by Benjamin Costain

Created on: June 19, 2009   Last Updated: June 20, 2009

When you look through a menu at a restaurant, you see fancy pictures, food items, and their prices. What you don't, and shouldn't see are the amount of calories that each item has. Most people who go out to a restaurant aren't going to starve because one item they normally crave has quite a few calories, or else they would order a salad. Numerous people just do not want to know, and I believe it would be a waste of time and money to include those numbers on the menu, let alone be required to be on there by law.

I personally think people are going to eat what they want to eat, and just because some flashy oversized number is sitting next to their desired item doesn't mean they will skip out on it. Most individuals who are dieting, or want to watch what they eat won't even go to most restaurants. They will buy stuff at a local health food store, or buy zero calorie meals from the grocery store. There is enough stress when it comes to over eating, that they shouldn't need to be pressured into ordering the lower caloried food item.

The only thing I can see logically being required, is having a special section on the menu somewhere that has lower calorie items related to what's on the rest of the menu. That would make sense, and the people who want to watch the calories will order from there, the ones who don't, will not. I think that if the restaurants were required to put the calories on each item, on each page then they would either be losing money, or they would be raising the prices on the lower caloried items because that's what everybody would be trying to get their hands on.

Overall, requiring restaurants to put calorie counts on each item on their menu would not alleviate the stress put on individuals today regarding food, and diet. It would only exacerbate it. If the state of Conneticut were trying to somehow re-establish the economy, they should put tolls on their highways, not scare away customers. Some chain fast food restaurants like McDonald's, have listed the fat and calories in each item listed on their menu. I think it is a smart thing to do because that's where a lot of the eating disorders come from, but when you look at the statistics; the amount of people who eat at those restaurants hasn't diminshed, it has stayed about the same and maybe even gone up. So requiring family restaurants to list the calorie count for each item on the menu would be hurtful in the long run, and would be a waste of energy.

Learn more about this author, Benjamin Costain.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.