Opinion
Madison eateries need calorie info
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Also by Ryan Greenfield:
- Community Car a smart move for consumers, environment (September 23, 2008)
- Broken center in need of overhaul (September 9, 2008)
- Drinking age tramples rights, endangers health (September 2, 2008)
- Madison eateries need calorie info (April 28, 2008)
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Campus life wouldn’t be the same without giant slices of macaroni and cheese pizza from Ian’s or succulent Gritty Burgers from the Nitty Gritty. Almost no culinary desire will go unfulfilled in this town if you’re willing to walk far enough down State Street or around Capitol Square.
But in the two-and-a-half years I’ve lived in Madison, few restaurants besides Subway have been willing to tell me what I’m eating on-site. I don’t expect, or even desire, a full ingredient list embedded into every menu. But weight-conscious University of Wisconsin students should at least be able to find out how many calories their lunch has in it easily and accessibly.
Despite the short-term expenses of reprinting menus and window displays, more information will benefit everyone. As we’re stuffing our faces in blissful ignorance, we’re paying for it later in our bellies and our wallets.
New York City recently implemented a law that requires calorie counts to be posted next to the prices on the menus in most restaurants. This applies only to fast food and chain restaurants with 15 or more outlets, which account for about two-thirds of restaurant traffic. A challenge from the New York State Restaurant Association to this provision was rejected in district court two weeks ago. Madison should enact a similar ordinance, but take it one step further and apply it to local restaurants as well.
Some Madison residents might argue that since they’re savvy adults, they don’t need the government shoving calorie counts down their throat every time they’re going to grab lunch. They know very well the Chipotle steak burrito they had for lunch yesterday had way more calories than a tofu stir fry they could have purchased from a cart on Library Mall.
While this is true, the nutritional qualities of restaurant food can often be maddeningly counterintuitive. For example, a chicken Caesar salad sounds like a fairly healthy choice. But if you go to Chili’s, this salad contains an incredible 1,010 calories, much more than a sirloin steak which only contains 540 calories. Similarly, a healthy sounding “Grilled Chicken Club” sandwich from McDonalds has more calories than a Big Mac.
It’s sometimes hard to perceive these massive differences in calorie counts. Studies show that most people vastly underestimate their calorie consumption from restaurant meals. Food is just so complex and laden with additives these days that even a dietician would have difficulty assessing which choice is a healthy choice.
But can’t you check calorie counts on restaurants’ online menus? You sure can, but I don’t know how many people really do that when they have 45 minutes to grab lunch on State Street between classes. Who is going to memorize all that information? You need to have it available when you’re ordering, which is so often an impulse decision rather than a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis weighing calories against taste.
Calorie labeling can even be good for businesses. If restaurants can market low-calorie alternatives or cut portion size without lowering prices very much, they can potentially make large profits from greater accessibility of calorie counts.
About 45 million Americans go on a diet each year. While studies show that only 10 to 20 percent of consumers will choose a low calorie food alternative when it’s offered, many are completely ignorant of calorie contents to begin with. Even for those who are not on diets, it’s essential that everyone have access to the information necessary to make healthy choices.
Wisconsin’s obesity rate for adults was 23 percent as of 2006, which was 28th among the states. Studies estimate that the direct and indirect costs associated with obesity added up to about $1.5 billion for the state of Wisconsin in 2000. Nationally, about 66 percent of adults are overweight or obese, costing an astounding $117 billion in 2000.
At a time when obesity is such a large and growing problem (no pun intended), we can’t afford not to know what we’re eating.
Ryan Greenfield (rgreenfield@badgerherald.com) is a junior majoring in political science and economics.
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Have you ever tried asking how many calories are in something at a restaurant? i bet you can find out without a state law
“Calorie labeling can even be good for businesses” if it was so good for businesses then maybe they would do it voluntarily and not need another government law telling them what they have to do
Hey Ryan, if you’re curious, just buy the food and have it analyzed at a lab. What, that costs a whole shitload of money? You don’t say? Well, surely independent restaurateurs can blow that kind of change on something that changes every time the alter the recipe. It’s not like a lot of them are staking their life savings on a business with razor-thin profit margins, right?
At least tell us how much it costs to generate that kind of data. A journalist can do that much research, can’t one?
It’s good policy for businesses to provide the information upon request, but I can’t see how this is the government’s responsibility. Should they send inspectors around to make sure that people double-knot their sneakers?
Counting calories is pointless. If you eat; move. Eat, move, eat, move. Do not eat and then not move. Counting calories is for Olympians, triathletes and the obsessive—which one of these three are likely to pack on the pounds?
What a great place is America! Even the poor people are fat.
Does the government have to do everything for you? Why can’t you manage your diet yourself?
They should make a public health policy course mandatory! The comments responding to this article just show how intellectually void our student community is when discussing matters of health.
7:11am - Of course it’s the government’s job to protect the public from businesses! Maybe not to check sneakers, but remember that in the past construction, drinking water, and even medical treatments were not regulated by the government. But now we have building codes, water safety, and liability for medical malpractice. I don’t think you’d want to trade any of those - but nutritional info is the same thing. 1:20am - Since I’ve been in Madison I can think of half a dozen restaurants that could not provide nutritional information to me.
11:58am - One of the medical communities most common strategies for combatting obesity is making people aware of what they are consuming because as this article pointed out - nutrition is counterintuitive and unregulated. Just because YOU don’t need to watch your caloric intake does not negate the fact that most of the population does.
I can’t believe that people don’t think providing information is a good thing, especially for a country with such a deficit of nutritional knowledge. I understand that 20-somethings don’t have any idea how important this is because they still have high metabolisms and haven’t seen the chronic disease the results from years of malnutrition, but open your eyes! If you don’t think the overall quality of health in America doesn’t warrant policy change regarding nutrition then you haven’t been paying attention!
No one needs to know how many calories are in a Gritty burger or a slice of Ians pizza to know it’s not good for you. If people are trying to be “weight conscious” they shouldn’t be eating at places like that anyway.
“I can’t believe that people don’t think providing information is a good thing, especially for a country with such a deficit of nutritional knowledge”
No one is arguing that providing the nutritional info is a bad idea. People are merely arguing that a law mandating it be displayed is a bad idea. Subtle yet important difference.
11:50 - Without a law it doesn’t happen. Simple as that. Now, I’m preparing for the market system arguments that if the consumer really wants it then businesses will provide it. But combining a market system with a sheer lack of self control is a recipe for disaster. Look at how well it worked with gas prices.
I’m just disappointed that people still fall for the old mantra that regulations are bad. I understand that our culture inherently defaults to personal liberties over public well-being because of some obsession with the individual. But now that we’re in college I think it’s time to break free of that mold and look at the subtleties in the conflict between personal liberties and public health.
That’s my explanation for why every single argument for not having a law has been rebutted but we still have people saying, info is good but a law is bad. The bottom line is that we’re not going to get the info in a useful way unless there is a law like the one in New York.
Thanks for brining this up. It’s amazing how hard restaurant chains are fighting to hide their nutrition information. I wanted to share a new service my company just launched called ‘Wellternatives’ that lets people find nutrition info for thousands of chain restaurants for free – right from their cell phone or on the web. It also makes recommendations for a healthier alternative, hence the name… Wellternatives. If restaurants aren’t going to post their nutrition info, we figured we’d do what we could to give people instant access to the info from anywhere. Would love to hear what you think of it! Maija