It should be required by federal law...

Strokingdiction

We definitely need more government oversight in our lives and mandates that are enforced at gunpoint.

Surely not at gunpoint, they should mandate the ownership of all those as well O_o

No.

chivalryder

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

LITtlerMeCO

What this would require is that EVERY. SINGLE. RESTAURANT would require a dietician or have somebody trained - fine if you are McDonalds, an unnecessary expense for small businesses.

Anyway, is this just to deflect from irresponsibilities. Is it sour grapes off the back of getting too overweight?

Why have other nations not needed such legislation?

I agree.

Showcase_Brodown

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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

lindsey1979

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?

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.

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.