Calorie counts to be added to restaurant food menus

saiint

So food business have 6 months to put calories on food menus voluntary? but if they dont do it they face complusion to do it? how does that make sense
their saying they can choose to do it but if they dont their gonna be made do it

RandomName2

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Measures such as?

'fat tax' on food
legal restrictions on sizes/portions of certain products
restrictions on advertising for high calorie foods
'healthcare tax' on people who are overweight
legislative strangling of companies associated with the manufacture/ selling of high calorie foods

etc.

Today cheese is being targeted (fat) - tomorrow it will be fruit (sugar) !

prinz

RandomName2 wrote: »

Whilst SouthSideRosie et al might say that the proposed legislation itself is not too draconian in terms of nanny-statism, I could see it as a gateway for further measures which would be (although that is arguably not debating the issue on its own merits).

You mean like expanding the amount of information they would be required to provide to diners?

RandomName2 wrote: »

I think there would be a case to make restaurants legally obliged to be able to provide a list of ingredients and nutritional values of their products if expressly asked for by customers.

JohnMarston

If you're like me and go to a restaurant once in a blue moon, i cannot see why calorie counting should matter.
If you're going every day of the week and wonder why you're piling on the weight then you need a change in lifestyle.

seamus

All not bed ideas, however

RandomName2 wrote: »

'fat tax' on food

Tricky to implement. Are you taxing based on calorie density, saturated fat content, carbohydrate content? You also have the problem that you have fitness supplements specifically designed for weight gain. Should they be penalised?

legal restrictions on sizes/portions of certain products

The only people who win there are the manufacturers. That would work great for ready meals for single people, but what about the mother buying a ready made lasagne for her family? "Sorry, you'll have to pay for 3 individual products at a higher price because we can't sell big lasagnes"

A more moderate response would be to require manufacturers to write in big letters across their packaging, "This tiny portion of food which is about enough for a dog, has been designed to feed 6 people". Then the purchaser is being given more information to make a better informed choice.

restrictions on advertising for high calorie foods

I would ban food advertising on TV altogether. Only fast food outlets advertise food.

'healthcare tax' on people who are overweight

Do they get taxed when they arrive in hospital, or do they have to submit a "weight return" to revenue every month declaring their current weight? And who decides what "overweight" means. Will a 17st superfit rugby player be taxed under this scheme?

El_Dangeroso

seamus wrote: »

Quite the opposite. Ingredient list is important if the consumer has allergies or is attempting to avoid specific ingredients. From a health POV, the specific ingredients aren't all that important.

I wouldn't agree with this at all, sure how much you eat is important, but what you eat is equally important for health.

This idea that as long as you eat enough calories you're getting all the nutrition you need isn't backed by the science at all.

JohnMarston wrote: »

If you're like me and go to a restaurant once in a blue moon, i cannot see why calorie counting should matter.
If you're going every day of the week and wonder why you're piling on the weight then you need a change in lifestyle.

YES, thank you for some common sense. Restaurants should be a once in a while treat! You should not base you're diet on them! Chefs have and will always cook for taste, not health, otherwise they would not be in business very long.

We all cooked from scratch from home for generations and we didn't have to worry about fats/carbs/calories in order to stay thin, why is that?

RandomName2

seamus wrote: »

Quite the opposite. Ingredient list is important if the consumer has allergies or is attempting to avoid specific ingredients. From a health POV, the specific ingredients aren't all that important.

But it begs the question, is obesity all that significant? I mean, notwithstanding its prevalence, or people's personal preference, but rather its risk to the nation? Heart attacks and strokes account for a very significant number of deaths in this country, but I am unconvinced about its causation stemming from obesity (obesity may, however, stem from the root cause). Cholestoral (depending on type) and plaque significant contributory factors to cardiac disease - but both have very little to do with calorie intake per se.

