February 26, 2007
Trans-Fat Was Just the Beginning...
I'm telling you, they won't stop until they have control of everything you put into your mouth. The paragon of neutral news reporting, CNN, had a story today that featured Jayne Hurley of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and hardly anyone else. CSPI advocates mandatory nutritional labeling on restaurant menus.
What's next, making you take a nutritionist with you to the supermarket?
Menus like this could soon be the size of your phone book
h/t: Newsbusters
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I'd settle for having the info available in the store upon request - if _they_ would! The ignorance of people about basic nutrition and biological science is appalling.
We went out to dinner Saturday night with my sister-in-law, who is gluten intolerant (celiac disease). They chose The Olive Garden because she knew that they have a few gluten free items on their menu(gluten shows up in places you wouldn't expect, though most are obvious). She asked the maitre'd for the Gluten Free Menu. He asked her what "gluten-free" meant - was that something to do with sugar??? She explained that he could go online - that OG provided a daily download of gluten-free available foods from their menu. The waitress wanted to know if she could have cheese on her salad (grated parmesan)...she too indicated that she had no idea what gluten-free meant. The maitre d' eventually showed up with printouts of the gluten-free items (incidentally, the most expensive items on the menu) - but still didn't know what it meant.
So - ok, gluten intolerance is a special condition that requires education of the general population, but I'd be willing to bet that 9 out of 10 people have no idea of what their daily caloric intake should be - so what's the point of telling them how many calories are in what they're eating?? And ok...trans-fats may be bad - they _are_ artificial - but how much does it take over what period to do a body harm? Does the body gradually expel them? Outside of that, there are no "bad" foods - just too much of a good thing!
The rest of the world should have such problems!
Posted by: suek at February 27, 2007 12:51 PMSuek: I agree that many people are lacking in basic nutrition principles. I also agree that moderation is the key to everything in life!
People like your sister-in-law are exceptions to the rest of us, where having certain information is vital to life itself. But when I go to a restaurant, I don't go because I'm dieting; I go because I want to enjoy a great meal that I wouldn't otherwise have at home. My favorite restaruant is a family-owned German restaurant in the next town over. Do I really want to know how many calories are in the wienerschnitzel or the fat content of the bratwurst? No way! But then, I don't go there often because one, eating out is a treat and two, eating out there is very expensive, so we time our visits accordingly.
If people are going to be gluttons, no matter what the food choices, there isn't much you can do about it. I'm all for educating people; after that, they do what they will. Forcing restaurants to kowtow to the nutrition police is just one more step toward a total nanny state.
Posted by: Pam at February 27, 2007 01:13 PM
