Should restaurants have to say how many calories

[RoJoHen]

But in all honesty, i think it would be wonderful if all places did have such info. Just to see how bad of a diet i'm eating.

I think you would be appalled at how many calories certain things have.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

I'm sure i would be. Perhaps it would force me to eat healthier. Or say, fuck it, and continue killing myself with food.

 

[Small White Car]

Yes.

You can go to a restaurant and one salad will be 500 calories and one will be 1200.

Why the F#$@ should I have to look that up on the internet ahead of time? Why can't it just be on the menu right there?

I may want the 500 one and someone may actually want the 1,200 one. Wouldn't it be nice if we could each make that choice easier? I fail to see how that hurts the restaurant at all. If people change their eating habits then they'll just start ordering more of the newly popular foods and less of the less popular foods. Isn't that how business works anyway? What's the downside there? Who is opposed to this? Why?

All I see are complaints about "Nanny States" along with complaints that "I'll eat what I want anyway." HOW can those 2 complaints go together? If you'll eat what you want (as you should) then how is that a Nanny State? Huh?

I read this whole thread and I didn't see a single good reason to not do this.

 

[RoJoHen]

We had a dessert at TGI Fridays that had 3,000 calories in it. If I ever had to work a really long day, I would eat one at the very beginning of my shift. It would give me energy for the whole day!

 

[AstroSmurf]

ingredients I think are important, for someone like myself who won't consume any animal derivatives, I like to know exactly what is in my food. People don't always know what constitutes an animal derivative, and can be quite flippant about it if they have no problem with it themselves.

This is one of the reasons I don't eat out very often. Being a diabetic vegetarian with hypertension, I tend to need a lot of information about what I am eating. However, I hate being a pest (and wait staff don't have a clue anyway) so I usually settle for a salad or something very simple. There are a few places around that I know I am okay to eat at without worrying but all of them are local and I know the owners or chefs.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

ingredients I think are important, for someone like myself who won't consume any animal derivatives, I like to know exactly what is in my food. People don't always know what constitutes an animal derivative, and can be quite flippant about it if they have no problem with it themselves.

But to be analytic of calories and nutrition, I think is over the top. You don't go to a restaurant for a chemistry lesson. You can get a rough idea of the nutritional quality from an ingredients list I think.

No you can't. The mall snack I mentioned earlier, for example, has a carb load many times in excess of what you would expect from a simple ingredients list.

Diabetics in particular have to know EXCATLY how much carbs are in the food they eat, as their food plans allow for differing amounts of carbs depending on the severity of their condition and insulin dosages are calculated based on exact carb numbers.

Also, if things are made to order, there is no fixed recipe, so you can only roughly estimate it's nutritional information. So much so that to tag some options with a "low calorie" icon, and other icons for "diabetic safe", or whatever, seems more realistic than a load of numbers.

Those informal "tags" are 1) not sufficiently specific for those who NEED that information and 2) leave too much wiggle room for food manufacturers to play around with definitions.

They shouldn't have to. People should just know better than to eat things which are obviously full of fat/sugar. It's not hard to figure out which things are bad for you. People will still eat unhealthily regardless of how good the labelling is. The nanny state is bad enough as it is.

Oh STFU about the "nanny state". All that is being asked for is INFORMATION to allow people to make fully informed choices about the foods they eat.

 

[Holdfast]

No way.

It would be insanely expensive to do for every item on a changing seasonal menu. It would basically force restaurants to make the same thing, all the time. Fine for the chains who do that anyway, and can easily incorporate it into their overheads, but it would be prohibitively expensive/time-consuming for independent restaurants with changing seasonal menus or with varying specials of the day.

I do not want to see unchanging menus and chain restaurants squeezing the better restaurants out.

 

[Jan]

It would be nice if an approximation (since serving sizes always vary somewhat) was available at the restaurant for those who want it but mandatory? Nope.

Anyway, for the most part, it's common sense, isn't it? If the protion size is huge, it's probably more than what would be considered as one serving in any other packaging so even if it's a generally healthy item, eating the equivalent of four servings would probably be a Bad Thing. The heavy sauces and majorly processed foods are likely to be the high-calorie/unhealthy items and the minimally processed items will generally be better as long as you don't pile on other stuff like salad dressings and mayo.

Sadly, these days common sense is massively uncommon.

Jan

 

[Mr. B]

They shouldn't have to. People should just know better than to eat things which are obviously full of fat/sugar. It's not hard to figure out which things are bad for you. People will still eat unhealthily regardless of how good the labelling is. The nanny state is bad enough as it is.

Oh STFU about the "nanny state". All that is being asked for is INFORMATION to allow people to make fully informed choices about the foods they eat.

