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It's a mother's job to make sure her children eat healthy, nutritious food at every meal. The restaurant chef is not your mother.

There is a growing, and disturbing, expectation that government's principal role is to formulate regulations "for our own good," from cradle to the grave. But why should the government, or for that matter, your favorite restaurant, care whether you use both butter and sour cream on your baked potato or put a rich, cheesy sauce on your green vegetables?

Each adult understands the importance of eating a balanced diet, watching his weight, having regular checkups and staying away from those foods that put on pounds or raise the cholesterol. Whether calories and food content are monitored or not is something else. Many 50-year-olds continue to eat like they did in their 20s, and they are a meal or two away from a heart attack. They should give proper attention to counting calories and monitoring fat grams, and then make wise choices at mealtime.

These choices involve taking personal responsibility. Restaurants' job is to prepare tasty, well-cooked food and serve it in an attractive atmosphere with top-notch service.

Oh sure, it would be easy enough for restaurants to list this information. Many of them may well decide to do so voluntarily, as a service to their health-conscious customers. But this courtesy should never be mandated.

For most restaurants, listing calories and fat grams would be a waste of time. Most customers would never even look at this information. Patrons who care about their caloric and fat intake have already done their homework and are knowledgeable about what types of food they should eat and what types they should avoid. As discerning customers, they are aware, by looking at the menu, what selections are healthy for them and which ones are not. People who pay no attention to healthy eating at home are certainly not going to care enough to look over nutrition information provided by a restaurant.

Restaurant-goers always have the option of asking their server more detailed information about the contents of a particular meal. If the server does not know the answer, the patron is then referred to the chef. Restaurant staffs are generally happy to answer any and all questions because outstanding customer service is vital to the success of the business.

Good nutrition should be taught in school, and then reinforced in every home as family members work to keep each others fit and healthy. Let's not enlist restaurants as the calorie police.

Learn more about this author, Jake Betz.
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