Calorie counts to be added to restaurant food menus

Scioch

flutterflye wrote: »

How does that contradict anything???
You simply alter your diet and exercise.
It is hard work to keep it up, but you just do if you want to get to your goal.
It does not occupy your mind, you just get on with it.

I'd know a lot of people who do this calorie counting thing, and every meal, snack, or drink other than water involves adding and counting.
Literally every time they put anything to their mouth like - that cannot be a healthy attitude (although it might improve your maths skills!).

How is it not a healthy attitude to know you remain within your limits each day to make your exercise worthwhile ? Its discipline is all it is not an unhealthy view of food. Why is it fine to guess it but not to know for sure ??

What do you mean how do you know what a healthy portion size is?
You just know.
You read up initially if you don't know.
It's not rocket science.

You just know ? How do you just know ? What do you read up if you dont know ? Someone saying one spud is ok but not two ? What are they basing it on ? Do they just know ? Someone has to be measuring this stuff to gauge what consists of a healthy amount.

Your saying its healthier to guess it or listen to someone without knowing how they know rather than working it out for yourself ?

And why are you trying to tell me that I estimated calories or whatever you said?
Eh.. no, no I didn't!

Because essentially you did. You estimated what the acceptable amount of food is for a portion. Based on whatever else you were eating in a day and how that worked out for you. You were guessing the correct amount of calories to eat per meal and hoe it related to the amount of calories you needed to be at a caloric deficit each day and lose weight. If your portions were too big you would have consumed more calories meaning you wouldnt have lost weight.

flutterflye

LordSmeg wrote: »

How is it not a healthy attitude to know you remain within your limits each day to make your exercise worthwhile ? Its discipline is all it is not an unhealthy view of food. Why is it fine to guess it but not to know for sure ??



You just know ? How do you just know ? What do you read up if you dont know ? Someone saying one spud is ok but not two ? What are they basing it on ? Do they just know ? Someone has to be measuring this stuff to gauge what consists of a healthy amount.

Your saying its healthier to guess it or listen to someone without knowing how they know rather than working it out for yourself ?



Because essentially you did. You estimated what the acceptable amount of food is for a portion. Based on whatever else you were eating in a day and how that worked out for you. You were guessing the correct amount of calories to eat per meal and hoe it related to the amount of calories you needed to be at a caloric deficit each day and lose weight. If your portions were too big you would have consumed more calories meaning you wouldnt have lost weight.

No, you just read up on it all before you proceed.
You don't begin anything without educating yourself and preparing yourself.
Then once you know, you know, and it doesn't consume your every thought - simples.

Can you please explain to me how calorie counting equates to healthy eating?
It just doesn't!! Not in any way!

You need to be aware of what you put into your body, but calorie counting doesn't come into this in the slightest!

Gongoozler

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

But this will remove one of the excuses. I really do get a good giggle when I see a large majority of people talking about their "healthy eating". Many think that eating in a nice place must be healthy...because it's posh! They have no idea how much salt, sugar, cream, butter, oil etc ends up in their food.

But the reason they are overweight is not the food!!! It's genetic! They pile lies upon lies like you wouldn't believe. Delusional mother****ers the lot of them.

Careful now.... you'll have lots of people come on talking about how there are lots of genuine cases where people can't lose weight because of genetics or a condition. Ya, you're conditioned to eat nothing but fatty foods right?

I'm in favour of this being brought in. Every two weeks I meet a friend for hot chocolate in Insomnia. I never took any notice of the calories beside the drinks. But now because they offer you a muffin or slice of cake for just 20c extra (or something like that) I tend to take it. So last time, I went to pick out my muffin, and noticed it has something like 625 calories in it!! :eek: I didn't for a second think it was low in calories, but thought at max it'd be 300 or that. So now I know not to feed on muffins. Simple.

(I got a slice of cake instead that was 245 calories. Not quite as nommy though)

Scioch

flutterflye wrote: »

No, you just read up on it all before you proceed.
You don't begin anything without educating yourself and preparing yourself.
Then once you know, you know, and it doesn't consume your every thought - simples.

Can you please explain to me how calorie counting equates to healthy eating?
It just doesn't!! Not in any way!

You need to be aware of what you put into your body, but calorie counting doesn't come into this in the slightest!

Read up on what ? Explain how you know what constitutes a healthy portion ? How does one derive the amount of food that makes up a healthy portion ?

