Seriously, how is anyone dumb enough to be fat?

[Clueless Morgan]

Why is this "nannystating?" I don't mind knowing how many calories are in the food I'm eating and it can help people make better choices by simply giving them the information. If they don't care about calories they'll ignore it, if they do they'll appreciate it.

Giving information isn't being a nannystate - what's being a nannystate is legislating the maximum drink size. Now that's some bullshit right there.

While I do agree with you, if people took notice how many calories are in the foods they buy at the supermarket they should be able to reasonably accurately estimate how many calories are in a restaurant meal, and while I do think having the number of calories in fast food and restaurant food displayed is helpful, I don't think it should be mandatory.

How are you supposed to gauge the amount of calories in a meal from a restaurant where you have no idea what all the ingredients are and no (good) idea how the meal is prepared? Was it cooked in butter or oil? Was it marinated in something? Fried?

For non-processed foods the calorie content isn't given at grocery stores - they don't post how many calories are in an eggplant, or how many calories are in a pound of ground beef, or a halibut fillet or whatever, so most people have very little idea about how many calories there are in produce. Which is higher in calories: An apple or 3oz of green grapes? An orange or a pear? A carrot or a cucumber? Most people haven't the faintest idea, other than the vague notion that all of these things are probably less calories than a bag of Doritos.


The way I see it, legislating that restaurants print the calorie content of their menu items hurts no one and provides that restaurant's customers with valuable information that they can then choose to ignore if they want, just like they ignore how many calories are in the can of Pringles they just gobbled up. I see it as a step towards creating a more informed public, whether they choose to be informed or not.

* A major pet peeve of mine is Nutrition Information boxes on foods and drinks. I think it should be a requirement, especially with drinks, that the Nutrition Information be given for the bottle, as well as the serving size, not just for a serving size and then tell you that there's actually three servings in the bottle knowing full well that the person is going to sit there and drink the whole thing. I think it's hugely misleading for them to do it by serving size only. I think this could easily be extended to all foods where Nutrition Information is required as part of their packaging.

Well that's not quite true since they give you the serving size amount and also the average per 100g or 1kg (or whatever unit you use there, eg. lbs). But in terms of coke for instance, the 375ml can serving size is 375ml, the 600ml bottle (the most popular size) serving size is 600ml, and yet the 1.25L and 2L bottle serving size is 250ml! Even though most tumblers hold around 350ml not 250ml.

Here's the Nutrition Information box on a bag of Doritos:


Where is the nutrition information for the bag? Oh, wait, they don't give it. And I'll be damned if anyone I've ever seen eating Doritos has counted out 11 chips to be their serving - they get a bowl and they fill the bowl with however many chips fill that bowl, and often go back for more. Sometimes they don't even fill a bowl, they just park the bag in their lap and eat away until they've eaten half the bag - or the whole bag.

Do you notice how if you want to figure out the calories in this bag of Doritos you have to multiply it by 12? Or they could give you the serving size information, and RIGHT NEXT TO IT give the information for the whole bag so if you -oops!!- eat half the bag in one go, you don't have to run and get a calculator to figure out how many calories you just ate.

Here's the Nutrition Information on a container of Pringles:

Same deal: calories given according to serving size, with no information given for the whole container except to say that there are 8 servings per container. At least the Doritos bag gave you an idea of how many chips that is, if you wanted to eat a recommended serving size of Pringles you'd have to count them out into eight piles.

How about Vitamin water?


Oh, look! More information given by serving size only, knowing full well you're likely going to sit there and drink the entire bottle at once. This one is especially malicious since there are two and a half servings per container so now people who aren't great at math to begin with have to contend with fractions. They, at least, give the vitamin information for both serving size and per bottle, but why not the calories?

Pepsi does the same deceitful thing:

A 20 oz bottle with nutrition information given for a serving size of 8 fl oz, with 2.5 servings per bottle - but see how easy it is to give the information for the whole bottle right next to it? It's not hard, why not make everyone do it?

I will say kudos to Coke for putting the "240 Calories Per bottle" label right on the front their smaller bottles and cans, but I think that should be on every bottled drink, and I think that the calories per container (bottle, bag, box, whatever) should be printed on every food that is required to have Nutrition Information printed on it, including Coke's 2-liter bottles, which they don't do; they print "100 Calories per serving, 8 servings per Package" and never mention that the serving size they are calculating is 8 fl oz, 2/3 of the average small cup in a house (~12 oz), and 1/2 the size or less of the average large cup in a house (assuming they're 16-20 oz).

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You might say, "People just need to do the math and they'll figure out their caloric intake," but I know a lot of people who don't even realize that the calorie count posted on food, especially bottled drinks, is given per serving, and if they do realize that it's by serving, they don't realize there are multiple servings in a single bottle. (I've pointed this out to people and it's obvious by the realization on their faces that they never realized this information before.)

It's their own fault for not taking the time to read and understand the Nutrition Information, yes. But when it comes to Nutrition Information boxes I am of the opinion that they need to be idiot proof, and that giving the information only by serving size when there are multiple servings per container is a sneaky, deceitful way of making it look like your product has fewer calories than it actually does based on knowing how people consume the product (the whole thing at once, and not doled out in 8 oz servings). With things like Vitamin Water, they are artificially lowering the perceived calories in each bottle by giving the information by serving size knowing full well 90%+ of the people drinking that product are going to glance at the calories listed in the Nutrition Information box, make the assumption Vitamin Water wants them to make (that a serving size is one bottle so they choose Vitamin Water as their product perceiving it as a healthier beverage) and drink the whole bottle in one go.

Information hurts no one and the companies that produce these products already have the necessary information and facility to print it on their packaging. Coke does it. Pepsi does it. At least it will add two lines to their Nutrition Information box and that's not objectionable. At most, they'd be required to add a second column, and that's not objectionable either - Pepsi did it without altering the size of the box too greatly. I see no reason to oppose legislating a change like this. And if it doesn't happen through Senate or Congress, let it be mandated by the FDA.

Information.
Hurts.
No one.

Why be against giving people information?