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Restaurants Should Not Be Required to List the Nutritional Content of Their menus. There are three excellent reasons restaurants should not be required to list the nutritional details of foods they serve. One is culinary, one is practicable, and one is philosophical.

From the culinary standpoint chefs and restaurants don't always know what the nutritional content of their meals because the menus are not some scientifically contrived formula made by a laboratory. Good cooking is like an Arts and Science University. It involves both the art of the chef and the science behind cooking. Cooking is not just following stale recipes using static ingredients that always taste the same and react the same way. I have gone to cooking school worked as a chef. I have never seen a cook on the line measure out a cup of chicken stock or a teaspoon of butter. A good constantly evaluates the meal as he or she is cooking: looking at the food, smelling the food, and tasting the food until it is just right. When the meal is complete the chef won't know whether there is a teaspoon of butter or a teaspoon and a half. It's just not possible to list the nutritional content of such meals.

One of the best things about both cooking and eating in a restaurant is the skills of the chef and the quality of the food add to the dining experience. Although most restaurants have a standard menu, it is in the daily specials that a chef and a restaurant can shine. A good chef will carefully select the ingredients for a meal, buying what looks and tastes best that day and creates a meal that may include ingredients that don't appear on the typical US Government chart of ingredients. This is as it should be. Cooking and dining out should be creative and fun, not sterile and analyzed to the point of the bland offerings of chain restaurants created by marketers and business leaders instead of chefs.

Philosophically restaurants should not be compelled to list the ingredients and nutritional values of the meals they serve because it is not the place for government to demand they do so. During the early days of the United States the founding fathers justified establishing a new government by referring to the need for the common safety against violence from enemies. They did not mention that citizens should give up their rights to provide dietary information. Unfortunately the government has started to change its role. The government no longer seems content to help provide for the common safety, but now inserts itself into the most intimate parts individual lives. The United States Constitution carefully specifies what the role of government should be. The Constitution does not give the government a paternalistic role to protect all people from all possible harms.

It is impracticable for there to be a government law or rule that demands all restaurants report the nutritional content and values of the foods they serve. Laws only serve a purpose when enforced. To enforce this regulationwould require daily monitoring of all meals served at all restaurants to all diners. There simply are not enough government employees to check the menus of all the food establishments with their jurisdiction. There are far more important causes for the Center of Disease Control and state and local health departments for them to check on ingredients in such detail. There are already too many unenforced laws on the books to add more laws to be ignored.

Finally, a question should be asked before this or any law is implemented. What problem is the proposed law supposed to solve? What problem will listing the ingredients and nutritional content of a restaurant's menu solve?

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