This is exactly the sort of thing imposed by a nanny state. The populace must be too stupid to know that fried foods have high fat content so let's make a law that forces business to spend money to find and publish that INFORMATION on their menu. It's positively absurd. If you're that worried about eating healthy, you shouldn't be at any restaurant.

 

[Colonel Green]

I think this would place an unreasonable financial and operational burden on independent restauranteurs, but I'd have no problem with placing such a requirement on chains with more than X number of locations. Not sure what the threshold should be though.

 

[kimc]

I wouldn't mind if they did it but I don't think it should be a requirement.

 

[TheLonelySquire]

I was under the impression that restaurants had that information available upon request.

I believe most do. At least chain restaurants.

 

[Plomeek Broth]

I can picture it now. Oh, you just ate the triple whopper with cheese and extra bacon, a king sized onion rings, a chocolate shake, and washed it all down with a Diet Coke? I'm sorry, sir, your caloric intake should last you until November 7th.

 

[scotpens]

I don't need to know how much cholesterol is in my butter, but I would like to know which food has butter in it. I would also like to know if lard is used or beef stock, as I am a vegetarian.

So, what you don’t know won’t hurt you, right? Adopt the same philosophy as us non-Orthodox American Jews: Pork and shellfish are kosher as long as they’re in Chinese food.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

No way.

It would be insanely expensive to do for every item on a changing seasonal menu. It would basically force restaurants to make the same thing, all the time. Fine for the chains who do that anyway, and can easily incorporate it into their overheads, but it would be prohibitively expensive/time-consuming for independent restaurants with changing seasonal menus or with varying specials of the day.

No it would not. Resteraunts don't change their menus that often, and substitutions are often within "kind" (that is, for example, a fish place will change species of fish on special, but it's still fish).

t want to see unchanging menus and chain restaurants squeezing the better restaurants out.

You wouldn't. The figures are out there already, the task is to get them to the consumer in a timely and easily accessable manner.

It would be nice if an approximation (since serving sizes always vary somewhat) was available at the restaurant for those who want it but mandatory? Nope.

Why do you not want diners to have MORE information to make informed food choices?

for the most part, it's common sense, isn't it? If the protion size is huge, it's probably more than what would be considered as one serving in any other packaging so even if it's a generally healthy item, eating the equivalent of four servings would probably be a Bad Thing. The heavy sauces and majorly processed foods are likely to be the high-calorie/unhealthy items and the minimally processed items will generally be better as long as you don't pile on other stuff like salad dressings and mayo.

Sadly, these days common sense is massively uncommon.

Jan

It's not that easy. Some foods are higher in certain aspects than their bulk would indicate. A deceptively small amount of product can have extremely high amounts of carbs, or salts, or fats.

They shouldn't have to. People should just know better than to eat things which are obviously full of fat/sugar. It's not hard to figure out which things are bad for you. People will still eat unhealthily regardless of how good the labelling is. The nanny state is bad enough as it is.

Oh STFU about the "nanny state". All that is being asked for is INFORMATION to allow people to make fully informed choices about the foods they eat.

This is exactly the sort of thing imposed by a nanny state. The populace must be too stupid to know that fried foods have high fat content so let's make a law that forces business to spend money to find and publish that INFORMATION on their menu. It's positively absurd. If you're that worried about eating healthy, you shouldn't be at any restaurant.

That's not true. There are good resteraunts and bad ones. And within a resteraunt there are good items and bad ones. All that is being asked is that INFORMATION be given so that the end consumer can select wisely according to their diatetic needs.

I think this would place an unreasonable financial and operational burden on independent restauranteurs.

Unreasonable as opposed to diners not being able to make fully informed food choices?

 

[Jan]

Why do you not want diners to have MORE information to make informed food choices?

Didn't say I didn't. I said it would be nice if the information was available but I didn't want it mandatory. I don't want menus that look like the back of a soup can with nutritional information. I don't want the governmental support mechanism that would be necessary to check and ensure that the information was accurate. I read an article the other day that somebody writing a new diet book checked some of the calorie info provided in an area (New York?) where that info has to be on the menus now and it's frequently as much as 20% off. What good is inaccurate information?

It's not that easy. Some foods are higher in certain aspects than their bulk would indicate. A deceptively small amount of product can have extremely high amounts of carbs, or salts, or fats.

That's true. Cottage cheese has a higher sodium content than one would expect from its taste, for instance. So what? If it's that important to keep track of so closely that you have to monitor it for everything that goes into your mouth, carry a pocket calorie/nutrient guide and work it out for yourself. Don't place the burden on businesses already overburdened by bureaucratic red tape as it is. For most of us, knowing that most restaurant portions are usually enough for multiple measured servings is enough.

Unreasonable as opposed to diners not being able to make fully informed food choices?

Most of them are likely to care more that one more bureacratic regulation has just added a buck to their favorite meal.

Jan