By this reckoning a bag of nuts would be less healthy than a bag of pork scratchings, or a handful of olives would be less healthy than a packet of smarties. :pac:

Moreover, I am concerned by a governmental policy which will deliberately single out calories to the exclusion of all else, and, forgive me for being sceptical, but at a time like this I can't help but feel how it will be bent towards some sort of revenue generation technique. Getting a moralistic fervour on one's side would give great impetus in the generation of moral taxation (as is currently the case with cigarettes).

Although I'll agree with prinz that if, as a consumer, you are looking specifically for this information, it is annoying if it is unobtainable. Surely, this does leave an opening in a niche market for companies which specifically do this though? (e.g. Subway)?

RandomName2

seamus wrote: »

A more moderate response would be to require manufacturers to write in big letters across their packaging, "This tiny portion of food which is about enough for a dog, has been designed to feed 6 people".

hardCopy

saiint wrote: »

So food business have 6 months to put calories on food menus voluntary? but if they dont do it they face complusion to do it? how does that make sense
their saying they can choose to do it but if they dont their gonna be made do it

Do it now voluntarily and spare us all the expense of drafting legislation and we'll let you decide the size, layout and design of this information.

Ignore this request, cost the state extra money and you'll be told exactly how it should look and be forced to ruin the aesthetic of your establishment and given no room for novel design in your printed menus.

seamus wrote: »

A more moderate response would be to require manufacturers to write in big letters across their packaging, "This tiny portion of food which is about enough for a dog, has been designed to feed 6 people". Then the purchaser is being given more information to make a better informed choice.

Like a bloody 500ml bottle of coke with a "handy" nutritional label on the front with calorie content per serving (*2 servings per bottle).

Sea Filly

JohnMarston wrote: »

If you're like me and go to a restaurant once in a blue moon, i cannot see why calorie counting should matter.
If you're going every day of the week and wonder why you're piling on the weight then you need a change in lifestyle.

+1.

I can see the case for eat-on-the-go type places having calorie content displayed, as many people rely on these places if they travel a lot with work. But a sit-down, less fast food type place? Nah.

southsiderosie

Lia_lia wrote: »

Well you could, you know, ask the waiter! I've worked in a restaurant all the way through college, people often ask me whether there is a lot of butter/salt etc in the dish. So I just ask the chef. It's not a big deal. People often ask for vegetables without butter, which is grand.

You would be surprised by how many people in the food industry have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. I can't tell you the number of times I've been in a cafe, and asked if they had soy milk or some kind of non-dairy 'milk' for coffee (or worse yet, a latte) and been told "Um, we have skim milk!". I had a friend in Dublin who is celiac, and he had to stop eating out in restaurants because of the number of times he was given wrong information on ingredients (he actually moved back to Italy to start his own gluten-free restaurant).

Lia_lia wrote: »

If they don't want sauce they can just ask for no sauce...every second table I have ask these kinds of questions. And as staff we know the ins and outs of every dish we serve because we have to. Maybe not the actually calorie content, but if someone if trying to lose weight they should be able to know what to order to suit their needs without looking at the calorie contents.

That is just not true. The restaurant version of food is usually much higher in calories because of the far more liberal use of high calorie additives (cream in sauce, etc) than people who are trying to watch their weight would cook with at home. Again, this is why it tastes so good!

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

To you and everyone else, butter is good for you.

My point is that if you order steamed vegetables and they come drowning in butter (or cream sauce), then you've kind of lost the point (from a caloric point of view) of ordering steamed vegetables or grilled fish!

seamus

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

I wouldn't agree with this at all, sure how much you eat is important, but what you eat is equally important for health.

This idea that as long as you eat enough calories you're getting all the nutrition you need isn't backed by the science at all.

Talking about ingredients specifically, they're irrelevant nutritionally. It makes no difference if the meal you're eating contains calcium from a cow which was eating grass before it was cooked, or from a slab of lab-grown fungus. Calcium is calcium and its source is irrelevant. The specific ingredients are terribly useful because they allow people to avoid specific ingredients, but nutritionally they're of very little use.

In terms of diet, I didn't say that just eating to your calories will provide all the nutrition you need. I said that provided someone eats a varied diet and not the same thing for every meal every day, they won't need to spend much time worrying about nutrition. Which is a fact. Otherwise we'd be in the midst of a malnutrition epidemic. Which we're not.

