Golden Deer Pub Community Forums

I'd like to open the debate on what role the government has, if any, in legislature designed around foods and food intake.

Of particular interest:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25464987/

The story discusses New York City's recent laws regarding calorie information appearing on menus. The law requires chain restaurants with more than 15 stores nationwide to list calorie content beside menu prices. Starbucks and TGI Fridays have already started putting the information up.

I think this law is brilliant. There's also precedent, since the FDA regulates packaged food labels with the Nutritional Facts label and what not. It's important people know what goes into what they eat. Restaurants need to be held accountable, too, the rampant development of 1000+ calorie salads, smoothies, desserts and burgers.

I normally think the government needs to stay out of my life as much as possible, but this is a situation that I feel I actually want the government to step in with.

What are some of your thoughts? If not for this law, than what about concerning trans fat, high-fructose corn syrup, red food dye, MSG, soda in schools, fast food in schools or something similar?

Discuss!

This is a great law. Now nobody can say "Well the restaraunt didn't tell me how bad the food was for me!" People need to be accountable for their own damn selves.

From the article:

“I’m so upset,” she said, noting some entrees — like the Jack Daniels ribs and shrimp dinner — contain almost 2,000 calories, and the desserts were more of the same (the brownie obsession is 1,500 calories). “I wish they wouldn’t have done this.”

But then [she] noticed that the waiter had handed her friend an old menu, which didn’t have calorie counts on it.

“You got a menu without anything on it?” she asked her friend. “Can I have yours?”


*face-palm* Ignorance may be bliss, but that doesn't change the fact that you're ignorant.

Ahhh. No. That's the trick of it. Read the labels carefully and you'll see that the majority of those items still contain trans fat. Under the current legislation, <0.5 grams trans fat per serving can be legally advertised as "Trans fat free" or "Zero grams trans fat!" (per serving).
The problem, of course, is that this leads to a situation in which, let's say, three cookies is a serving and each serving has 0.3 grams trans fat. You eat four servings and you've ingested 1.2 grams trans fat. Or if you eat five things with each 0.4 gram per serving you've eaten 2 grams.

Also, fast food is plagued with trans fat. If the place fries using a different oil, it still uses parboiled fries that are saturated with the stuff.

New York banned trans fat cooking oils, so that's a big step.

Here, this will terrify you:
http://www.acaloriecounter.com/fast-food-trans-fat.php