Health Care Reform: Changes To Nutritional Information In Restaurants...

First, they are looked at by government agencies anyways for health standards.

Second, less choice? Really? you really believe chains of 20 or more is going to be so hurt by posting these calorie counts on the menu (which they are suppose to have available to anyone who asks ANYWAYS) are going to have to cut products due to cost? Really? How about they are more likely to work on reducing the calories in some of their items because they want to get people who actually wants something lower.

Oh..and before you cry about the restaurants, (foodconsumer.org)The restaurant industry is said to approve the legislation in part to create consistency among their restaurants across the nation. Sue Hensley, a spokeswoman for the National Restaurant Association said that they were “supportive because consumers will see the same types of information in more than 200,000 restaurant locations across the country.”
 
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Harold14370 said:
As far as the restaurants are concerned, it is going to take money for a restaurant chain to get food items tested and in compliance with the law. Furthermore any new menu items would have to be tested again, and they are going to be audited by some government agency.
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I don't think you read the first post very well.


"Temporary specials appearing on the menu for less than 60 days, condiments and test market foods are exempt."​

So new specials are not affected.

As for the money issue. These restaurants are all ready legally obligated to have the nutritional information for the items on the menu. Even without this new law, they would still have to test new items as well. No extra money there.
The law is just that they most post them instead of keeping them in a locked filing cabinet. No harm, no foul.
 
Some interesting articles based on the New York law that passed in 2008 -
(Apparently they're as bad at calorie counting as we are - it did remind me of the post by a girl at a restaurant who said she added extra sauce to people's meals just to feed them the extra calories)

- Studies on how it's affected New York (Seems like little to no effect on low income, but some effect on a wider population. Of course, the new twist is listing 2000 as the 'target'. Which I don't believe has been done previously)

(And older article discussing some of the costs and complexities from the restaurant's end)

(A study that suggests posting calories actually improved Starbucks profits)

Incidentally, I keep seeing people say that this information has been collected already and exists in a filing cabinet somewhere. (And I know one of the 'cost' concerns was actually the price of signage) Does anyone have a citation for this, because I've been looking for a while and can't actually find anything to indicate that's more than a rumor. I personally will be happy to have the extra information available, but I'm not really sure I understand how the whole topic got this heated.
 
Correction to my post, while most fast food chains had nutritional information available on request, it was not legally required till now.

I think it got heated because some believe it is an infringement on their rights or on the rights of companies. I'll be real honest here, it comes off more like a pure political view point.

Where I want to keep this thread from degrading into.

Let me put it this way, as far as what this site is about, I really can't see anyone here able to counter the arguement that for people trying to lose weight (what this site is about) this is a good thing.
 
Yeah, I hope it's a good thing. Of course the disagreement didn't seem centered on whether it was good or bad, but on a quote from some random guy in an article that we had a right to this info.

Personally I think the moral right is to not give your money to companies that don't give you the info you want, but that's a separate issue from the more practical matter - reducing the occurrence of, and therefore the costs of, obesity. Which I think all US tax payers have a vested interest in, since some how our tax dollars end up paying for a lot of the costs.

Although I would note that from what I've gathered, the restaurant industry's approval isn't so much that they all want to gather/post the calorie info (otherwise they could have done it voluntarily!) it's that they've seen the writing on the wall, and there are already 20+ laws about this out there. They'd much rather have one consistent set of regulations to comply with than try to comply with each individual law.
 
ChefChiTown said:
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.
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I'm not arguing against it, there are no disadvantages really. I'm quite interested to see how the sales of salads go in fast food places after such a change.

At some point though...blah blah blah. No use in repeating myself. :biggrinjester:
 
Polka Dots said:
I'm not arguing against it, there are no disadvantages really. I'm quite interested to see how the sales of salads go in fast food places after such a change.

At some point though...blah blah blah. No use in repeating myself. :biggrinjester:
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I'm sure the change in sales won't be drastic, but I'm sure that there will be a noticable difference, especially to the restaurant executives.
 
6% was what Starbuck saw. (6% less calories that is). Unfortunately, the calorie information seems to have the least impact on the population that is also the most prone to obesity. The one major difference between this and legislation like NYC's is that it's also advertising a 2000 calorie standard. As opposed to just operating in a vacuum. So maybe that would help. Unfortunately, it's most likely to help people like us who would ask for calorie information, and/or look it up online.

Although from a personal perspective, I wish there'd been less about prominent display and more about accuracy. 18% more calories than posted can be pretty substantial.
 
From a personal perspective, I don't care if the calories are posted or not. I don't eat out often enough to get fat on restaurant food. Also, I usually know what and about how much I'm eating and can come up with a pretty reasonable estimate when I go to log it on my spreadsheet.

For those who think the expense to the restaurant is negligible, what is your theory on why the calories are not now posted? One would think the opportunity to skimp on portions would be somewhat financially attractive, and the ability to attract nutrition conscious customers would be a benefit.

