You Can't Miss It—Even If You Want To

Jacob Sullum | October 30, 2006

The New York City Board of Health, which is mulling a trans fat ban, is also considering a requirement that restaurants serving food "for which calorie content information is publicly available" make the information more conspicuous by including it on menus and menu boards. The rule would apply only to restaurants, such as McDonald's, KFC, Subway, and Dunkin' Donuts, that already provide calorie counts online, in printed handouts, or on posters. Hence the problem it would solve is not that customers can't get calorie information if they want it but that they can avoid it if they choose to do so. Restaurants that offer a plethora of ordering options, such as Starbucks and Domino's Pizza, are worried that they will be expected to provide calorie counts for every variation (which might require a menu board wrapping around all four walls) or that they will be held liable for accidental inaccuracies due to an extra half-squirt of whipped cream or an errant pepperoni slice. Such daunting possibilities may have the unintended consequence of discouraging restaurants from providing calories counts at all, since they could avoid the menu board mandate by declining to make the information "publicly available" in the first place.

Comments

|10.30.06 @ 12:20PM|#

Such daunting possibilities may have the unintended consequence of discouraging restaurants from providing calories counts at all, since they could avoid the menu board mandate by declining to make the information "publicly available" in the first place.

That's the first thing I thought of when reading the first two sentences. Or actually, it occurred to me that this law would punish companies already making more effort to comply with its spirit than those that aren't.

|10.30.06 @ 12:24PM|#

This from the city that brags about what is truly the worst pizza on Earth.

I sense a ripe opportunity opening up for a Hoboken 'sin district.'

|10.30.06 @ 12:50PM|#

worst pizza? you are outta yer mind, d000000d.

which is about as intelligent as conversations about pizza get, of course, especially regional disputes.

|10.30.06 @ 1:27PM|#

Oh, look.

No, look closer.

Closer still.

Still can't see him.

*squint*

That's right -- it is the world's tiniest violinist and he is playing a song just for you called "Parade Of The Horribles."

|10.30.06 @ 1:43PM|#

oh sam, you live a charmed life indeed.

PJ Doland|10.30.06 @ 2:24PM|#

Test

|10.30.06 @ 3:03PM|#

Nannystaters want to shut the fast food industry down. Therefore any level of regulation that allows enough people to eat there to keep the establishments open isn't enough.

Then they'll go after any restaurant whose menu isn't limited to granola and bean sprouts.

|10.30.06 @ 3:33PM|#

Larry A,

Don't have a cow, man. Consumers don't care if they ban trans fats because by and large, consumers are not consciously choosing to buy trans fats. If I like McDonald's fries, I don't give a crap what kind of oil they're boiled in and changing to saturated fat will likely only make them taste better.

If they tried to ban french fries, on the other hand, we would tear this city down. Seriously.