Explain that please and whats its based on ?

starbelgrade

Logical Fallacy wrote: »

Expensive to calculate? Really? How exactly do you figure that one? The first thing I would do when I was a personal trainer was to sit down and get someone to tell me what they ate daily, then 10 minutes later I would be able to tell them how many calories they had been eating.

You are aware that there are enormous free resources on the internet that give calories by weight of pretty much every available food?

In all honesty, I think all the people giving out about this are really reaching with the "cost" argument.

You are dreaming with your "very expensive to calculate" thing. You'd be better off saying "time wise, the chef will need to calculate it all, so you have the cost of his wages" or something like that.

As it is, you are trying to argue that doing a bit of maths costs money, simply the process?

The proposal from the government at the minute is for a voluntary calorific content to be added to menus. The fears in the industry are, that if it is made mandatory, then there will be regulations put into place which will involve the lab testing of menus to determine the exact calorific content as opposed to an estimated one.

I was listening to two chefs talking about this on the radio the other day. One of the chefs works for a large hotel & they had a lab analysis of their menu done at a cost of €5,000. This, they felt was cost effective as their menu is essentially the same from week to week & month to month. Also, due to the large amount of customers they have on a daily basis, the costs could be easily absorbed.

The second chef worked for a small restaurant where they used only seasonal ingredients, so the menu changes from week to week. They also offer daily specials which change from day to day depending on what is available. With a lot of menu changes & less customers than a hotel, the cost of a lab analysis on a daily, weekly or monthly basis would make the changing of menus unsustainable.

In a time where we should be pushing our food providers for variety of locally sourced ingredients, this law could have the opposite effect altogether.

The key to helping people make good food choices is to educate the ignorant, not to punish the informed.

flutterflye

LordSmeg wrote: »

Read up on what ? Explain how you know what constitutes a healthy portion ? How does one derive the amount of food that makes up a healthy portion ?

Explain that please without using calories as a guideline. Whats it based on ?

It's like when you are in college and you need to read up on things - how do you know what to read?
You find credible sources, and you read a few - not just one.
You use your brain!

It's the same as when you want to research anything - you use your brain and research skills.

It's really very simple.

You know that you need so much protein, dairy, whatever.
You learn to listen to your body - stop eating when you've had enough.

It is really all common sense.

Calories does not come into losing weight at all.

You eat healthy non processed food, you make your own sauces, you don't add a ton of salt etc etc etc...

Seriously, why can you not understand any of this?
It is very simple, and nothing to do with calorie counting!

hardCopy

flutterflye wrote: »

No, you just read up on it all before you proceed.
You don't begin anything without educating yourself and preparing yourself.
Then once you know, you know, and it doesn't consume your every thought - simples.

Can you please explain to me how calorie counting equates to healthy eating?
It just doesn't!! Not in any way!

You need to be aware of what you put into your body, but calorie counting doesn't come into this in the slightest!

Eh what? You can't "just know" what to eat. You need some way to quantify it, how else can you be aware of what you're putting in your body?

It's perfectly possible to get fat eating "healthy" foods, if you eat too much of anything you'll be fat.

prinz

flutterflye wrote: »

Can you please explain to me how calorie counting equates to healthy eating? It just doesn't!! Not in any way!!

I think you are confusing yourself, you seem to be implying people calorie counting in the sense of someone eating two chocolate bars a day and nothing else, and then congratulating themselves that they only consumed 1,000 calories a day or some such.

Logical Fallacy

starbelgrade wrote: »

The key to helping people make good food choices is to educate the ignorant, not to punish the informed.

What better way to educate people than having the calorie count right beside their meal on the menu?

coffee_cake

when you reduce your portion size, you're doing it to reduce calorie intake
you may not actively count them but you do it to reduce calories

it is a different matter as prinz says to thinking that if you only eat your calories you're doing well even if you eat them in chocolate

you do need a combination of calorie restriction/addition and proper nutrients for healthy eating

flutterflye

hardCopy wrote: »

Eh what? You can't "just know" what to eat. You need some way to quantify it, how else can you be aware of what you're putting in your body?

It's perfectly possible to get fat eating "healthy" foods, if you eat too much of anything you'll be fat.

Yeah, well I already said about portion sizes.
And I also already said that you read up on it all initially if you don't know.

