I want less information (about calories on fast food menus)

[tumbleddown]

@begbert2

And as for the calories alone being too uninformative for you, one could have a different debate about precisely what nutritional information is most necessary or useful. We can’t put everything on there, after all - space does eventually become a consideration. And while it could be argued either way, if the current decision is to require calories alone, that seems like a reasonable start to me. (What’s not reasonable is asserting “it must be all the info or nothing”.)

I’m not suggesting that it be all the info or nothing. I’m suggesting that calorie counts are not a good thing to focus on, period.

@Shalmanese

Now, if you can reformulate your dish and cut out 50 or 100 calories without affecting taste, then it becomes a good business decision because it’ll lead to increased sales. 50 calories here, 100 calories there, pretty soon, you’re talking real weight loss.

Which assumes that everyone who eats fast food needs to lose weight. What if someone doesn’t want fewer calories for the same price?

[YogSothoth]

I think this is the first time I’ve seen someone argue for less information given to them. Ignorance really is bliss, huh?

[Chris_Luongo]

I’m usually one of the first to point and laugh when stupid people make stupid decisions and then suffer the consequences.

However, I also strongly believe that most people aren’t nearly as stupid as we think they are. The might be lazy, or in a rush, or sometimes certain things just don’t occur to them. People are much more capable of critical thought than we give them credit for.

Since grade school, I’ve gotten the impression that we’ve all been taught to behave certain ways, to follow the rules—but rarely to think things through for ourselves. I think that’s a shame.

This is, after all, the Straight Dope message board. Isn’t the whole idea around here to have good (and correct) information available so we can make good decisions?

I can think of many areas in life where I’m sure I could make much better decisions if the required information were more readily available and less mysterious.

As many of you have already mentioned, nutritional information is already available elsewhere, but I’ve always thought that the definition of progress is making things even easier than they were before, and removing unnecessary roadblocks.

A few of you mentioned that simply stating the quantity of calories doesn’t give all the desired nutritional information—true enough. Unit pricing on supermarket shelves is also poorly done and inadequate, but it’s certainly a great start.