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RSS FeedShould restaurants be required to list calories and fat grams on their menus?
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| No | 54% | 874 votes | Total: 1610 votes | |
| Yes | 46% | 736 votes |
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Add to FavoritesThe cause of health and nutrition is a noble one, but as with many just and good causes, there are some approaches that are more realistic than others. The FDA has kindly regulated the labeling of nutritional information on packaged foods for years. This provides the consumer with valuable information that helps them to make informed decisions about what, and how much, to eat. Perhaps we take this service for granted now, and expect it to be done throughout the food industry. This is not always possible.
Prepackaged foods are prepared to exacting specifications. Calories and fats can be reported because every ingredient has been portioned out to meet the product specifications. Variation between packages must be minimal, or else the product cannot pass quality testing. In short, you can have nutritional labels on prepackaged foods because they have an exact, known content that has been accurately tested, and never changes no matter how many boxes roll down the conveyor belt.
Restaurants are an entirely different matter. Some restaurants, like fast food and pizza venues are highly systematic in their food preparation. Many of the ingredients come themselves prepackaged, and the assemblers (it isn't really fair to call them cooks in this context) are highly trained to use a certain amount of each component. In this case, it is still possible to give a fair estimate of the calories, because the variation is small. Indeed, some restaurants like Subway have been known to do so of their own accord.
Progressing along the food chain, so to speak, we come to actual diners and classier establishments. At this point, there is an actual cook, chef, or team of chefs and cooks preparing the food. They have basic recipes to follow, but variation compounds quickly. Ingredients are fresher, not always prepackaged, allowing for a greater natural variation. Different cooks will use unequal quantities of the various ingredients, and may employ slightly different cooking times or temperatures. The food is not mass-produced, and portions will vary depending on the server. The actual ingredients may even vary, depending on their availability. In short, the likelihood of getting exactly the same meal twice in a row is very slim. This means that the restaurant truly cannot provide you with accurate calorie and fat data. If they do, it is an estimate - a guess - at best.
Requiring nutritional information of a restaurant is a sure way to cripple the restaurant's ability to create excellent meals for its patrons. A chef would never be able to experiment, lest he change the calorie count. (And yes, legislation would have this effect.) Controls would have to be implemented to make sure every dish was uniform, with the end result being that you could just have easily gotten your dinner from a box.
Recognize, now, that dining out is a privilege. Every person could simply make their own meals. That gives them control over exactly what they eat, with all the nutritional data at their fingertips. The choice to indulge - to be lazy and enjoy someone else's cooking - should be just that. Enjoy and indulge for a change - no one meal should have so many calories or so much fat that it will damage a person's health. If someone is eating out so frequently that the unknown calories are a concern, perhaps the better solution would be to change their habits, putting them back in direct control of what they eat. Packing a meal doesn't take long. Leftovers, a PBJ and an apple, a lean microwavable dish - all of these are fair game, and let a person avoid excessive restaurant dining.
As a final parting thought, stop and consider this - if you were in the kitchen, preparing a meal for family of friends, should you be required to provide them with the fat and calorie content of the plate you hand them? Would you? Could you?
Learn more about this author, Ernest Capraro.
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Yes
Yes, I firmly believe that restaurants should be required to list calories and fat grams on their menu, and there are a few reasons for this.
Firstly, by reading the listed calories and fat grams in each dish on the menu, people eating in the restaurant will have greater awareness of how healthy or unhealthy their food is. These days, people are becoming more health-conscious, and if the calories and fat grams of restaurant food are blatantly available to them, they can decide whether they want to have a healthy meal or an unhealthy meal. People will not always pick the more healthy meal, but at least they will have consciously made that choice and not done it out of ignorance of how unhealthy the meal might be.
Furthermore, by having the knowledge of what kind of choice they are making (healthy or unhealthy), restaurant-goers can keep their weight and body shape in balance. For instance, if someone has recently been for a physical healthy check-up, and is aware that their BMI (Body Mass Index) is just on the line between normal and overweight, then they can make sure that they do not cross that line by eating a meal that has low calories and fat grams. This will help reduce the number of people who are overweight or obese, leading to a decrease in hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease.
Also, if someone is on a strict diet and is counting calories, that person will know exactly how many calories they have just consumed at the restaurant if the menu contains the calories and fat grams for each dish. They can then either factor that into their diet plan, or avoid the meal altogether if it will put their calorie count above their required level.
Moreover, listing the calories and fat grams on the menu will encourage people to exercise more. For example, if a fit person is serious about exercising, they will know how many more calories they need to burn off after they have eaten a particular meal at that restaurant. This will increase the amount of exercise people do, keeping them as fit and healthy as possible.
All in all, restaurants should be required to list calories and fat grams on their menu. By doing so, they can help people make healthy choices, lose weight, prevent disease, and stay physically fit. This will be a great help in this day and age of the obesity epidemic, which is encouraging many people to try to make better choices about their health.
Learn more about this author, Chinmayee Jog.
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