Is there a conspiracy to keep us fat? Perhaps the restaurant chains figure that people just don't want to know how much they are eating, and would go to the place across the street where they can gorge themselves in blissful ignorance. Or, what other theory would you propose?
 
Yeah I was one of those people who gained a lot of my weight from eating out. The thing is you could have posted the calorie information and what not and it could have been any number at all I still wouldn't have been able to fully contextualize it without proper understanding of nutrition and what constitutes a healthy diet, something I had to teach myself from online materials having never been taught it in school. You could have told me hey man that burger is 600 calories, I probably would have thought something like "Oh that's ok I'll probably burn it off on my 10 minute walk home". Pretty much everyone is to blame here. The restaurants for serving up huge portions of unhealthy food, the consumers for mostly being ignorant and getting indignant when they "don't get their money's worth" perpetuating a vicious cycle of increased portion sizes to remain competitive with other chains..so yeah unfortunately providing calorie information basically assumes some knowledge of nutrition and diet which most do not have. The people (like those here) who do understand those things already are also probably the ones who need the information least.

People must take the red pill!
 
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Yeah, that's what's kind of interesting about this legislation - it seems to be pushing restaurants to do the education. Of course, that education is somewhat limited - 2,000 calories a day - but it's the first time I've seen the push to give some context to the nutritional information. After all, even if as a kid you learn to check the box on food you buy at the store, what does it all mean? Hell, fruit loops (which were a favorite of mine) can be 'part of a balanced breakfast'. Of course, how you incorporate them is left to the imagination of the viewer :p
 
Jeanette401 said:
Of course, that education is somewhat limited - 2,000 calories a day - but it's the first time I've seen the push to give some context to the nutritional information.
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The 2000 calories is on all the food nutrition labels, as in "Percent daily values are based on a 2000 calorie diet."
 
Yes & no - it's true they always say 'based on 2000 calorie diet' but that's not the same as saying 'most people only eat 2000 calories'. Also, it's supposed to be more in your face. Not saying it will make a difference, I'm more curious to see if it will.
 
This might tell you why more restaurant chains do not put the info on the menu already.

For that matter, how will restaurants calculate these calorie counts? Can they simply use the numbers from their suppliers to calculate the nutritional data for the end product, or will they have to get lab testing done? As the video notes, every time they have an ingredient change, or even just a supplier, they have to recalculate everything — and then reprint all of their menu boards and literature in every location.

The pressure of this law will eventually force restaurants like Davanni’s to reduce consumer choice as a way of managing the overwhelming burden of maintaining their disclosures. Smaller chains that succeed in satisfying their customers and managing their business used to be rewarded with growth, but this law will put an artificial cap on expansion at 19 locations.
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Harold14370 said:
This might tell you why more restaurant chains do not put the info on the menu already.
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???

Chain restaurants don't put that information on the menu already because they don't want their customers to be scared away by the truth regarding the unhealthiness of the food that they're serving. End of story.
 
ChefChiTown said:
???

Chain restaurants don't put that information on the menu already because they don't want their customers to be scared away by the truth regarding the unhealthiness of the food that they're serving. End of story.
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That's a really simplistic view. Sure it's one reason - but it's not the only reason and insisting that it is and that it's "end of story" is just ignorant.
 
KaraCooks said:
That's a really simplistic view. Sure it's one reason - but it's not the only reason and insisting that it is and that it's "end of story" is just ignorant.
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Yeah, I guess working in restaurants and knowing the truth about how the entire industry works makes me pretty ignorant. :rolleyes:

Restaurants are businesses. And, just like any other business, restaurants won't survive unless they make money. They don't make money unless they have a steady stream of paying customers. They don't attract paying customers unless they serve food that people are willing to eat; not good food, but food that people are willing to eat. In order to ensure that people are willing to eat their food, restaurants don't openly announce the truth about what their customers are eating - where their food comes from, how long it's been sitting in the kitchen before you eat it, the cost of the food and how much they mark up their prices, how the food is handled and prepared, the list of each and every ingredient in each and every one of their menu items, the quality of the ingredients they use, the health risks involved with eating their food, including nutritional information, etc.

If restaurants were honest and upfront about those things, they would lose customers. And, if they lose customers, then they lose money. If they lose money, they go out of business. So, is my view a simplistic one? Yup. But that's because it's the truth; and the truth is simple.

Look at it this way...when you go look for a new car, how many Ford dealerships do you see that post signs about the dangers of automobiles? How many Chevy dealerships have you seen that have signs posted which say "Over 40,000 people die in car accidents each and every year in the US, with over 3 MILLION more being injured"...??? Seriously, what business is going to advertise the dangers involved with their products? None of them are going to do that. With the exception of businesses and industries that are forced by federal regulations to comply with openly advertising certain dangers that come from using their products (cigarettes, alcohol, etc), no business is going to be upfront and honest about the true dangers that are involved with using their products...especially when it comes to food. Financially, it's a horrible idea to do such a thing.

From someone who knows the industry in and out, that's my two cents.
 
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