Do people actually not know all of this stuff?
How to eat healthily, and how much to eat for you?
It is different for each person depending on size, body shape, metabolism etc...

God, no wonder there are so many overweight people if they are all completely uneducated on all of this.

Instead, they read their magazines and count calories and start fad yo yo diets.

Maybe we should have a national campaign to educate people so.

coffee_cake

flutterflye wrote: »

Yeah, well I already said about portion sizes.
And I also already said that you read up on it all initially if you don't know.

Do people actually not know all of this stuff?
How to eat healthily, and how much to eat for you?
It is different for each person depending on size, body shape, metabolism etc...

God, no wonder there are so much overweight people if they are all completely uneducated on all of this.

Instead, they read their magazines and count calories and start fad yo yo diets.

Maybe we should have a national campaign to educate people so.

flutter, the bolded things are pretty much the same thing...

Logical Fallacy

flutterflye wrote: »

It's like when you are in college and you need to read up on things - how do you know what to read?
You find credible sources, and you read a few - not just one.
You use your brain!

It's the same as when you want to research anything - you use your brain and research skills.

It's really very simple.

You know that you need so much protein, dairy, whatever.
You learn to listen to your body - stop eating when you've had enough.

It is really all common sense.

Calories does not come into losing weight at all.

You eat healthy non processed food, you make your own sauces, you don't add a ton of salt etc etc etc...

Seriously, why can you not understand any of this?
It is very simple, and nothing to do with calorie counting!

LMFAO! Best line of the thread.

R u fur reelz?

starbelgrade

It's kind of ironic that the people who spend a lot of their time "watching their calories" are usually overweight.

Ironic in the same way that the man trying to tell us that we need a calorie count on our menus is a fat bastard.

I've tried to remain balanced on this issue, but in my honest opinion, if you don't know what foods are good or bad for you, then you're a fucking retard.

prinz

flutterflye wrote: »

Calories does not come into losing weight at all.

LOL, do you realise how silly that sounds? You say calories do not come into losing weight at all, and then go on to basically recommend consuming less calories than you use to lose weight.

Dave!

flutterflye wrote: »

Yeah, well I already said about portion sizes.
And I also already said that you read up on it all initially if you don't know.

Do people actually not know all of this stuff?
How to eat healthily, and how much to eat for you?
It is different for each person depending on size, body shape, metabolism etc...

God, no wonder there are so many overweight people if they are all completely uneducated on all of this.

Instead, they read their magazines and count calories and start fad yo yo diets.

Maybe we should have a national campaign to educate people so.

Yeah, and you should lead it, cos you're very good at conveying a coherent message

K-9

bluewolf wrote: »

if WW were put in charge we wouldn't be allowed steak or butter but we'd have bowls of pure sugar put in front of us instead as "healthy"

Think you might be allowed a slight bit of butter, barely cover a half slice of wheaten scone. What's the point? Your just teasing yourself!

prinz

starbelgrade wrote: »

I've tried to remain balanced on this issue, but in my honest opinion, if you don't know what foods are good or bad for you, then you're a fucking retard.

You say that as if it's news to you. Look at how many people smoke.

Scanlas The 2nd

LordSmeg wrote: »

flutterflye wrote: »

No, you just read up on it all before you proceed.
You don't begin anything without educating yourself and preparing yourself.
Then once you know, you know, and it doesn't consume your every thought - simples.

Can you please explain to me how calorie counting equates to healthy eating?
It just doesn't!! Not in any way!

You need to be aware of what you put into your body, but calorie counting doesn't come into this in the slightest!

Read up on what ? Explain how you know what constitutes a healthy portion ? How does one derive the amount of food that makes up a healthy portion ?

Explain that please and whats its based on ?

A healthy portion is as much as you want of healthy food. Eat all the meat, fish, veg, eggs and fruit you want until you are full. Excercise vigourously occasionally and you will be in great shape.

Don't jog endlessly, it's bad for you and releases stress hormones in your system. Lift weigghts and sprint instead for example.

flutterflye

Calorie counting doesn't come into it though.
I do see what you're saying bluewolf - that by reducing portion sizes, you are reducing calories, so yeah, I guess it is similar.
But what my problem is, is the actual obsession with counting the calories all the time - it's not a healthy attitude.
Whereas reducing your portion sizes, you just get used to putting so much on your plate.
But you have to listen to your own body, and read up on how these things relate to you personally.

