It should be required by federal law...

SpencersHeart

I can see the potential lawsuits lining up..."Have you eaten at _____ and gained weight? Did ______ not provide the correct calorie amount/count and you've gained weight? Call 1-800-_______ for the class action suit to be filed in your area"

:flowerforyou:

Yagisama

One thing that annoys me is people who demand regulation without having the foggiest clue of how such regulation would be implemented.

So for those who want the government to mandate that accurate nutrition information be provided by all establishments that sell food how exactly do you picture that happening? What mechanism would that regulation take and how would it be effective?

Not saying this is a good idea or not, but one way off the top of my head would be to tax restaurants that don't provide nutritional information. Then the restaurant can compare the lab fees vs potential taxes and decide which way they prefer to go.

Strokingdiction

One thing that annoys me is people who demand regulation without having the foggiest clue of how such regulation would be implemented.

So for those who want the government to mandate that accurate nutrition information be provided by all establishments that sell food how exactly do you picture that happening? What mechanism would that regulation take and how would it be effective?

Not saying this is a good idea or not, but one way off the top of my head would be to tax restaurants that don't provide nutritional information. Then the restaurant can compare the lab fees vs potential taxes and decide which way they prefer to go.

Woot, more punishments for small business! It not like it's hard to run one or anything.

Yagisama

One thing that annoys me is people who demand regulation without having the foggiest clue of how such regulation would be implemented.

So for those who want the government to mandate that accurate nutrition information be provided by all establishments that sell food how exactly do you picture that happening? What mechanism would that regulation take and how would it be effective?

Not saying this is a good idea or not, but one way off the top of my head would be to tax restaurants that don't provide nutritional information. Then the restaurant can compare the lab fees vs potential taxes and decide which way they prefer to go.

Woot, more punishments for small business! It not like it's hard to run one or anything.

Yup. Life's tough. No denying that.

Serah87

This is the most idiotic thing I've heard!!! :grumble:

Koldnomore

What's the caloric content of this?



Because fark if I know.

If I had the menu description I could probably tell you within about 100 calories. No worse than the 'estimates' you get from the nutritional information they have available. I cooked 20 + years in restaurants and I can count on one hand the number of times I followed any recipe exactly.

In my future sci-fi world I'd have some funky implant that would count the calories exactly of everything that I eat, unfortunately we don't have those yet. All we have are estimates that the corporations are nice enough to provide to us poor unfortunate souls (sarcasm) Those estimates may or may not be accurate or even close..So even if we have the regulations, there is no way to confirm that what we are being told is even true.

Your best defense is to either cook it yourself or take an educated guess based on the ingredients you see on your dish - or better yet the menu. Most places have no problem to tell you what is in their food if you aren't sure. I have asked many times "How much ____ is on that?" or "How is that ______ cooked exactly?"

No one was responsible for my obesity, I did that ALL by myself. I took no responsibility for the ****e that I shoved in my face, the government didn't make me fat, no one forced me to eat a whole pizza or drink a 2L of soda. Any person of average intelligence should be able to figure out that eating in that way daily is NOT good for you.

As I am fond of saying these days "You aren't going to accidentally hit your goal weight" No one can MAKE you lose weight, labels aren't going to make you lose weight, laws aren't going to make you lose weight. No amount of advertising or promotions or pills or what have you are going to MAKE you lose weight. In the end we are each responsible for our OWN goals (whatever they may be) - once you begin to take responsibility for yourself (you in the general sense, not you specifically) and stop making excuses to shift the blame it becomes far easier to get to where you want to be.

Annie_01

OP...there are people with dietary needs that call ahead and discuss with the manager or chef if their needs can be met. If you want to dine out and if it is important to you call as far in advance as possible and most of your finer dining places will try to accommodate you.

I eat out about once a week. I choose places that have their nutritional value online and decide ahead of time what fits my diet. If by some chance (such as this big cookie I got once) it is not available I check with other places that do and find something similar to what I ate.

I eat low sodium...if I eat out I know before hand that is not possible...I choose to do so and don't expect a restaurant to accommodate my specific needs...after all...I didn't have to chose to eat out.

gaelicstorm26

I don't think making a rough estimate when dining out is too big of a deal. I agree that it would be super convenient to have nutritional information available upon request, but I don't think we need the government bungling this. And sometimes, I just don't care. I'm going to my favorite local restaurant on Saturday evening and I'm planning on having the exact dish that I love.

The only point people are making that bothers me is the whole "personal responsibility" argument, which is hilariously flawed. There are times that we need tools to take personal responsibility, and this is one of those times. Some people might not feel comfortable with estimating for whatever reason--and that is fine. I don't, however, believe that telling them not to go out to eat is a viable solution. It is completely disingenious at heart.

