It should be required by federal law...

Strokingdiction · May 2014

No.

chivalryder · May 2014

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ontario-law-to-force-calorie-count-on-fast-food-menus-1.2549382

"Only restaurants that have more than 20 Ontario locations and do more than $5 million of business annually will be affected by the legislation."

"the new law would require them to post calorie counts prominently on menu boards or menus or alongside the food when it is served."

"Bill 59 requires high or very high sodium items to be flagged somewhere on the premises, though not necessarily on the menu board."

Jestinia · May 2014

I have a question for all you small government people:

I have a food dehydrator. I hear beef jerky is ridiculously expensive and I know sun dried tomatoes are. I could make both of these daily and sell them both out of my kitchen. Except all kinds of laws and regulations will stop me from legally doing so. SWAT might even show up at my door (they have done so recently in cases where people were making cheese and selling it at farmer's markets).

So should I be allowed to sell my tomatoes and jerky without government interference, inspection, and so forth? If you say yes, I can at least respect that you have some consistency on this topic. But if you say I should be subject to regulation but large, profitable businesses shouldn't be, there is something wrong with your reasoning.

Acg67 · May 2014

Yes, same as little kids lemonade stands, girl scouts etc, although I've seen cases of lemonade stands and the such get shut down to lack of licensees etc

Can you also point to where people were arguing that large businesses should be exempt from regulation but smaller mom and pop ones should be?

Strokingdiction · May 2014

Apples and oranges. Your example is a matter of food safety. Improperly processed jerky can kill. Restaurants not providing nutrition information will not.

LITtlerMeCO · May 2014

I agree.

Showcase_Brodown · May 2014

It would be convenient to have nutrition info on menus, I agree, but it should definitely NOT be law. It is one thing to have nutrition facts on packaged food, because that can more or less be verfied and tested (therefore enforced). But if a meal is being assembled, unless it all comes from standard packages where all the information is known, and all quantities and weights are accurate, the best you'll have is a bad estimate, which we're all capable of anyway.

So there's no way you're going to know if the information is accurate. Even if government employees come around with bomb calorimeters to verify calorie content, you aren't guaranteed the Joe will prepare the dish the exact same way as Sally. So we're stuck with crappy estimates, with or without the laws. You can't possibly enforce this.

Even packaged products have a margin of error.

Can you imagine how many tax dollars this would cost? Not worth it.

Conveniently, you can find nutrition information for food at quite a few big chains. Not a whole lot of variance between a big mac here or there. It may be a task for a local restaurant to come up with estimated nutrition, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Jestinia · May 2014

They weren't pointing that out. It's simply the reality people take for granted. If you want to sell food, unless you're a little kid running a lemonade stand, you have to get all sorts of permits, pass inspections, etc etc, and I can understand that, since it's for health and safety reasons. And no one is complaining and saying food manufacturers shouldn't have to list calories on items in the grocery store, either. So my confusion is: To those who don't want to roll us back to the days before the FDA and USDA existed in any form, why complain when they come up with something that makes calorie counter's lives easier? Also note, I'm happy to hear small business is exempted. I think that is a good thing.

Erica_Nichols · May 2014

That would be SO nice. Today at the office we ordered Chinese. I almost spent more time trying to figure how many calories were in my cup of steamed chicken and broccoli than I did eating it. :O

I love how Subway's website works. I can click on the sandwich and customize exactly what I want on and it shows the nutrition information. Not as easy as scanning a bar code, but accurate to what I'm eating. Plus, I get to play with it and decide if, say, the bacon on my 6" oven roasted chicken sandwich is worth the extra fifty calories.

ValeriePlz · May 2014

I am not sure that a full printed nutritional info should be provided for every menu item, but it should at least be online so people can plan.

Yagisama · May 2014

Not all regulation is aimed at individuals. Restaurants providing nutrition information is aimed at populations and the goal would be to save lives by decreasing illness caused by poor nutrition over much longer periods. They may be different goals at different parts of the spectrum, but they are related from a health perspective.

You can argue that the latter regulation is ineffective or not worth the expense, but you can't hand wave it away just because its time frame is much longer than the food safety regulation.

Jestinia · May 2014

This. Also, what about my other post? What about rolling back requirements for calories on grocery store packaging? Not knowing how many calories are in a Twix Bar isn't a pressing matter of food safety either, why require calorie estimates on anything?

