Calorie Conscientious Objectors
Katherine Mangu-Ward | May 6, 2008, 4:00pm
Yesterday, New York's new policy requiring some restaurants to post calorie counts on their menu boards went into effect. A health department inspector swung into action, armed with "his laptop computer and a printer he carries in his backpack," for issuing violation notices.
Despite finding five violations, no fines have been issued yet because of a court ruling delaying implementation, but inspectors will begin handing out citations with a price tag attached in July to restaurants with more than 15 locations nationwide which refuse to trumpet the number of calories in a slice or a container of fries.
In case you want to support these brave conscientious objectors to the culinary paternalism (or guys who forgot to install the new menu boards--whatever), here's the honor roll:
Dunkin’ Donuts at 445 Park Avenue South, at East 30th Street; McDonald’s at 1560 Broadway, at West 46th Street; Popeye’s, at 321 West 125th Street, between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and St. Nicholas Avenue; Sbarro at 22 West 34th Street, next to the Empire State Building; and TGI Friday’s at 677 Lexington Avenue, at East 56th Street.
More on New York's war on tastiness
here and
here.
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BG | May 7, 2008, 9:04pm | #
You're rolling over for this one because it benefits you, the small price to freedom be damned.
No, I'm "rolling over" because it seems to me that this policy is different only in degree, not in kind, from policies I already support.
For example, suppose I started a bar and one of my special recipies included a martini with a small dosage of cyanide for flavor. A small dose mind you; only enough to be fatal to 25% of the population. Do I have an obligation to somehow ensure that my customers are informed about this? Or is it the responsibiility of a customer who doesn't want cyanide to ask me if there is any cyanide in my house martini; and to go somewhere else if I refuse to answer?
If somebody died wihout knowing what was in it, and I said "You don't have the right to know the cyanide or nutritional content of what you drink. It's nice if you do, but don't go acting like you have some holy claim on this information.", would you accept that argument? After all, I have the right to run my business how I like, and I never falsely claimed that all my drinks are cyanide free. It is not my fault that customers
simply assume that their drinks are cyanide free, just like its not a restraunt owner's fault if a customer underestimates the number of calories in what they order.
You may reject the analogy on grounds that the cyanide thing is a matter of immediate life or death. But it is plausible that some people die, or suffer heart attacks or other injuries, after ordering many high-calorie meals in which they thought the calorie level was lower. So having this information is potentially relevant to knowing that one is taking a life-or-death risk with certain diets. That is why I say this is different in degree, not in kind, from mandating cyanide disclosure.
Business owners don't have a right to customers that are ignorant of the risks involved with use of their product. The question of when a special effort like this should be made to ensure informed consent is more of a pragmatic question in my view; not a question of a fundemental right of merchants to withold information about the risks associated with their goods.
Was dictating the contents of recipes paternalistic to you?
Yes, as indicated by my last post, and I am strongly opposed to such dictation. Dictating the content of recipies is not ensuring informed consent. It is saying "you can't have this at restraunts, even if you
are informed and
want to consent".
BG | May 8, 2008, 12:36am | #
If you can't recognize which foods are unhealthier foods by the time you have health issues from diet, you've got far bigger problems.
Maybe, but at least this helps solve the smaller problem of lacking certain relevant information.
You also seem to have a problem with my last paragraph.
Do merchants have a general right to withold information on the risks of their products?
Or are you arguing only for a more narrow right? Say, a right against being required to reiterate specific information, at the point of purchase, about risks that are already common knowledge.
If it is the former; what would you think of Mereck if (in a free market, FDA-less, parallel universe) they marketed Vioxx without mentioning any risks at all? Would they be within their rights? Patients are free try to contact the researchers who did the studies, or to do their own double blind study. And if thats too inconvenient, you can look for a company that says they disclose all their known risks. Indeed you'd have a hard time condeming even BG's Cyanide Lounge, since I would have a fundemental right to withold the relevant information.
If it is something like the latter, more narrow argument, then you can more readily distinguish between this calorie display thing and other situations in which dislosure is clearly necessary. But even then, what do you think of mandatory warning labels on cigarette packs? Does that violate the rights of tobacco merchants?
It is often the case (as with cigarettes in the early 1960s or certain foods today) that most people have a vague understanding that their is some risk (cancer, heart attack, weight problems, etc.) associated with the activity. However not everyone will be aware of these things. And those who are aware in that general sense might lack certain details that would be of interest to them in their decision-making process.
In such cases, I don't have a problem with government action (provided the burden it imposes is neglegible) calculated to bring such details to people's attention. For example, with the warning labels on cigarette packs, I wouldn't mind if they starting including a graph along with it, numerically illustrating the relationship between the level of consumption and the level of risk.
I don't know if you will see this post, but if so I recommend we continue this conversation in the Nicotine Vapors thread.