I do feel for those with food allergies. I have a cousin who is allergic to milk. The longest she has gone without going into anaphylactic shock is 18 months (she is in her early 40's). She has fallen victim to mislabeled food and inaccurate information from restaurant staff more than once. She still eats at restaurants. She is as careful as she can be, but she does need to rely on accurate information regarding ingredients.

I do believe that we deserve some level of transparency with our food. Barring calorie counts, it would be possible for a restaurant to at least be able to publish ingredients contained in food that are high on the allergen list (peanuts, eggs, shellfish, milk, etc). I'm not saying that they should have to give you a list of EVERY ingredient, but a list should be kept so that staff can check ingredients with some sort of accuracy for customers.

Amerielle

Oh, hells no. I'd rather take my chances on calories and go to a real restaurant (with a real person making my food who can make decisions based on what products look the best that day) over an assembly-line chain place (where they just dump pre-measured, bagged, frozen cr@p on my plate) any day of the week.

Agree 100%. If I want to eat that sort of food I might as well pick up a frozen dinner at the grocery store and pop it in the microwave.

Strokingdiction

I don't think making a rough estimate when dining out is too big of a deal. I agree that it would be super convenient to have nutritional information available upon request, but I don't think we need the government bungling this. And sometimes, I just don't care. I'm going to my favorite local restaurant on Saturday evening and I'm planning on having the exact dish that I love.

The only point people are making that bothers me is the whole "personal responsibility" argument, which is hilariously flawed. There are times that we need tools to take personal responsibility, and this is one of those times. Some people might not feel comfortable with estimating for whatever reason--and that is fine. I don't, however, believe that telling them not to go out to eat is a viable solution. It is completely disingenious at heart.

I do feel for those with food allergies. I have a cousin who is allergic to milk. The longest she has gone without going into anaphylactic shock is 18 months (she is in her early 40's). She has fallen victim to mislabeled food and inaccurate information from restaurant staff more than once. She still eats at restaurants. She is as careful as she can be, but she does need to rely on accurate information regarding ingredients.

I do believe that we deserve some level of transparency with our food. Barring calorie counts, it would be possible for a restaurant to at least be able to publish ingredients contained in food that are high on the allergen list (peanuts, eggs, shellfish, milk, etc). I'm not saying that they should have to give you a list of EVERY ingredient, but a list should be kept so that staff can check ingredients with some sort of accuracy for customers.

First bolded: It's not personal responsibility if you're having someone else take the responsibility to do it for you.

Second bolded: Some level of transparency can be achieved with three little words. "What's in this?"

neanderthin

...To have printed "Nutrition Facts" for every menu item in every restaurant in the country. It should be required to have it available either in print, at the front of the restaurant, or online for anyone to read. Does anyone else get as frustrated as I do when they go out to eat?

Yeah, and it would help if they held my hand and read the nutritional info for me so I know what a portion size is so I don't go over my fat grams.......hell yeah, hand holding rocks.

Shropshire1959

Oy government keep your nose outta my guns but make sure that I don't over eat.. it's my right :ohwell: :ohwell: :ohwell: :ohwell: :ohwell:

joehempel

...To have printed "Nutrition Facts" for every menu item in every restaurant in the country. It should be required to have it available either in print, at the front of the restaurant, or online for anyone to read. Does anyone else get as frustrated as I do when they go out to eat?

nope, eat less restaurant food if it's impacting your diet THAT much that a meal or two makes a huge difference.

Ang108

On the one hand, I really love having that info available, on the other hand, it's a huge pain in the *kitten* for small businesses, and I'd be surprised if the recipes would be followed closely enough for the info to remain accurate.

If I'm going out to eat, I just try to order the healthiest thing available and estimate the calories, rounding up severely to make sure I err on the side of caution.

This.

You think the chef's and cook's portion and weigh out every single ingredient? Do you have any idea how badly they would kill wait times during peak hours?

Yes they do and still don't kill wait times....that's what being a chef is all about. Each and every chef who is worth their salary measured their portions of uncooked ingredients, because that is what menu planning as well as the ratio of mark-up is based on.
One of my former brother-in-laws is a chef ( trained at CIA and worked in several countries and for the last 15 years in Paris ) and he tells me that the allowed difference is less than 5 % ( which means if the amount of butter a piece of fish is sautéd in is 30grs it can be 28.5 grs or 31.5 but not more or less ). With materials in most better restaurants being very expensive they really cannot just " cook as they go " in regard to measurements. It is also expected from a chef that those weight or quantities fall within their limit even without weighing or measuring....just from eyeballing from experience. But maybe, things are different in the US....