We all cooked from scratch from home for generations and we didn't have to worry about fats/carbs/calories in order to stay thin, why is that?

Because very few jobs were sedentary and food was more expensive.

But it begs the question, is obesity all that significant? I mean, notwithstanding its prevalence, or people's personal preference, but rather its risk to the nation? Heart attacks and strokes account for a very significant number of deaths in this country, but I am unconvinced about its causation stemming from obesity (obesity may, however, stem from the root cause). Cholestoral (depending on type) and plaque significant contributory factors to cardiac disease - but both have very little to do with calorie intake per se.

There is an undeniable link between obesity and early mortality rates as well as a host of other problems. Obese people die younger, spend more time in hospital, take longer to recovery from surgery and suffer more complications in surgery.

While I don't disagree that there are other things like cholesterol which could be targetted, aiming at obesity will have a series of beneficial side-effects. Speaking as someone who has lost a serious amount of weight through calorie counting (I really couldn't have done it otherwise), watching your calories has the effect of forcing you to improve your diet because you otherwise can't function. So while a calorie counter could just eat mars bars, they wouldn't. Cos you'd be starving after eating your 5 or 6 bars for the day. You discover that you can continue to have large, satisfying meals at a low calorie cost by using things like vegetables, reducing the starch content of the meal and doing things like removing creamy sauces and replacing them with non-cream ones. This has a direct knock-on effect on the volume of salt, sugar, fats, cholesterol, etc etc etc that you consume.

So calorie counting in most cases has the unintended consequence of automatically adjusting your diet to a more healthy one, even though all you were doing was calorie counting.

This is why it's such a powerful way of improving public health. Healthy eating campaigns, five-a-day, etc, are fine. But nothing is quite as simple as calorie counting. You get a figure that you can eat. Don't eat more than that. It's easy and people will figure out what works for themselves. And all of the other diet-related health issues automatically benefit from this change in diet.

starbelgrade

seamus wrote: »

It makes no difference if the meal you're eating contains calcium from a cow which was eating grass before it was cooked, or from a slab of lab-grown fungus.

Calcium-wise, it might not make a difference, but the meat from a cow reared on grass will taste a lot better.

Varied

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

James needs to follow these guidelines carefully himself. He's quite a tubby chappy.

Over at Labour something has to be done with Pat Rabbitte. He has an enormous gullet, kind of like what you'd see on a frog. Must be all that hot air building up.

Classic

I can imagine all the knackers trying to follow these guidelines.

"anto! Dese cheeyse borgurs have foive hundred calories, geh me a dieh coke!"

:pac:

Sea Filly

seamus wrote: »

Calcium is calcium and its source is irrelevant.

In the case of iron, for example, this is totally untrue. Iron from meat is easier for the body to process and utilise than iron contained in plant metter. It is present in a form that the body can break down better than plant-derived iron. It's more bioavailable.

Could be the same for many other micronutrients, including calcium.

bosswinger

If the government are looking to reduce the high and increasing levels of obesity in Ireland, asking restaurants etc to show the calorie content of their meals will have very little effect but it is better then nothing. It may help some people in some way, be it choosing a lower calorie option or realising the caesar salad can be very high in calories when all the croutons etc is included which is better then nothing.

A far better way to reduce the high levels of obesity is not to look at the once a bull moon treat (which is the case for most people), but the 3,4,5,6... meals/snacks each day people are eating. The level of knowledge of what is good and what isn't is just terrible in this country. People know that fruit and veg is good for them and a better option then a pizza or takeaway curry but its things like eating 4 slices of "wholemeal, nutty, high fiber, bla bla bla" bread with a mountain of a spread on it or a bowl of Special K for breakfast is a bigger issue! To change this will take a long long time, loads of investments in many many schemes etc. To do what is needed is going to be very hard and will take a very strong group of politicians to go against the big multinationals, whose very existence hinges on us eating their unhealthy products (high percentage are anyway).