Why is it though that everyone thinks about these things in relation to how many calories they've consumed or lost?

Why don't people just eat what is good for them, and cut out what is bad?
Calories don't come into it - it's about healthy eating, not about counting calories.
Why is nobody getting it?!!

What is it that is making my posts incoherent?
They are all making perfect sense to me!!

seamus

starbelgrade wrote: »

The proposal from the government at the minute is for a voluntary calorific content to be added to menus. The fears in the industry are, that if it is made mandatory, then there will be regulations put into place which will involve the lab testing of menus to determine the exact calorific content as opposed to an estimated one.

Unfounded fears because such regulations could be easily challenged as being functionally unworkable.
Two labs given a sample each would probably not arrive at the calorie content, probably just fairly close to eachother. Reason being that no two portions are identical (in any restaurant), so expecting restaurants to have their food lab analysed would be unworkable.

Any regulations would just be a formalisation of the request that's been made - make a reasonable attempt to estimate the calorific content of an average portion of each of your dishes.

These would then be checked by an inspector who would probably spot check a few items on the menu, make his/her own calculations and compare them to what the restaurant has printed. If they're within a certain tolerance (probably 10%), the restaurant can leave it, if they're way off the restaurant has to change it.

It's always funny when people seem to think that when a government introduces a new law, they're going to go full draconian on it.

tempura

My name is URL wrote: »

Seems a bit stupid to me. It's all well and good including calorie counts on the likes of McDonalds menus, which are rarely changed.. but it would be very difficult for a restaurant that alters its menu every few days or weeks.

Making it even more difficult for businesses to operate at a time when many are already struggling to do so.. Well played Ireland

Totally agree with this. Also have to say, if people don't have a rough idea about what foods their eating and what calories their consuming by now, their a bit thick. The media have been banging on about obesity for years now so to be honest you should have a rough idea as to whats fattening and whats not. If not, then just go and buy yourself a book on nutrition, why does everything have to be done for people these days, educate yourself for ****s sake. Its food, not rocket science !

hardCopy

flutterflye wrote: »

It's like when you are in college and you need to read up on things - how do you know what to read?
You find credible sources, and you read a few - not just one.
You use your brain!

It's the same as when you want to research anything - you use your brain and research skills.

It's really very simple.

You know that you need so much protein, dairy, whatever. How much? How do I know how the macro nutrient breakdown of a restaurant meal? How do you know how big the portion size is? If I go into my butchers I can get small, medium, large or XL chicken breasts, in a restaurant they don't ask what size you want
You learn to listen to your body - stop eating when you've had enough. Really?

It is really all common sense. If it was common sense we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic

Calories does not come into losing weight at all. It's not everything, but it's the most important thing

You eat healthy non processed food, you make your own sauces, you don't add a ton of salt etc etc etc... In a restaurant? The content of sauces is actually the main reason this idea is important, a customer may think they know how much chicken they need but don't realise the impact of the mozzarella stuffing and mushroom (butter) sauce

Seriously, why can you not understand any of this? Ditto
It is very simple, and nothing to do with calorie counting!

My comments in bold

tempura wrote: »

Totally agree with this. Also have to say, if people don't have a rough idea about what foods their eating and what calories their consuming by now, their a bit thick. The media have been banging on about obesity for years now so to be honest you should have a rough idea as to whats fattening and whats not. If not, then just go and buy yourself a book on nutrition, why does everything have to be done for people these days, educate yourself for ****s sake. Its food, not rocket science !

But no two restaurants are the same, a chicken breast I cook at home could be half the size of what I get in a restaurant, I make a sauce with cottage cheese but the chef makes it with butter and cream, the customer has no way to gauge the difference between the two.

It may only mean the difference between ordering a Big Mac and ordering a Plain Cheeseburger but at least it helps people have some concept of the impact of their food choices.

Logical Fallacy

starbelgrade wrote: »

It's kind of ironic that the people who spend a lot of their time "watching their calories" are usually overweight.

Ironic in the same way that the man trying to tell us that we need a calorie count on our menus is a fat bastard.

I've tried to remain balanced on this issue, but in my honest opinion, if you don't know what foods are good or bad for you, then you're a fucking retard.

