McDonalds has had the calorie information right on the package for a good year or two here, but it's not like fast food places keep the information completely secret. If people wanted to know, they could find the information without too much hassle (of course there are exceptions to this, but I'm saying this in a general sense). That's not to say I disagree with the movement, I'm just saying if people REALLY wanted to know, they would look for it.
The sad thing is, people
don't "
really want to know". People would rather be blind to the reality of things, which is exactly why most people
don't go looking for nutritional information, especially at fast food restaurants.
Even the most health conscious people in the world don't go to annoying lengths to find nutritional information on the food they're eating. Currently, at most fast food restaurants, the nutritional information is posted on a fairly small sign somewhere in the establishment, which can only be viewed if you A) already know where it is or B) go looking for it. Honestly, who is going to take the time to go searching for that, especially at a fast food restaurant?
People go to fast food restaurants for convenience and,
at the current point in time, it is extremely
inconvenient for people to get the nutritional information about the food they're eating at fast food restaurants. You have to either go searching around at the restaurant itself (
which isn't always an easy thing to do) or look it up on the internet before you go there. You have to remember that not everybody has internet access, so that route isn't always available to everybody. Also, if you can't find the information at the restaurant, you can always ask for it. By law, the manager has to retrieve the nutritional information for you. They will go into the back room, take a few minutes to dig around for it (because they probably haven't had to pull it out for anybody in a long, long time) and, when they eventually find it, they'll walk it out to you. Honestly, who is going to sit there for 10 minutes just to find out how many calories are in a 6 piece McNugget? Not a lot of people.
This is exactly why information like this should be posted up front so everybody can see it, plain as day, with no effort involved.
People are lazy. That's why they eat at fast food restaurants in the first place;
because it's easy and convenient.
You have the right to know what your eating. If you value that, then cook at home where you are certain of the ammounts and ingredients, or only go to restaurants that provide that information voluntarily... But I don't understand why anyone would assume we have a right to make others do the same for us.
Sure it's nice for consumers that care about that information, but it is just another step towards a world where people have no personal responsibility. "I had no idea that eating burgers and fries everyday that had grease dripping off of them was unhealthy! Now I'm obese and suing because this information wasn't previously displayed in a prominent location."
Seriously?
First of all, people are always going to have a personal responsibility. Nobody is forcing us to eat this food;
it's a choice. And, when there is a personal choice involved, personal responsibility always follows.
Secondly, what about the responsibility of the restaurants? I've worked in numerous restaurants over the years and in every single one of them, the restaurant itself was held for an extreme amount of responsibility when it came to the health and safety of it's customers. For instance...
If someone was allergic to peanuts and ate something that had a trace of peanut in it,
and the restaurant had not informed it's customers upfront in some sort of way that peanuts were held and used within the restaurant, the restaurant would be held responsible for whatever happened to that customer who was allergic to peanuts. This is exactly why in 99.9999% of restaurants, you will find little warnings on the bottom of the menus that include such information - "may contain peanuts", etc (you will also see such warnings on many, many food products that you buy at the grocery store).
Where is the personal responsibility in that? Legally, the restaurant is 100% in the wrong if they don't tell their customers upfront that peanuts are somehow used within the establishment. So, where is the
personal responsibility? I mean, if you are allergic to peanuts, shouldn't you be asking if there are peanuts in what you are eating? Especially when you eat it at a restaurant, where you don't know who is cooking your food or what is going into yet?
Restaurants having to post nutritional information upfront to it's customers is no different than that, but people aren't arguing that "may contain peanuts" should be yanked off of menus all over the country.
I mean, if restaurants didn't have to have any responsibility for it's customers, then shouldn't we (as customers) have to do our own research before we ate out a specific restaurant? If I,
as a customer, was ultimately responsible for everything that happened to me (in the sense of eating at fast food restaurants), then shouldn't I be doing all types of in depth research and analysis on the restaurants I eat at, finding out who their distributors and vendors are, who and where they get their potatoes from, how their produce is cultivated, in what soil it's grown in, if pesticides are used or not used, who works for the company, their background on health and safety, their practices and standards, the sanitary conditions of their manufacturing plants where their pre-packaged food is made, what type of chemicals are used to clean their equipment, the quality and grade of food they use in their menu items, etc?
...or is that just unrealistic? Because, if you
looked for that information,
you could find it. Just like the nutritional information about a fast food restaurant's menu items. Yet,
nobody is going to look for all of that other information. So, why should anybody expect people to look for nutritional information?
They're not going to. That's why restaurants are now going to be obligated to provide that information to it's customers upfront, before they would even ask for it.
