Fair enough.
I can’t imagine what you think is “too complicated.” It takes seconds to find nutritional information online. I would also argue that personal convenience is a poor justification for a law.
Epimetheus, was that directed at me? Because, no, I don’t believe that it is the government’s place to dictate what we can and cannot eat. However, other people believe that the government should be involved in our diets. I cite the bans on trans fats.
At a guess, it MIGHT have something to do with the fact that numerous people in this thread have said something along the lines of ‘well, not everyone has a cell phone’ or ‘not everyone has access to the web’. Couple that with the fact that the folks making this assertion patently DO have internet access (and most likely cell phones too), and you can see where such an impression MIGHT come from, no?
Sure…and all of you who did so have access to a computer and the internet (Q.E.D., as you are posting to this very thread), and the ability to do a search. At a guess, most if not all of you so posting also have access to cell phones with (at a minimum) text capabilities, if not full internet capable phones. Oh, I’m sure the denials of this will ring loudly after this post, but, as I said, at a minimum everyone who is posting along the same lines as you has internet access, and also the ability to do a Google search.
No…liberals just want to mother everyone, and save us all from ourselves and our evil ways. Just like (religious) conservatives want to save us from damnation and lead us back to Jesus (or whatever).
It’s posed that way because it generally breaks down that way.
-XT
But isn’t an informed consumer essential to the concept of a free market?
Sure. Luckily for us, all the information is already available, so that we can be as informed as we choose to be.
On a related subject, I went to Wendys tonight for dinner (since they opened one right up the road from me) and while I was waiting for my double cheese burger with extra fat, humongous fries and trough sized Dr. Pepper I asked if I could get a calorie guide to the menu…and LO! the nice young girl behind the counter reached into a box and gave me a card that had calorie data for everything from the fries to my double cheese burger! According to her you SHOULD be able to get such a card at any Wendy’s if you ask for it.
I bet McDonald’s has something similar, though it will be up to someone else to check that out…I don’t set foot in McDonald’s any more. I asked my wife, and she says the Lenny’s up the road (sub shop) also has little cards with calorie count on them.
So…it seems to me that we are trying to ‘fix’ a ‘problem’ that neither needs fixing nor is a problem.
-XT
Okay, so this argument is between “do we want nutritional information on a card” or “do we want nutritional information on a menu.”
How on this planet is moving the location of some text suddenly a sign that we are entering a Brave New Nanny State? It’s just more convenient. We vote for convince all the time. For example, a supermarket could just carry a huge book with the nutritional information for all of their products. But we decided that having it printed on the package was more convenient. I don’t see how this isn’t an exact parallel.
And the prize for the biggest strawman on the SDMB goes to … Epimetheus!
The idea is simply to provide information, not to tell you what to eat.
Here in the UK, supermarket food has information on the packaging about:
Since I’ve just started a diet, I find this useful.
Who knew peanut butter was loaded with fat? :eek:
Or that lemon curd is full of sugar? 
At a glance, for example, I can see which cereals are better for me.
It seems like the debate is where the information should be:
What is the advantage to the consumer of having it on the internet, but not at point of purchase?
What is the advantage to the consumer of having it at point of purchase as well as the internet?
Uh, I was responding to Dr. Love, not you or the OP, thank you very much. It wasn’t a strawman, I was asking him a question, which he answered. :rolleyes:
Reading comprehension is a good thing.
Nice try at snarking on an option that I mention in the next sentence. Brilliant.
What about a 12 year old kid? Do they have 30 years of experience with fast food? Do they know about the law, passed before they were born, mandating pamphets?
WAG = talking out your ass.
First, I’m not trying to do anything other than say I think this would be a good thing as opposed to a bad thing. Second, your comment about “most folks who eat at McDonald’s” is another instance of talking out your ass. You can state your opinion, but you really should acknowledge it, and not state it as fact. Unless you have a cite?
Your whole argument against this, from your previous posts is that it’s “silly” and that the trivial cost would be too high a burden for the businesses to bear (which is ridiculous; McD’s alone serves approximately 47 million customers a day and has an operating income of almost $4 billion. With over 31,000 restaurants, even if it cost $1000 to redo each stores display menu, $31 million dollars total, that is less than $1 per customer from 1 day’s sales. Oh, those poor fast food conglomerates! How will they ever survive?!?!)
No, this is not the debate. The debate is: is it right to force restaurant owners, under the threat of the loss of livelihood or imprisonment, in one of these places.
Off topic, but xtisme, that is exactly what I usually get at Wendy’s 
There is nutrition info on food you buy at the grocery store. How is having nutrition info at restaurants any different? I have put stuff back on the shelf after looking at the nutrition info in Publix. Why can’t I get the same info when I walk into a restaurant?
I don’t see how you can figure out what is the “right” choice unless you figure out what the reasons behind the different choices are.
You know, I wonder why xtisme doesn’t argue that this is burdensome and unnecessary.
“Surely all the manufacturers of those products could just post the nutritional information on their website, and then anyone who cares (1% of all people who eat food, probably) could just use their cel phones to look it up”, I imagine him arguing.
:rolleyes:
Possibly because it would be costly for them to stop doing it, now that they are already doing it? Besides which, I don’t really have a problem with putting nutritional information on packaged foods. Personally, I never use it (I buy what I buy because it’s what I WANT to eat, not because of it’s nutritional content), but it’s helpful for my wife who has diabetes.