Strokingdiction · May 2014

I can have it both ways. Some regulations are good. Some regulations are pointless. Deciding one is stupid does not suddenly mean it's hypocritical to find other worthwhile. Stop making people argue your red herrings.

CA_Underdog · May 2014

I love it! You can do the same with the Chipotle website. Add chicken.. swap white rice for brown rice, add black beans, add corn salsa--swap it for tomato salsa--swap it for green tomatillo salsa, add lettuce, add cheese, add guac--remove it. Presto! A meal that I could live with in terms of its nutrition.

Strokingdiction · May 2014

Twix are a standard product. The billions that have been produced have nearly identical nutrient counts. A restaurant that isn't a chain, with a good chef in the kitchen and variable ingredients will not have standard nutrient counts from one day to the next. It's as feasible as it is useful to provide counts on mass produced foodstuffs. It is not feasible for the variable menu.

So your odd argument for roll back is just pointless but you knew that already. You just thought you'd come up with a clever though barely related counter. Sadly, it didn't hold water.

lindsey1979 · May 2014

I think, as the after school special goes, that knowledge is power.

There is an obesity epidemic in the US, and part of that is undoubtedly people unknowingly eating more than they thought. So many people had very eye opening experiences once they start to use a food scale. When I eat at restaurants where the calories or some nutritional information is provided in the menu, I am SHOCKED by how high the amounts are -- I knew the portions were large, but, wow, I didn't realize that they were truly that much bigger (like when the salads are 600-800+ calories).

So, that's why I would like to see more of this from restaurants, with appropriate exceptions -- such as for smaller places or those places that change their menus more often (which I imagine there is likely a lot of overlap as you don't tend to find many fine dining franchises).

In my state (Cali), we had an initiative on the ballot that would require produce producers to label their produce as being GMO or not (according to the definition of GMO in the initiative). The voters turned it down, which I personally found shocking. Big food producers poured a LOT of money into campaigns arguing that the new food labels would drive up the cost of produce -- and I imagine this was greatly inflated. Who shouldn't be given information about what they're actually ingesting so they can make the CHOICE as whether to ingest that or not?

I source a lot of things locally so I better know what I'm eating, but I also realize that this is a luxury that many people in this country don't have -- it's expensive, both in time and money. So who suffers more from such things? The poor -- and that really pisses me off.

We use labels on many things to give people the POWER of CHOICE -- so they can exercise their personal autonomy. We use labels to give people more information -- we do it for packaged foods in the grocery, medications, cigarettes, etc.

When you keep such facts hidden, it limits our personal freedoms and power. And when people are fighting against such reasonable limits, you've got to stop and ask the question why. Who benefits from keeping such information hidden?

Yagisama · May 2014

Like I said you can say the regulation is ineffective or not worth the expense (or pointless as you say) and of course you don't have to support all regulations. My point was you can't dismiss the regulation just because it's not designed to stop immediate fatalities.

lemurcat12 · May 2014

What places, that don't already have such information available or soon to be required to by the FDA, as discussed in this thread, would this apply to? Given the current status of information availability, it seems to me that this is aimed at local restaurants, the kinds that you say you think should have an exception. I don't get it.

Also, in large part through the power of public demand, there are lots of restaurants that have items available with quite reasonable calorie counts. I almost never go to a chain for a dinner out, so am used to the whole estimate or ask questions, etc., if you care that day, but I eat at chains (some local, some not) for lunch quite frequently, when I neglect to bring my lunch, and it really isn't difficult to find one with calorie information available (they basically all have it) and there's been a steady increase in responsiveness to calorie concerns. For example, Potbelly's, a local sandwich place, now has "skinny" options. Back when I wasn't counting calories and didn't care I could see the calorie counts on the board and usually got no cheese and even the skinny if I wasn't that hungry. And then I'd get the huge oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Is this because the cookie had it's calories hidden? No, it did not (420 calories), although I personally avoided taking note of any of the counts at the time.

