by Jed Eane

Created on: April 29, 2008   Last Updated: July 28, 2008

Absolutely not! Not everyone is concerned about the calorie and fat content of food to the extent that they want to know how much of each is in EVERY mouthful of food they take. And anyone who does have an interest in the nutritional make-up of their food usually puts aside such concerns when they eat out, especially if the meal is a celebratory event.

Anyone who has the slightest interest in nutrition will know what the calorie and fat content of most foods are. They know the wise food choices to make if they want to take care of their health. Listing the calorie and fat content of food on a menu would only educate those people who have no knowledge about nutrition, which would probably be a complete waste of time because the reason those people have no knowledge about food nutrition is that they care very little about it. They're not concerned what a food can and can't do to their health, only what it tastes like.

The small group of the population who might benefit from menus detailing information about the calorie and fat content of food is those people who want to look after their health through their diet but aren't too sure where to start. For years someone may have believed that carbonara sauce differed little to that of a simple tomato sauce but would be quite surprised to learn that it contains a lot more calories and fat. But a restaurant isn't the place where people go to learn about nutrition, and it's not a restaurateur's job to educate the public about what they should and shouldn't be eating where their heath's concerned (at least they shouldn't be doing so when they're cooking and serving food in their restaurant). There's enough information elsewhere to enable anyone who's interested in nutrition to find out everything they want to know about the calorie and fat content of food. And besides, some of us like to forget all about what is and isn't good for us when we eat out, and we're not going to be able to do that when we're faced with lots of little numbers acting as code for "you really shouldn't be eating that, you know"!

Listing the calorie and fat content of foods on a menu strips the food down to basic fuel. And while there's nothing wrong with this approach - if more people looked on food as just that they would perhaps be able to avoid weight gain - it destroys, to a large extent, what eating out is all about for the majority of people: enjoyment.

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