On second thought, better make that a triple.

photo by colros, reprinted under a Creative Commons License

Legislation is rolling out across our vast land like a runaway donut, and it's bumping people in its path. If you live in New York or any one of a dozen major U.S. cities (including Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle), ordinances either have or will soon be passed that require fast food restaurants to post calorie counts next to every item on their menus.  So you may soon learn, for example, that a Starbucks blueberry muffin sports 410 calories and a Quiznos Large Tuna Melt has more than 1,350.

In response, there's been fussing both from obvious and less obvious corners.  On the one hand, the New York State Restaurant Association fought to strike down the ordinance, emphasizing the undue burden it would place on restaurants.  (As it is, only restaurants with more than 15 chains nationwide fall under the ordinance; the rest are exempt.) Others complain that the "nutrition police" have gone way too far this time, and that if they want to down a 530 calorie Peanut Butter Moo'd from Jamba Juice after working out, then, dammit, they should be allowed to.

As I see it, there are pluses and minuses to the issue.  On the plus side, transparency is always better than obscurity, whether you're talking warning labels on cigarettes, ratings on movies, or calories in a superburrito. People who want to take the information they're given and apply it to their decision-making matrices can do so, and those who choose to ignore it can do that, too. 

But it's a little more complicated.  Calories are but one measure of a food's health profile, and by listing calories to the exclusion of, say, fat grams, or calcium content, or even sodium, you're holding calories up as the end-all, be-all measure of a food's worth.  A diet soda has fewer calories than a cup of skim milk, but that doesn't make it the healthier choice.

Now I'm certainly not suggesting that we crowd menus with copious amounts of nutritional information.  That would be ludicrous, not to mention impractical.  But it is important to realize that the calorie isn't king.  It's but one player in a complex dietary chess game.

Comments

[Dana McCauley]

Good point about the soda and the milk! I actually have a very selfish reason for not wanting calorie counts on menus: when I go for a burger I know I'm indulging. I don't want to feel guilty about it by staring the stark reality of the calories in the eye as i place my order. I think most people know that they can get calories and other nutrient info on request. (and I do check these things when it's important to me).

[Cheryl]

I completely understand your point, Dana, and you're right: most restaurants do have nutrition info readily available so long as you request it.

But I do tend to think that because fast food is just that -- fast -- most people don't go to the extra effort to request this information. So from a public health standpoint, having the numbers on the menu boards may be the only way to get this info across. It's obviously an imperfect solution, however, for a host of reasons.

As for feeling guilty about the occasional burger, well, that's between you and your conscience. My conscience and my sweet tooth have had a few run-ins, but I do my best to keep the peace between them.

[Andrew Pearlman]

Cheryl -- do you know what's involved in testing a dish for its nutritional info? I remember in high school bio class we burned a potato chip to test its caloric content... something similar?

Because if it's not a big deal to do the testing, then I don't see why any restaurant -- especially a chain -- should object to a bit of labeling. Obviously, we need more info than just calories, for the reasons you mentioned. But if everything in the supermarket has to be labeled, then what's the justification for not labeling food that I buy in a restaurant? It seems like the exact same public health rationale would hold.

[Julia]

I have started reading ingredients and nutrition content with my oldest child, not so much to be food police, but just to let her know why we generally don't eat certain things on a daily basis. My favorite are those fruit roll-ups without any actual fruit. While I'm all for indulging and variety, it isn't a bad thing to be aware of what you're putting in your body.

[swirlingnotions]

Great post Cheryl. Lots of thoughts to chew on (any idea how many calories are in those? ;-)). I am a big fan of transparancy on this stuff. As imperfect as the trans-fat labeling is, it has still brought about a surge of consumer awareness around the dangers of trans-fats, and spurred several companies to look for ways to reduce or eliminate trans fats in their foods.

Yes, there's the danger of hyper-focusing on calories--as we did with the umbrella of 'fat grams' in the past--and forgetting that there's a bigger context. But I think that the positives of having calorie counts up there on the board probably outweigh the risk. Frankly, I think a large percentage of people who are ordering that triple haven't a clue how many calories are in there. Or in that salad they're ordering because they're on a "diet." In this obesity crisis we're in, I think any little bit will help.

[Cheryl]

Andrew, why did you have so much more fun in high school than I did? I have no memories of potato chip burning experiments.

Julia, I think it's great you're teaching your daughter to read labels. It could only give her better context for the food-related decisions you make for her at home.

And swirlingnotions, supremely well said. I absolutely agree.