Posted on 02/27/2007 1:09:06 PM PST by Froufrou
An advocacy group that once lobbied for mandatory nutrition labels for groceries has set it sights on restaurant chains and is asking the federal government to require large chains to offer calorie, fat and sodium information on menus.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest on Monday criticized several food chains for promoting what the group calls "x-treme eating" with dishes that include more calories and fat than most people should eat in one day.
The government recommends that the average American consume around 2,000 calories per day, with less than 10 percent of the calories coming from saturated fat.
A "colossal burger" at Ruby Tuesday contains 1,940 calories and 141 grams of fat. One serving of an appetizer at Uno Chicago Grill called "pizza skins" contains 1,030 calories and 67 grams of fat; the pizza skins dish contains two servings, bringing the total to more than 2,000 calories and 134 grams of fat.
Nutritional information for many chain restaurants - including Ruby Tuesday and Uno - is available on the companies' websites, but CSPI wants the information right on the menus. The group says that after years of lobbying the restaurants to offer the information voluntarily, it is resorting to government force.
CSPI has already convinced lawmakers in 19 states and cities to introduce legislation that would require nutrition labels on menus in restaurants with more than 10 locations around the country. It would apply to restaurants from Ruth's Chris Steakhouse and the Palm to McDonald's and Starbucks.
New York City in December became the first city to pass the law. A federal version of the Menu Education and Labeling (MEAL) Act was introduced in both houses of the U.S. Congress last year but never came to either floor for a vote.
"The food police are not going to take this away from you," CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson said during a news conference in Washington, D.C., Monday.
"The restaurants have every right to make these foods, and you have every right to eat them, but I think at the very least, these restaurants should give consumers the information that would enable them to make decent eating choices," he added.
Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for CSPI, said diners often don't realize how many calories they are consuming during a meal at a restaurant. "Without nutrition information it's difficult to compare options and to make informed choices," she said.
"Studies link eating out with higher caloric intake and an increase in rates of obesity," she said. "It's very easy to eat a whole day's worth of calories at a single sitting at a restaurant."
J. Justin Wilson, a spokesman for the restaurant industry-funded Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), said "it doesn't take a warning label for someone to know that something covered with cheese and bacon is not a health option."
Wilson showed up at CSPI's news conference to hand out cookies from Potbelly Sandwich Works with tongue-in-cheek warning labels saying the cookie "contains lots of calories, plenty of fat, and tons of yumminess."
"Including calorie information on menus will not make Americans healthier," Wilson argued. "Give consumers some credit. They already know the difference between a banana and a banana split, or a milkshake and a diet soda."
Wilson said that "almost every menu out there has a healthy option" and that "sometimes people just want a hamburger."
He said including nutrition information on obviously unhealthy food will add "a heaping pile of guilt along with their dinner if they decide to treat themselves."
OK Gabz.
Face, I don't go much since I quit! It's something I have mentioned on my Ireland Pings a couple of times, though.
It's serious, though - even pubs in large towns are now closing down. I mean, how can community life survive when the main meeting places are gone out of business?
Two guys and a fax machine.
Not camouflaged very well though. Apparently only wants a law if everybody refuses to do it voluntarily. Go figure.
LOL!!!!
I was thinking more along the lines of things like bacon and sausage. But even some things like ground turkey that come to the store pre-packaged have the nutritional info on it. But the steaks and chops and roasts I buy sure don't.
Eric, you're right on the money on this one.
LOL! That narrows down the possibilities!
LOL! I just went back and read my post...I think I need speling lesions.
I think labeling stuff with the ingredients has gotten out of hand. Someone is making a lot of money off of that, and it isn't me. Every time a new nutritional label goes on a package, the price goes up exponentially. That, to me, is thievery. </rant
Just look at the color pictures of the food on the menu and someday YOU could become a fashion model with anorexia.
State funded, too!
Normally, I choose from the menu based on what I'd like to eat. So the fish has 400 calories and the steak has 900 calories. Do you want the fish or the steak?
Do you honestly not know that Fettucini Alfredo is high in fat? If you want to order it, does it matter precisely how many grams of fat are in it? If it varies by a few percent from what your formula says you can have, are you going to get it anyway or not? How much precision is necessary? I think you grossly underestimate how much lab work goes into producing that "Nutrition facts" label you'd like to staple to everything. In a food processing plant where the science can happen once and the same thing then flow homogenously off the production line... that's one thing. But when every meal is prepared from fresh ingredients it's quite another matter.
Every cut of beef or fish or chicken is different. How the chef prepares it makes an enormous difference. How the customer puts on butter or salt or sauce also makes a big difference. Point is... that steak on the menu could vary quite a bit from the last time they sent one in for lab work.
Do you need a label stuck on each pat of butter, too? or do you know like most people that butter has fat in it?
See the Orwellian connection - half-starve the proles!
I could really get behind something like that.........but this group would be the first screaming about their "rights" if it were to be tried.
There was a spate of that kind of thing on Jerry Springer about 10 years ago or so. Indulgent mothers who want to be a "friend" to their children are causing a LOT of damage.
Both the weight of the individual child as well as the attitude are the real menaces. The mothers don't realize that their permissivness is creating massive problems for other people. Stupidity seems to be contagious, sometimes.
I think I heard something about that.. it's amazing they make such a fuss about overeating - you don't hear anything about anorexia or bulimia - actual psychological conditions in which help is required, this obsession with overeating is actually fueling such eating disorders!
Seems to me they'd be crazy to publish data like that, especially with pushy busibodies around like the outfit in the article.
Busibodies with labs and lawyers to pounce with some massive class-action and lots of bad publicity if somebody manages to get a sandwich with a few more slices of ham on it, that tests out with 20% more grams of fat in it that the little label stapled to it said it should have.
Parents being a 'friend' to their kids is causing a lot of hassle overall!
Tell me about it. My daughter didn't like me when she was growing up because I wasn't her "friend." I actually expected her to do the right things.
It's really scary. In the modern American, the liberals keep the proles entertained with sex on TV** and condoms, and gay shows that seek to socially engineer a "tolerance" for the gay lifestyle like "Will and Grace". In the meantime they will dictate what their elitist agenda says is good for you.
**Editors Note: Don't get me wrong. My only objection to sex on TV is that there is not nearly enough of it.
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