I agree, that said I can't eat out in restaurants any more. I'm Coeliac so can't eat gluten or wheat. I'll ask in a restaurant, is this gluten free? It is they say! But it isn't. Because they are lying ass sons of bitches. They don't have a clue what it takes to ensure gluten and wheat free food. So there so called "gluten free" dishes are prepared in the same space and on the same counter tops as all their gluteny foods.

Then you have stuff like soups and sauces...soup you think. Gotta be good for you? But how much salt is in that thing, and oil? Plenty.

A bit of honesty in the food industry is a good thing.

flutterflye

prinz wrote: »

I think you are confusing yourself, you seem to be implying people calorie counting in the sense of someone eating two chocolate bars a day and nothing else, and then congratulating themselves that they only consumed 1,000 calories a day or some such.

Yeah - I've seen people doing this so many times!!
Infact most, if not all the people on these weight watchers diets that I've witnessed will do this - at least on weekends.
Or they'll decide that they need to drink on a night out, so they'll just eat apples and celery all day so they can drink they're brains out that night without feeling too guilty!

Scanlas The 2nd

flutterflye wrote: »

Calorie counting doesn't come into it though.
I do see what you're saying bluewolf - that by reducing portion sizes, you are reducing calories, so yeah, I guess it is similar.
But what my problem is, is the actual obsession with counting the calories all the time - it's not a healthy attitude.
Whereas reducing your portion sizes, you just get used to putting so much on your plate.
But you have to listen to your own body, and read up on how these things relate to you personally.

Why is it though that everyone thinks about these things in relation to how many calories they've consumed or lost?

Why don't people just eat what is good for them, and cut out what is bad?
Calories don't come into it - it's about healthy eating, not about counting calories.
Why is nobody getting it?!!

What is it that is making my posts incoherent?
They are all making perfect sense to me!!

Completely agree with this, I get the impression some people think 500 calories of vegetables is no better for you than 500 calories of chocolate.

I can't stand hearing about portion sizes. Just eat as much healthy food as you want. When you eat healthy food your hormones are working properly and tell you are full when they are supposed to.

Dave!

starbelgrade wrote: »

It's kind of ironic that the people who spend a lot of their time "watching their calories" are usually overweight.

Well actually (a) you just made that up, and (b) people who are not overweight don't need to worry about it, so obviously they don't have to "watch their calories"! Once they start gaining weight, then they tend to start worrying about it again...

starbelgrade wrote: »

I've tried to remain balanced on this issue, but in my honest opinion, if you don't know what foods are good or bad for you, then you're a fucking retard.

It's not about good or bad... Assuming a generally balanced and healthy diet, it's calorie/portion control that's the overriding factor in weight gain/loss, and it's difficult to accurately quantify your caloric intake for various different meals. Research shows that we underestimate significantly. Doesn't make the person a retard.

Yes, if you don't know that eating a tub of lard is bad, then you're a retard...

Scioch

flutterflye wrote: »

Calorie counting doesn't come into it though.
I do see what you're saying bluewolf - that by reducing portion sizes, you are reducing calories, so yeah, I guess it is similar.
But what my problem is, is the actual obsession with counting the calories all the time - it's not a healthy attitude.
Whereas reducing your portion sizes, you just get used to putting so much on your plate.
But you have to listen to your own body, and read up on how these things relate to you personally.

Why is it though that everyone thinks about these things in relation to how many calories they've consumed or lost?

Why don't people just eat what is good for them, and cut out what is bad?
Calories don't come into it - it's about healthy eating, not about counting calories.
Why is nobody getting it?!!

What is it that is making my posts incoherent?
They are all making perfect sense to me!!

Nobody is getting it because it makes no sense. Reducing the portion size is done for no other reason than to reduce the amount of calories you are eating. If calories dont come into it you would have no reason to reduce your portion size.

coffee_cake

flutterflye wrote: »

Why don't people just eat what is good for them, and cut out what is bad?
Calories don't come into it - it's about healthy eating, not about counting calories.
Why is nobody getting it?!!

What is it that is making my posts incoherent?
They are all making perfect sense to me!!

as i said, it's a combo of the two really

Sea Filly

prinz wrote: »

Tbh if I had a choice of two places to eat out and one published calorie info and one didn't, I'd go to the one with, even if I was going to eat the same exact food.

See, I'd go to the one with the nicest food, what with it being a treat and all.