Coming soon: Big Brother Pizza (Chicago style)
From CNSNews.com, today:
Restaurant chains with 20 or more stores would be required to display nutrition information, including calorie counts and “suggested daily caloric intake” on their menus, under a mandate contained in [Section 325 of] the health-care reform bill drafted by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee….
Someone just sent me the following surprisingly funny bit posted by the ACLU back in 2005 to protest nationalized IDs. Listening to it, I thought the vignette was ahead of its time, germane to the healthcare debate today. CNS sure confirmed that. Click on the graphic below to be connected to the link….
[HT: friend Debbie]
Aug.24, 2009 2:49 pm |
Health care |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Why do those who support abortion-choice insist on being nanny-mommies to the rest of us?
Chain restaurants in NYC do this already, and I don’t really think it’s Big Brother-esque or nanny-state-ish. The main argument in support of unhealthy food is that it’s what people want, because it’s what people buy — so let people make an informed decision and then see if it’s what they still choose to buy. If they do, great, whatever. If they don’t, maybe chain restaurants will react to the fact that people support healthier choices, and market to those choices. It’s not like this is banning the sale of all chain-restaurant foods over a certain number of calories. It is increasing access to the information the market needs in order to decide.
Yes, you could go online before visiting Starbucks, to see just how many calories are in a cafe mocha, but we display information about a lot of “standardized” foods. Why not argue that people should just go online to check ingredients or nutritional information of the things they buy in grocery stores? I mean, if you really cared about your high fructose corn sugar consumption, versus cane sugar, you’d look it up online first, compare and contrast various products for every item you buy, right? And if people really cared about lung cancer they would research smoking risks themselves. And why bother forcing doctors to tell women that the person they’re aborting is a unique human being, because that information is all over the internets and those women would easily find it if they wanted to.
“Any idiot knows that a frappucino is unhealthy” — sure, of course anyone knows that. But what about salads that easily pass 1,000 calories? I often hear tourists reacting with SHOCK when they come to the chain restaurants they frequent back home and find out how much of their daily recommended intake they’re actually consuming.
Of course non-chain restaurants often have unhealthy meals, as well. Padding things out with fats to satiate the customer’s appetite is part of the dining industry. But chain restaurants have standardized products nation-wide, for the most part, and serve the most people with the same recipes. The French restaurant down the street from me serves a handful of people, and changes its menu seasonally. McDonalds serves people all over the US and has a pretty standard menu for most locations.
actually I think its a good idea to list the calories and fat content. They should also list if there are any potential allergents, like peanuts or milk, for example.
Sometimes when I eat out, I eat a salad for a side instead of fries, like at Ruby Tuesday’s.
I LOVE IT!
While I object in part to it being government-mandated, I have to say, a huge part of the obesity problem in the States is that too many people don’t realize that most of the meals you eat out contain MORE than your TOTAL recommended daily caloric intake. I have a brother-in-law who actually salts his Big Mac.
I do feel that we need more informed people when it comes to what to eat. I just don’t like the posts to be federally mandated…
I object to a mandate placing it on the menu.
I am in full support of requiring them to have that information and produce it at customer request, and making it clear on the menu the information is available. Many people need or want that information; many people don’t, especially when they visit a restaurant only on special occasions and want a treat.
I could even see an insert in the menu that people don’t have to read if they don’t want to. But right now, you can’t always get that information if you do want or need it, and I think that’s unfortunate.
I think it’s a good idea. I was in a NYC Airport (Kennedy, I think) New Year’s Day and saw the caloric difference of the burgers from the chicken. It encouraged me to choose chicken, when I wanted a burger. Reminders, like warnings on cigarettes, do affect the decisions of those who will let them. Those annoyed by them are generally annoyed because they are convicted about damaging their health.