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."
You could find me real easy if you went to my Home Page...I'm the cute one with the tan!
And the photo of the killer whale on the left was on my fridge for a while...*smirk*
Why, thanks!
Obnoxious is reducing every nice pleasurable thing in the world to a cold sterile formula of good and bad. If you can't figure out whether you should order the steak or the fish, then some little formula isn't likely to help you.
When it comes to Chinese restaurants, I'd really rather not know.
Prepared foods are not consistent from one cook/chef to another. A little more sauce, a little less salt, a little more sugar, etc. A chart for every food item would be very expensive.
That's true, but the difference will generally be negligible--and I disagree that the cost would be very expensive. First, most restaurants already do this and it doesn't appear to be cost prohibitive. Second, if I can figure out the nutritional value of the food I cook at home in about five minutes, how difficult should it be for a restaurant?"
Go for it, honey... Open your own restaurant and do it the way you want it to happen. Absorb the costs of all this "research" or pass it on to your customers- your choice.
I wish you good luck with drawing a large enough clientele to keep the doors open.
Basically, I go where I want to eat what I am in the mood for. It bothers me more that half the "workers" at a restaurant are obviously NOT from the USA. Those places I walk back out of...usually grumbling loudly on the way thru the place...
They don't want the masses to be well-nourished - that's the agenda, here!
They don't want vibrant communities, either - they can't come right out and forbid the freedom of assembly, so they ban smoking in pubs, bring in stringent drink-driving laws, as they have done here in Ireland - Irish pubs are closing down as result on a daily basis, free assembly is thus restricted, plus a cultural deconstruction thrown in for good luck...
If that's what you want to do, then by all means, do it. If I want to enjoy a night out without reading the ingredients on what I'm eating, I should be able to do so. I can read ingredients in the store and at home if I so desire.
I'm not watching my weight because I think it's futile. I'm careful with what I eat because I'm hypoglycemic and I don't like my sugars bouncing all over the universe. But I don't avoid sugar, fat, butter, red meat or chocolate. I just eat sensibly.
Maybe because they don't know (and likely can't know) with enough precision to be legally defensible.
I'll just sit in a corner, eating my thick juicy steak, none the wiser. That way, we can both get what we want. Deal?"
Don't forget the Garlic butter drooling on the top of the steak, and the baked potatoe loaded with all the usual goodies. If you have room left over- CHEESECAKE!!!!!!
OHYAH!!! And maybe a dark choclate Kiss when I get home. Better yet, dark chocolate-raspberry cheesecake! Howzat? :o])
No. Nobody has perfect information.
A free marketplace means no one forces anyone to buy from or not buy from anyone else.
All well and good for the chains and big corporations, but at the corner mom & pop restaurant that changes it's menu from day to day and week to week, it's just not gonna work.
I realize you are not for making this a regulation or a law, but the people in this article that are pushing it are looking to do just that. CSPI claims to be a consumer advocate group just looking out for the nutrional needs of consumers, but in actuality they are seeking to destroy the food and hospitality industry as we currently know it.
You only say that because you hope Americans eat crappy food to require dental work.
I bet you're in cahoots with the sugar industry!
;)
So why does the government have to mandate it?
There's the rub. The propensity for activist organizations to decide what's best for everyone is annoying but harmless and may be safely disregarded if desired, and they don't like that. That's why they go for the government, usually the federal government, every time. These people who pretend to advise do not intend merely to advise, disingenuous statements about the Food Police to the contrary. They intend to regulate. That's what governments do for them.
I don't recall you talking of the pubs closing...how sad! What will we tourists do for fun in Ireland if we can't crawl the pubs?
How about a label on every news story coming from this group detailing their true agenda instead of couching it in scientific jargon and doublespeak?
I'm really not sure whether or not you meant this in earnest. You seem serious, but it's just such a shockingly dumb statement, I can't be sure.
First, I'm not sure to what formula you are referring when you say that there is a "cold, sterile formula." What would that be?
Second, isn't the point of having nutritional information to aid you in your decision making process? I find it really interesting that when people make some decisions, like, say, buying stock, they'll analyze every little piece of information, but when it comes to what they eat, the thought is "oh, whatever."
NO I'm not, folks that have been following this issue on FR know exactly what I am talking about.
Suffice it to say that CSPI leaves the tobacco companies alone, not out of benevolence.
Who gives a hoot if they leave the tobacco companies alone, they don't give a rat's behind about the tobacco companies - it's smokers and the food and hospitality industry that cares about their smoking customers that CSPI is after.
I've been posting about CSPI far too long to worry about making false accusations about them.........they are stooges of RWJF plain and simple.
While it's true each cook will intruduce a certain level of randomness the restaurant will have a "template" (all of the ingredients in all of the proportions) of what the dish is supposed to be. You could do the nutritional information based on the template. I don't think it should be on the menu though, too much wasted space, make it available on request.
That's true, the costs are higher for the mom and pops, which is one of many reasons why I wouldn't support regulation.
But it's just crazy that there are multi-billion dollar restaurant chains like Quiznos that don't publish this information.
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