

Restaurants prepare for new calorie-count rules - kevinxray
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/mar/23/restaurants-prepare-new-calorie-count-rules/news-breaking/

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thetrumanshow
Ways to make money from this:

1) Make a brochure for your area "Eating Better in NAME_OF_TOWN USA". List all
the meals that have the lower calorie counts. Ask the local businesses to pay
to be listed. Publish this bi-annually. Do this in every town you can.

2) Start an eating-healthy club that uses goal-setting and social shaming to
help people lose or maintain their weight. Ask local businesses to sponsor
membership fees in exchange for listing their lower-calorie menu items in your
newsletter. Do this in 1000 towns. You'll need to find someone local to set
this up. Start by contacting people in outgoing/enterprising professions such
as real-estate.

More ideas?

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gregwebs
This policy move is completely misguided and paradoxically almost guaranteed
to make people more overweight.

Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should read Gary Taubes's review of the
obesity literature in Good Calorie, Bad Calorie.

Our society appears to have become obese in large part from gorging ourselves
on nutrient-depleted carbs (sugar, flour). This is just going to encourage
people eat even less fat and more carbohydrates because of the calorie
difference between fat and carbohydrate.

~~~
potatolicious
I think this is a great idea actually, assuming step 2 is followed: proper
nutritional education.

In Canada, nutritionists are heavily subsidized by the health system (the idea
being that whatever the cost now certainly beats giving you a new heart in 20
years), and in fact nutrition courses are _free_ for people in at-risk weight
ranges.

This has worked out great for me personally - I used to be obese, and this
type of education has been instrumental in allowing me to return to normal
weight. In fact, given the depth of the obesity problem in America, I would
think that this sort of education should be mandatory in the schooling system.

All the labeling in the world will do you no good until your population learns
what the labels mean.

~~~
fnid2
Is there a correlation between the availability of good information and
informed decisions? We know that fast food is bad for us. Even stepping inside
one to buy something means that you're going to get something not good for
you. Availability of information at McDonald's does not help you buy and
consume good food, because if you are _at_ McDonald's it's already too late.

You are probably an exception because you were motivated to lose the weight in
the first place. I suppose I'm one of the lucky skinny types that overweight
people hate, but it seems to me that obesity is less about knowing what is in
your food and simply eating less of it. If calories consumed are greater than
calories burned, you gain weight.

While traveling around Europe, I happened to be at the same hostel as a
Canadian doctor and he was more than happy to share lots of opinions with me
-- especially about the U.S. health care system. So I asked him about weight
and food. He said simply: People get fat because they eat too much. He also
said, drink a lot of water and eat slower.

Later, I read an article that most people can't tell the difference between
thirst and hunger. If you drink water when you _feel_ hungry, often the hunger
pangs go away. Of course that couldn't be true for me! So I tested it and sure
enough, when I got hungry, I'd drink water and I wouldn't be hungry anymore.

Food is just like TV or cigarettes. It alleviates boredom. It gives us a good
feeling to eat. We eat foods that are too dense with calories. Steak. Chicken.
Twinkies. We are emotionally trained to think meat is better. In my rural
area, vegetarians are _weird_. "You don't eat meat?? Why?!? OMG, I could never
live without meat. What are you a sissy?"

But it isn't like that. Food is mostly emotional -- always has been. The
reason all those women in the really old paintings are plump is because it was
a sign of wealth. Rich kings could keep their women fat. Turns out they were
the ones who could afford to pay painters as well, so we don't see all the
skinny people who lived back then, but skinny is the norm, not the rule.

In the U.S., people think it is hard to be skinny, when the opposite is true
-- it's hard to get fat.

Funny that your username is potatolicious and you're commenting on a food
thread...

~~~
potatolicious
> _"We know that fast food is bad for us."_

We intuitively know this, but we do not intuitively know what is _good_ for
us. Sure, you can insist that people ought to cook everything from scratch,
but given modern lifestyles this is really just a moral high horse, and stands
little chance of being realistic advice that will be followed. Not to mention
that a _lot_ of home cooking is dangerously unhealthy for you (meatloaf,
anyone?).

The information that led to my dramatic weight loss wasn't some kind of holy
secret grail, it was simply training on what foods I need, how much of it I
need, how to read nutritional labels, and the common pitfalls (e.g., trading
fat for sodium) that one ought to watch out for. Instead of harping "fries are
bad for you!" the program taught me was _was_ good for me, which in the end
was infinitely more helpful. We publish a pretty good guide on food groups and
recommended servings, but the whole system doesn't account for the world of
processed, industrialized food we live in today. How good are those crackers?
Unsalted? What does that mean? It can still be an invitation to a coronary
unless you are smart about scrutinizing labels.

> _"obesity is less about knowing what is in your food and simply eating less
> of it"_

True and false. Most obese people (including myself) eat too much, but much of
it has to do with _what_ is being eaten as well. Trading fat for carbs,
trading fat for sodium, etc etc, all contribute to bad health.

Also, nutritional education also opened my eyes on _how_ bad certain foods are
for you. We intuitively know burgers and fries are bad - but _how_ bad? Even
most "normals" don't know this quantitatively, and this knowledge has helped
me avoid a lot of foods. There are shades of "bad for you", and it's important
to know this. "Stop eating burgers and ice cream" is a moralistic stance to
take, and technically correct, but ultimately unhelpful.

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dhyasama
How much wiggle room is built into the law? As mentioned in the article,
portioning varies by location and chef. What happens if a chef adds an extra
tablespoon of ranch dressing or gets a shipment of slightly larger chickens?
The US is such a litigious society that it's a question of when, not if,
lawsuits will be filed. I'd like to think provisions for this are built into
the law but I doubt it.

Also, what about specials? Have some fish left over from the weekend and want
to run a special? Well figure out your exact portions, calculate calories, and
reprint your menus. Oh wait, the fish went bad while you were doing all of
that. Sorry. Try again next week.

~~~
potatolicious
I'm not sure about the state the article is about - but in Washington it only
applies to chains, which have sophisticated supply chains that ensure a pretty
narrow tolerance of serving sizes and contents.

This certainly doesn't apply to your corner mom and pop shop where serving
sizes and contents vary by the plate.

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biggitybones
This is at it's core the classic government vs. personal responsibility issue.

This is already required in NYC for chains. It's kind of nice to know that the
Five Guys burger and fries I'm about to throw down for lunch satisfies all of
the calorie and fat limits recommended for the day in just one meal. At the
same time, is there a need for government to mandate this?

I think it's a good tool for people who are looking to be a bit smarter about
their consumption habits. Most people understand that the food they're eating
isn't good, but I think the problem is that few understand just how bad it
actually is. High fat/calorie restaurant chains have little incentive to do
something like this, so maybe the .gov getting involved is needed.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
I think it's a little more complicated than that actually, it appears that the
restaurant industry actually lobbied _for_ the new regulation.
([http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/22/conspicuous-calorie-
counts...](http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/22/conspicuous-calorie-counts-com)).

In this case, it seems to be less a case of the federal government vs personal
responsibility, so much as industry pushing for the federal law to _avoid_
having to deal with emerging individual state and local laws. I'm assuming the
industry might also be planning to use the labeling to help defend against
some of the lawsuits that are being brought against them by people with
obesity related disorders.