I am all for a proper program of education in healthy eating in schools etc but only if they have done proper research and not backed or sponsored by companies with a vested interest. Even if this is done you can have a well educated child who knows what's good and bad for them but if they come home from school and a plate of chicken nuggets and chips covered in red sauce is put in front of them what are they supposed to do??

It is going to be very hard to get people to change their eating habits if they don't want to or see a need to change. I have tried cooking healthy meals for my family when I get a chance but low and behold when I don't cook its back to the unhealthy breaded, saltly and butter covered (I know butter isn't bad but the amount my family use is!!) dishes that they have been eating all their lives.

El_Dangeroso

seamus wrote: »

Talking about ingredients specifically, they're irrelevant nutritionally. It makes no difference if the meal you're eating contains calcium from a cow which was eating grass before it was cooked, or from a slab of lab-grown fungus. Calcium is calcium and its source is irrelevant. The specific ingredients are terribly useful because they allow people to avoid specific ingredients, but nutritionally they're of very little use.

Completely untrue, whole foods are more than the sum of their parts, I've studied nutrition for years, and one thing I'm sure of is how little we know about how various nutrients interact with one another in whole foods. Many vitamins require co-factors for correct usage, and we don't even know what most of them are. The fortification of foods is a classic example of this, we are now starting to find evidence that folate fortification has a negative impact on health, folate in real food doesn't do this.

seamus wrote: »

This is why it's such a powerful way of improving public health. Healthy eating campaigns, five-a-day, etc, are fine. But nothing is quite as simple as calorie counting. You get a figure that you can eat. Don't eat more than that. It's easy and people will figure out what works for themselves. And all of the other diet-related health issues automatically benefit from this change in diet.

I will re-iterate my point from before that mandating calorie counts on everything doesn't actually work. People do not eat less (incidentally people think they are eating less when asked!). I posted some studies showing this in an experimental and in an observational setting.

So you are basically demanding an ineffective, expensive measure be introduced based on what exactly?

Feathers

The fact that the government is mandating calorie information only feeds into the line of thinking that so long as I stay under RDA calorie guidelines I have a healthy diet.

The other main reason I'd be against it is that, yes, it makes you aware of your calorie intake, but it doesn't do a lot to change it — if I'm out at a restaurant and every starter on the menu is over 400 calories, what do I do then? & a significant amount of the time that people are in restaurants, they mightn't have a choice over where they are going, if it was a work event, family occasion or friend's birthday — you have to have something on the menu.

If they wanted to mandate anything, why not say that for each section on the menu, there has to be a 'light' option, under a certain calorie limit? This at least gives people the option if they're watching intake & then also wouldn't make people feel guilty, if that's an issue, for their butter sauce & chocolate fondant.

Hazys

I live in the US where in my state, this is already the law.

I put on a lot of weight near the end of last year, i was uptop 210lbs (15st). In the first 4 months of the year, i dropped 30lbs (2.5st). I did a lot of gyming to lose the weight but the major difference was i downloaded a calorie counter app. Knowing exactly where you are overeating is a major help.

I set a goal of about 1,800 calories a day. Knowing the calorie amount of everything i ate, was a tremendous help to knowing how to lose the weight. People say if you have any bit of cop on you should be able to guess the amount of calories...BS! Only if you studied nutrition in college would you be able to get a decent guess on all the different types of food you eat.

One example was this sandwhich franchise i went to a couple times a week which had two sandwhichs i ate. Knowing that one sandwich was 750 calories and the other was 950 calories mad a huge difference to meeting my goals. Easily cutting out 200 calories a day makes a huge difference when you are aiming for 1,800 calories.

Restaurants and foods have to provide the ingredients of their foods, why not the amount of calories?

Feathers

Hazys wrote: »

Restaurants and foods have to provide the ingredients of their foods, why not the amount of calories?