My problem here is that this information is already available, but it’s not right there on the menu, so that’s not good enough for folks (for instance, my wife doesn’t seem to have any trouble at all getting the information for her pump on the rare occasions we eat at a fast food restaurant. For that matter, she doesn’t seem to have any issues getting the information she needs when we eat at a regular restaurant).
I mean, you can get a freaking card in the fast food place with all the caloric info on it, you can look up the nutritional info on the web, but that’s STILL not good enough. Why? Because it’s not enough now, when the information is readily available! No, it’s got to be on the big overhead menu because one wouldn’t want to burn those additional calories asking for a card or doing a web search! What’s next? Perhaps they need to print all the nutritional and caloric information on the packaging for each item as well? After that (and when a meal at McDonald’s costs $50 for a single cheese burger, small fries and a soda), the menu is on the table with all of info available there, you point your nose at the items you want and a robot brings the food to you while the chair tilts back and the food just slides in (you can order the optional pre-chewed versions of the items or have the robot assist you in chewing too, for a small additional fee)?
Why thank you Bo…I rather liked that bit myself.
My 9 year old can do a web search AND he can read a pamphlet. In addition, and this may come as a shock to you, but he doesn’t have any money…so, when he eats at a fast food place I’m there to buy the food for him. I know this is a tough concept to grasp, but he is a child and I am the parent…
No shit? Really? Is THAT what WAG means? Who knew? You are just a font of interesting information, ehe?
No, my whole argument is that it’s a silly waste, and to me it smacks of a slippery slope. Once the nutrition information is on the menu’s (which I have no doubt they eventually will be), then it won’t be enough. We’ll then just HAVE to have the information on the packaging as well…all hamburger boxes, fry containers, soda cups, plastic psudo-icecream cones, etc etc…that will be next. And of course, if you can get this at the fast food place, you’ll just HAVE to have it on the menu when you go to TGIFridays or Ruby Tuesdays or whatever. And if THEY have it, then you’ll want it on all the menus everywhere. A million here, a million there…suddenly it’s adding up to real money. And regardless of how much it costs McDonald’s to do, I can practically guarantee you it will cost US a boatload more. One has to just go into a Wendy’s or McDonald’s and look at the prices on the menu to realize that any little cost those companies incur is passed right along to the customer. Or did you think that a double cheeseburger, fries and a Dr Pepper always costs $12? What will it cost me after you guys get this pushed through? $15? $17? $20? How about when looking up at the big menu to look at the nutritional info (for those few of you who actually want it) starts giving you a crick in your neck, and you want more? $25? $30?
Who do you suppose this will hurt? Who do you suppose this will help? Does the (IMHO…yeah, WAG you clever devil…few) folks who are going to care about this outweigh the people who are going to be hurt by the inevitable higher costs that these companies are going to charge?
-XT
This would have helped me last night. I was going through the drive thru at Carl’s Jr, and decided to get what looked like a healthy option, a grilled chicken burrito. When I get home, I looked up the nutrition information. 1070 calories, half of it from fat. The “one pound” chicken burrito is only 900 calories, and the carne asada burrito, which has guacamole, is 300 less calories, 200 less from fat. Who would have guessed that the grilled chicken burrito is the least healthy burrito on Carl’s jr’s menu?
If you are health conscience, then why are you even inside of a McDonalds? Why don’t you pack a healthy salad, or eat at Whole Foods or something?
People would be a lot thinner if they just used common sense: Recognize places like McDonalds for an occasional guilty pleasure, but realize that its unhealthy. I don’t need to know that a Big Mac has a thousand calories in it to know that I’ll get fat by eating them every day.
Just out of curiosity, where do you live? I am in Manhattan, the land of expensive fast food, and I can get a double cheeseburger, fries, and a Dr. Pepper at any Wendy’s or McDonald’s or Burger King in the city (including those whose prices are driven artificially high due to tourism such as the locations in Times Square) for $8 or $9. There is little in the way of dollar menus here but I have never paid $12 for a value meal in this city.
Right here, at my desk, I have access to the internet. But when I’m in a restaurant, at the actual point where I see my choices, I generally don’t have internet access.
Ignoring your insults, I’ll just point out that the only silly waste here is your attempted argument. It’s an ill-executed knee-jerk reaction, devoid of facts or logic. Good luck with that.
I’ve seen your arguments that purport to show that this will be really expensive. They’re ridiculous.
In realityland, nutrition information will only be printed on things that already have printing on them. (Cite: at the supermarket I go to, much of the fruit has no nutrition info in sight, on or around them.) In realityland, a label with nutrition info on it is no more expensive than one without. And in realityland, the only cost will be the labor for a neglible tiny one-time alteration to the menu.
I live in realityland. Where do you live, that your position isn’t ludicrous?
Oh my god. You just proposed that printing a menu is capable of costing $18* per item sold from it. With a straight face.
In realityland, costs don’t dive the price of fast food. Demand does. All you have to do to know this is to go into a Wendy’s or McDonald’s and look at the prices on the menu. Start with the price of a large soda.
*ETA: or maybe just $8 - I realized that I can’t imagine what you’re imagining is happening in the last part there. But still, $8. Per every item the store sells.
It will hurt the criminally misinformed and the insane, who receive additional distress from the idea that the extra text on the menu is doubling the price of their fries. It will also trouble those people who wish society to facilitate their active denial about the poor health value of the food they are eating. And it will help the people who care about such information but don’t have it memorized and either don’t have an internet cell phone (like me), or don’t think to check at the moment of their rushed impulse buy.