Should restaurants be required to list calories?

[Jenise]

I would have said no. But after reading this article, I could be persuaded otherwise.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/dining/29calories.html?th&emc=th

Required ? By law ? Good gawd. No, for so many reasons.

1. Buyer beware is fair.

2. I won't pay higher restaurant prices for the education and training of restaurant personnel to perform the task of calorie estimation. Same for increased costs of training for kitchen portion control and quality control. Nor will I pay for their performance of the estimating task.

3. I won't pay taxes for city or county monitoring, testing and enforcement. Nor for publication of infraction incidents. Nor for prosecution of offenders.

4. Determination of the boundaries for reasonable thresholds and tolerances for portion control, estimation errors and sample testing errors would be a hilarious, wasteful government effort.

5. I could make a second career on this here in the legal profession. I don't wanna.

Jenise, Hi......


At anything above the fast qua junk food level, I find such listings ridiculous. Rather than have governmental and other bureaucratic organizations impose such listings on restaurants, I would prefer to think that people are intelligent enough themselves to realize the caloric differences between say a green salad and a steak with Bearnaise sauce, between a fruit salad and a chocolate souffle, between a poached and a fried fish fillet. And frankly, if they are not intelligent enough, they should be!

List calories and then I suppose vitamin and cholesterol counts, the amount of Omega 3 in a dish, the balance required between carbohydrates, protein and other various elements. No way!!!!

Only partly tongue in cheek, if the government is "gonna get us", I would prefer that all people above the age of eight be forced to take a nutrition test. Those who pass will gain an identity card that will allow them to dine out or to purchase foods in markets. Those who do not will have to go to soup kitchens where they will be fed pap!

I promise you that if ever I walk into an upswing restaurant (in a pleasure mode and not in my function as a critic) and find the number of calories listed on the menu for each dish, I will simply stand up, walk out and seek a restaurant in which nobody is trying to tell me what is and what is not "good for me".

As you gather, my vote is a "nay"

Best
Rogov

Instinctively, I say no, just because I don't like the idea of yet another regulation slapped on an industry that already suffers under the weight of too many. I also dislike and fear the growing nanny state.

I can understand the other side of the argument, however, and more education really isn't a bad thing. If it helps someone make an informed decision, where's the harm?

So put me down for a definite maybe.

After checking out the article, I can see the advantages. We have plenty of public health regulations and this one would qualify as just one more. But personally, I'd rather see the issue taken care of from a consumer demand standpoint rather than a regulatory one. Nice that New York's doing the experiment for us, though.

One objection is that such 'crass' statistics would lower the tone and the atmosphere of some restaurants.

However, my real fear would be that if they could really standardize the calorie count for each dish and have it printed on the menu then there is probably not much day-to-day inspiration occuring at that restaurant. And, I prefer not to eat at places that laminate the menu and leave it intact forever.

That said, there probably is a benefit to at least providing some information about where calories may be lurking so that diners could at least have a rough gauge of what kind of meal they are getting themselves into. Which does - unfortunately - take away some of the whimsical pleasure of dining out where the 'normal' dietary regime is suspended for the - temporary- sake of pleasure.

Hell, no.

Ordinarily I would be opposed that type of regulation. But... for those of us who fight a constant battle to keep the excess tonnage off, yet who still like to eat out and have tasty meals, it would be a big help in knowing what to order. Frankly, it is nigh on to impossible to tell from the typical menu description whether a dish is reasonably healthy or not.

[Jenise]

One objection is that such 'crass' statistics would lower the tone and the atmosphere of some restaurants.

However, my real fear would be that if they could really standardize the calorie count for each dish and have it printed on the menu then there is probably not much day-to-day inspiration occuring at that restaurant. And, I prefer not to eat at places that laminate the menu and leave it intact forever.

You're right. I think the New York law takes that into account, though, by requiring this only of restaurants with 15 outlets or more--they're the laminated menu places anyway.

I think the New York law takes that into account, though, by requiring this only of restaurants with 15 outlets or more--they're the laminated menu places anyway.

Aha, good to know.

Still, even if it is not relevant for me, lots of people with weight issues eat at these places (the Olive Garden commercials advertise unlimited breadsticks with pasta - talk about redundant!) so maybe it will do some good. If people pay attention and process the information. And that's a big if..

I can understand the other side of the argument, however, and more education really isn't a bad thing. If it helps someone make an informed decision, where's the harm?

Where's the harm? All over the place. The extra costs required for small restaurants to train someone, and keep them current, in caloric content estimation technology. Or to hire someone to do calorie estimation for them. The constant delay and expense of doing the estimation each time you change any dish on the menu or any ingredient in that dish, or the proportions of ingredients, or the portion size. What about restaurants where the chef decides that afternoon, based on what was available in the market in the morning, what goes on the evening's menu? The lawsuits when some nanny group such as CSPI finds out that a restaurant made an honest mistake in its estimation. The extra cost to already overworked public health inspectors when they end up with yet another item they have to check on.

-Paul W.

No!

Too much government intererence where it is not needed. Put the money that would be spent enforcing something like this where it can be better used.

As stated above, you don't need to know excact calorie counts to know that cream sauces and chocolate desserts are going to have more calories than grilled chicken and a salad.

..more calories than grilled chicken and a salad.

Except when they pump up the fats and sugars in the salad dressing in ways that are not always apparent.

[Robin Garr]

Added a poll, just for fun ...

"Unlimited breadsticks with pasta"
Doubt that the customers going to the Olive Garden because they're attracted by the unlimited grub would be concerned about a calorie listing.

Ah, for the good old days, when restaurants served proper portions, which were much less than they serve today. Even then I used to say, "I'm too full to eat the rest of this" and my husband to be (owner of a meat cutting shop) was shocked that I preferred to finish the salad over eating the rest of my meat.
Just this week we went out to breakfast with friends to a locally restaurant that makes the best country fried potatoes I've had. I ordered a side of the potatoes plus a slice of ham. That's it! I came home with enough potatoes and ham for Gene to have a nice big breakfast the next day.

So, I guess I am saying is that it would be helpful, for some folks to have a calorie count.....yet I understand what the rest of you are saying about more regulations, the hardship on the restaurants, etc. It all boils down to responsibility, that each person has to take for themselves and how much they consume.

... It all boils down to responsibility, that each person has to take for themselves and how much they consume.

That sums it up concisely and accurately.

I (uncharacteristically) thought about this for a couple of days instead of shooting from the hip.

For reasons already well stated by Karen and Paul, this would be a PITA, probably largely makework and meaningless and totally unecessary.

We have enough rules. I'll bet that posting the ludicrously high caloric content of burgers at McPukies would result in not one lost sale to them anyway.

I went to a McDoougals, Taco Smell, and a Jerk in the Box (and did not eat) to see what is provided customers today by low end fast food chains in the L.A. metro. All three stores already will provide some ludicrously high caloric, salt and fat count numbers for meals and individual items. I am surprised but l was also confident that the estimates are still low by maybe 30%, just based on the size of the people I saw chowing down.

I guess there is some state or local requirement to provide this data already, since Corporate behavior is rarely just, ahhh, coincidentally in the public interest.