Michael F. Jacobson, PhD.......a PhD in microbiology.....
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."
Because they're already overburdened with regulations. Restaurants could comply with the public's insatiable desire for more information but that would increase their costs to the point where customer counts would plummet and businesses would no longer be in business. Also, if you like daily specials, you can forget about it since no one is going to take the time every day to analyze their food so some people who never bothered to learn anything about nutrition can have more information. Everything will be the same thing day in and day out. I imagine, in an effort to save us from ourselves, the busybodies will also eventually force us to only eat hamburgers cooked well done and will ban eggs over easy. Make business harder and you'll end up with fewer choices.
Quizno's, for instance, is notorious for keep the nutritional information of its food secret, probably because the food is outrageously bad for you.
If you're concerned about only consuming food that is "good" for you, however that's defined, then most of Quizno's menu should probably be avoided. I find it interesting though that they don't offer nutritional information yet they are the fastest growing franchise in history.
Somewhere, I read about a "conspiracy" of the legal profession...sue everyone for everything, using "You're entitled" and "you have a right to..." Even illegals believe they have a "RIGHT" to protest their non-legal status here. (But don't get me started on THAT!)
I don't recall the rest of it, but this is now a nation where people believe they're "entitled" to welfare, free colleges, and to sue everyone for whatever they can get...the larger the amount the better.
And in the meantime, the people who really need help are paying the price for the scam artists. "Cover-up" comes to mind...
Sorry to butt in to your debate, but I'll play Devil's Advocate for a second. You're forgetting about the upcoming socially engineered Second Hand Obesity epidemic. You see, if Monkey Face subsists on a diet of nothing but IHOP breakfasts consisting of western omelettes and 5 pancakes for breakfast and double whopper with cheese with a side of fries for lunch and an all you can eat buffet over at Bob's Big Boy for dinner every day...and then he gets hypertension, type 2 diabetes, gallbladder disease osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, asthma endometrial cancer or high blood pressure...
Now it's my business and your business. I'm paying for his medical care through higher taxes going towards socialized healthcare programs like Medicare, Medicaid and whatever future collectivist Universal Healthcare program some liberal Dem shoves down our throat for the "greater good". Plus, my private insurance through work will go from $500/mo. to $1,100 per month.
I agree with your sentiment Eric, but CSPI do NOT have idols in anti tobacco, they are, and have always been, part of anti-tobacco.
Follow the money, friend.........CSPI has ties to PETA and RWJF....the goal is to destroy the food and hospitality industries.
As I've said repeatedly, I'm not in favor of regulation. I would like to see market pressures require restaurants to disclose this information, which, to a large extent, they already have.
Leaving that aside, I think that the objections that people have brought up are just not true. As I've mentioned before, the argument that it is cost prohibitive doesn't seem to be valid in light of the number of restaurants that already provide this information. Further, as I've stated before, I can sit in my kitchen and calculate the nutrition facts of any meal that I prepare in less than five minutes. This is super burdensome?
I know that was tongue-in-cheek, but I seriously doubt that's all that far off.
If you care so much about reducing your meal to a formula then you're free to carry around a reference manual for foods and pull out your calculator at the table. But I don't care to have them take my steak and send it out to the lab, wait a couple weeks for the results, then staple a label to it before they bring it out.
Sort of ruins the ambiance. :-)
I really, really, don't believe you.
You're getting way to technical for the regualar FReeper folks here to understand. Suffice it to say that CSPI leaves the tobacco companies alone, not out of benevolence. It's all pretty disgusting. I'm not going to make any explicit accusations. Just saying...
Hint: Think mafia and protection money. If you pay us, somebody might not accidentally burn your place to the ground.
*ahem* While I understand your argument and agree with most of it, I feel compelled to state that I'm a SHE, I'm hypoglycemic (the opposite of diabetic), my gall bladder was removed 27 years ago through private insurance, I have very strong bones due to exercise, I don't suffer from sleep problems, I have allergy related asthma which I treat with OTC meds, and I don't have cancer or high blood pressure. Ohyah...and I'm within 20 pounds of my highschool weight, which was 147. And I'm 5'9" tall...;o])
I really, really, don't care.
Figured as much.
But yet you felt compelled to say it anyway, just to be obnoxious. What a guy!
Michael F. Jacobson, PhD.......a PhD in microbiology.....
Whose business is it what I eat, how often, where and when? Are any of those busybodies offering to pay my rent? My health insurance? My grocery bills? If not, they need to stay the eff out of my face and let me eat what I darn well please...."
I couldn't have stated it better. Thank You.
It must be an individual business decision, because other than fat content on ground beef, only pre-packaged (not instore packaged) meats have nutritional information on them where I do my grocery shopping.
Don't mention it!
I've never been known for tact and diplomacy, so I'm not one to call a spade anything but a spade! (Unless it's big, then it's a shovel!)
Sorry ma'am. I think everybody here understands that I couldn't pick you out of a police line up if my life depended on it. I don't know you, although it's a pleasure to meet you now.
I was just trying to make a point and you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The same argument can be made for Al Gore and Ted Kennedy.
I dunno, but the last time I saw ingredients on a "meat" package, it was mostly "vegetable protein." Fat contect is good enough for me!
I didn't see where they were trying to change the food that restaurants serve. What's wrong with knowing the calorie and fat count of the food you're eating?
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