On request, maybe? I've never gone into a restaurant that had an ingredient list below each dish.

mikemac1

Subway do this

They have a selection of rolls under 350 calories

But if you took a footlong Meatball Marina with cheese and sauce you can double, maybe treble that figure

Teyla Emmagan

I think any initiative that helps people make better eating choices can only be a good thing. The only place I know that currently does this is Bay in Clontarf. I go in there for brunch a bit. You rock up, ravenous, sit down, and make a decision. You then notice the nutrition information at the side of each menu item, realise that you were about to eat 1200 calories for breakfast and instead go for the omelette (350 calories). Their system focuses on the nutritional content of each dish, not just the calories, so you can easily see what's low salt or low sugar or whatever. I think it's brilliant. And it's a reality check before you unconsciously stuff yourself with calories you don't need just because you hadn't actively been thinking about what you were about to eat before you noticed the legend on the side of the menu. Any little help is a good thing.

mickrock

This is a good idea.

In these straitened times we'll be able to get the maximum number of calories possible with the little money we have.

Hazys

Feathers wrote: »

On request, maybe? I've never gone into a restaurant that had an ingredient list below each dish.

By restaurants, i meant franchise restaurants not one off restaurants. Its a bit unfair to expect small business to provide this, but any decent size franchise should be made to. They may not provide it on site but most have it on their websites. TBH i was talking more about food products tho.

Shryke

mikemac1 wrote: »

Subway do this

They have a selection of rolls under 350 calories

But if you took a footlong Meatball Marina with cheese and sauce you can double, maybe treble that figure

I used to eat a lot of those meatball subs until I found out what was in them. They are lethal. It's a testament to my metabolism that I'm not gigantic.

Feathers

Hazys wrote: »

TBH i was talking more about food products tho.

Well, we have that already

validusername1

I think it's a great idea.. I'd pay attention to it.
Never been a fan of Mc Donalds but ever since they started putting nutritional information on their food, I haven't gone back and don't plan to.. It tastes horrible anyway and I'm not a health freak but some of the calorie/salt/fat contents are crazy.. Couldn't do it to myself even for the sake of handy food ha

Scanlas The 2nd

Hazys wrote: »

I live in the US where in my state, this is already the law.

I put on a lot of weight near the end of last year, i was uptop 210lbs (15st). In the first 4 months of the year, i dropped 30lbs (2.5st). I did a lot of gyming to lose the weight but the major difference was i downloaded a calorie counter app. Knowing exactly where you are overeating is a major help.

I set a goal of about 1,800 calories a day. Knowing the calorie amount of everything i ate, was a tremendous help to knowing how to lose the weight. People say if you have any bit of cop on you should be able to guess the amount of calories...BS! Only if you studied nutrition in college would you be able to get a decent guess on all the different types of food you eat.

One example was this sandwhich franchise i went to a couple times a week which had two sandwhichs i ate. Knowing that one sandwich was 750 calories and the other was 950 calories mad a huge difference to meeting my goals. Easily cutting out 200 calories a day makes a huge difference when you are aiming for 1,800 calories.

Restaurants and foods have to provide the ingredients of their foods, why not the amount of calories?

That's rubbish. Eat healthy foods and you won't need to count calories, your body will tell you when you are full.

Scioch

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

That's rubbish. Eat healthy foods and you won't need to count calories, your body will tell you when you are full.

Thats rubbish just listen to your body ?

You dont spend your evening dowsing for water by any chance do ya ?

If I want to get a good sense of how what I eat relates to my weight counting calories is the easiest way to do that. If I took your advice I may gain weight, then I'll come back and you'd throw out some equally simplistic tripe like "should have eaten healthier foods and listened more closely to your body".

El_Dangeroso

LordSmeg wrote: »

Thats rubbish just listen to your body ?

You dont spend your evening dowsing for water by any chance do ya ?

If I want to get a good sense of how what I eat relates to my weight counting calories is the easiest way to do that. If I took your advice I may gain weight, then I'll come back and you'd throw out some equally simplistic tripe like "should have eaten healthier foods and listened more closely to your body".

And yet people manage everyday to stay the exact same weight without doing complex calculations every day. Why is that?