Now, even if it's not actually likely to make much of a difference in the US obesity rate, is it nice for this information to be available? Sure, I like it, and restaurants that want to market their stuff as healthy or non-fattening seem to have picked up on this (there's a place here, and probably elsewhere too, called Protein Bar, that's all about quinoa, and unsurprisingly they have their calorie counts and protein amounts, etc., all out there as part of their appeal). But given that it is available, I think the continued call for such requirements and the insistence that it's no burden, that it's deceptive for restaurants not to provide it, etc. (not referring to your post, but my sense of the discussion as a whole), is really targeted at the local and higher-end places where no one really cares, there's no good reason to care (don't go if it bothers you), and it threatens their ability to do what (IMO) restaurants should do--provide excellent creative food, taking advantage of local specials and seasonality, etc.

crose0056 · May 2014

I do and agree....march on...

lindsey1979 · May 2014

Well, if such places were in compliance already, then they shouldn't care, right? Because they'd already be complying. And I do think there are many places offering things up already -- and that's great --- but there are a lot of places that do significant business that don't, and that varies a lot on locale. And they don't fall into the mom and pop or fine dining category. That's why the limitations in that regulation cited by Chivalryder make a lot of sense to me. They seem to strike a good balance between providing information to consumers and being overly burdensome.

lemurcat12 · May 2014

What places that aren't already covered by the FDA rules that are being implemented, not to mention that already have nutrition information available on the internet, are we talking about? What places (other than Buffalo Wild Wings, I guess) are the concern? That's what I'm not understanding.

lindsey1979 · May 2014

I never compiled a list, but I definitely know that I've encountered places over the years, as I'm sure many others have. And personally, I'd like it to be available on the premises, not just the internet because plenty of people don't have convenient access to the internet. Not everyone has a smart phone where they can access it on the fly, or have internet in their home. Many do, but plenty don't -- and they should have access to the information in a reasonable manner too.

Either way, does it really matter how many we're talking about? If they're already in compliance, then it's no additional burden. It would only be a burden for those that aren't already providing such information. Who cares if it's 5 or 5 million.

lemurcat12 · May 2014

Edit to simplify, since the argument was played out hours ago.

(1) whether you've seen such restaurants or not, the question was whether they would be covered by the already existing law that the FDA is promulgating. That law is controversial still, for various reasons, but nothing in the thread--which granted, I did not read super carefully, suggested that we were debating that law, vs. a demand for something more. Thus, my concern about what restaurants we are talking about since I think it's a terrible idea when applied to local places without standardized items.

(2) beyond that, the fact that restaurants with such information available are widespread indicates to me that it's not an issue of customer power and choice. More options provide such a choice and if people actually want it they can choose the restaurants that have it since numerous such restaurants exist--the vast majority of major chains, certainly. What's the real harm of a few others wanting to carve out a niche as the decadent places where calories don't count? Do people really stop overeating if we make them stop?

IMO you'd have an argument about it being needed to give the customer power if there were no such options, not because my favorite local pasta place might not have it, for whatever reason.

lindsey1979 · May 2014

I guess I just don't see this as particularly controversial, at least in concept. I look at the proposed regulation as I do with any regulation. Philosophically, I'm not a fan of regulations as a general rule, but practically, I understand their value as many people will fail to do the right thing on their own (either out of ignorance, difference of opinion as to what is "right" or "best" or outright greed or laziness). So, I usually look at it in a benefit vs. cost breakdown. Does the benefit of the regulation make it worth the cost to those burdened (from a societal perspective)?

For me, and this general idea, it's a no brainer so long as certain caveats are included. For restaurants that serve fairly consistent foods, it's a relatively small burden to figure out their calories and macros -- they can analyze their recipes just like we do at home as individuals. And, once they do it, that's it. That to me is a very small burden. Same with posting this somewhere easy -- either on the menus themselves, which seems like the easiest, most straightforward way to do it, or available upon request at the establishment. Small burden, and many establishments are doing this on their own already.

The exception I would make are for small businesses. This would cover both your mom & pop shops and likely your restaurants that change their menu often (which I usually associate with some mom & pop shops and fine dining establishments). If the fine dining establishments make so much money that it would boost them out of the "small business category" (and I'm not sure what that number would be, but $5M/year as suggested in the Canadian legislation seems reasonable to me), then I don't have a lot of sympathy for this extra burden. If I'm dining somewhere where the dinner bill is $1000, I don't have a lot of sympathy for a pauper's plea in that case.

So, once again, to me, the benefit is considerable in providing such information to consumers and the burden is pretty minimal. Can you stop people from overeating? Of course not. But, you can provide them greater information and some, maybe even many, will make better choices once they're aware of the facts. I think misinformation drives a lot of the overeating problem.

It should be required by federal law...

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