4-PeCDF were 2- to 3-fold and 10- to 12-fold less potent than predicted based on the WHO TEFs, respectively, while the TEQ mixture was approximately 3- to 5-fold less potent than predicted by the TEFs. The current WHO TEF values, which were derived from data on noncancer endpoints evaluated on an administered dose basis, overpredict the carcinogenic potency of these compounds on a body-burden basis compared to TCDD.

But that is how science works - there isn't some magical process that tells you one study is worthy and another is not. Reader bias is an operational process because most of the toxicity processes are dosage dependent - queue in oxigen or water toxicity.

For example, one of the studies you posted talks about copper toxicity. All well and good, but copper is also an essential dietary element - copper deficiency leads to a bunch of dietary diseases.

Hellbent_Heidi

Do I like when a restaurant has the nutritional information YES, do I think we need the government mandating yet another area of our lives NO! One meal isn't making a difference estimate what you had and move on, and if you are so worried about it don't go out to eat at that establishment.

Exactly!!

rml_16

I shared a desert at Chili's with a friend recently. After dinner I learned that that desert was 1,400 calories. I think it would be great to have a break down of calories, fat, protein and carbs. I would have made a better choice. I feel more strongly about providing real food and eliminating processed stuff.

But ... dessert? If you want to eat "real food" and "not processed stuff," don't eat at Chili's and don't eat dessert.

You contradicted yourself in three lines.

Galatea_Stone

I shared a desert at Chili's with a friend recently. After dinner I learned that that desert was 1,400 calories. I think it would be great to have a break down of calories, fat, protein and carbs. I would have made a better choice. I feel more strongly about providing real food and eliminating processed stuff.

Next time, take your smart phone and look at the entries in MFP before your order. It's your responsibility if you want to count calories.