Ang108

How many people out of the US population do you guys think are really taking advantage of the nutritional information that some restaurants in the US provide ?
I think not even all MFPers do, or those who frequent similar websites.
So you want nutritional information for all restaurants so maybe one person out of several thousand could have a potential benefit ?
Maybe Americans need to learn from countries where there is not so much obesity and where people usually cook and eat at home and only go out to eat on special occasions and where as part of the local culture the portions are much smaller than in the US.
I personally think that just the nutritional information alone won't make any difference....

snazzyjazzy21

On the one hand, I really love having that info available, on the other hand, it's a huge pain in the *kitten* for small businesses, and I'd be surprised if the recipes would be followed closely enough for the info to remain accurate.

If I'm going out to eat, I just try to order the healthiest thing available and estimate the calories, rounding up severely to make sure I err on the side of caution.

This.

You think the chef's and cook's portion and weigh out every single ingredient? Do you have any idea how badly they would kill wait times during peak hours?

Yes they do and still don't kill wait times....that's what being a chef is all about. Each and every chef who is worth their salary measured their portions of uncooked ingredients, because that is what menu planning as well as the ratio of mark-up is based on.
One of my former brother-in-laws is a chef ( trained at CIA and worked in several countries and for the last 15 years in Paris ) and he tells me that the allowed difference is less than 5 % ( which means if the amount of butter a piece of fish is sautéd in is 30grs it can be 28.5 grs or 31.5 but not more or less ). With materials in most better restaurants being very expensive they really cannot just " cook as they go " in regard to measurements. It is also expected from a chef that those weight or quantities fall within their limit even without weighing or measuring....just from eyeballing from experience. But maybe, things are different in the US....

Not where I've cooked. Unless its a VERY stingy boss or a baked recipe (like bread, muffins, etc), they don't measure anything. It's time consuming and a bit pointless. You quickly learn the portions required by sight anyway.

Ang108

On the one hand, I really love having that info available, on the other hand, it's a huge pain in the *kitten* for small businesses, and I'd be surprised if the recipes would be followed closely enough for the info to remain accurate.

If I'm going out to eat, I just try to order the healthiest thing available and estimate the calories, rounding up severely to make sure I err on the side of caution.

This.

You think the chef's and cook's portion and weigh out every single ingredient? Do you have any idea how badly they would kill wait times during peak hours?

Yes they do and still don't kill wait times....that's what being a chef is all about. Each and every chef who is worth their salary measured their portions of uncooked ingredients, because that is what menu planning as well as the ratio of mark-up is based on.
One of my former brother-in-laws is a chef ( trained at CIA and worked in several countries and for the last 15 years in Paris ) and he tells me that the allowed difference is less than 5 % ( which means if the amount of butter a piece of fish is sautéd in is 30grs it can be 28.5 grs or 31.5 but not more or less ). With materials in most better restaurants being very expensive they really cannot just " cook as they go " in regard to measurements. It is also expected from a chef that those weight or quantities fall within their limit even without weighing or measuring....just from eyeballing from experience. But maybe, things are different in the US....

Not where I've cooked. Unless its a VERY stingy boss or a baked recipe (like bread, muffins, etc), they don't measure anything. It's time consuming and a bit pointless. You quickly learn the portions required by sight anyway.

You are probably right, with cheaper & mass produced ingredients that I imagine are used in many US restaurants it probably does not matter. I am certain that the more upscale and specialty restaurants do weight their portions, because the stuff they use is just too expensive .
I was on vacation until yesterday and for example had a meal that included smoked duck breast and I am certain the chef weighed the portions. I bet he also counted the paper thin slices of truffles on top of the breast , because at a starting price of a couple of thousand dollars the kilo I would not call measuring or weighing " pointless ".
And thinking of it , maybe that is exactly the problem in the kind of restaurants you refer to; portions where no one knows what they and their ingredients weigh and therefore no one knows how many calories they have. How useful is nutritional information under such circumstances ? Not at all, unless the portion is exactly the size and calories the info says....and that is not achieved " by sight ".......I think we MFPers know that better than anyone......:o).

Jestinia

...To have printed "Nutrition Facts" for every menu item in every restaurant in the country. It should be required to have it available either in print, at the front of the restaurant, or online for anyone to read. Does anyone else get as frustrated as I do when they go out to eat?

Yeah, and it would help if they held my hand and read the nutritional info for me so I know what a portion size is so I don't go over my fat grams.......hell yeah, hand holding rocks.

If I am going to be responsible for what goes into my mouth, I have to know what is going in. Demanding to know isn't out of line, nor is it asking for someone to hold my hand. Not being given the necessary information means either avoiding many restaurants or yes, advocating for laws that require nutrition info. Frankly, I'm much more concerned with pesticides, GMOs, and preservatives in our foods, but since so many of us in my country are fighting our weight, it would be good to know calories, too.

Shropshire1959

.... Demanding to know isn't out of line, ......

Demanding is well out of line and incredibly rude .. asking or requesting would be more polite and more likely to solicit a polite response... :frown: