Health law will make calorie counts hard to ignore

[babylonsister]

I like this. I welcome the info, and might change my selections accordingly if I knew how fattening something really was.


Health law will make calorie counts hard to ignore

By MARY CLARE JALONICK
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) -- That Caesar salad you're about to eat? It's 800 calories, and that's without the croutons. The fettuccine alfredo? A whopping 1,220 calories. You may choose to ignore the numbers, but soon it's going to be tough to deny you saw them.

A requirement tucked into the nation's massive health care bill will make calorie counts impossible for thousands of restaurants to hide and difficult for consumers to ignore. More than 200,000 fast food and other chain restaurants will have to include calorie counts on menus, menu boards and even drive-throughs.

The new law, which applies to any restaurant with 20 or more locations, directs the Food and Drug Administration to create a new national standard for menu labeling, superseding a growing number of state and city laws. President Barack Obama was expected to sign the health care legislation Tuesday.

The idea is to make sure that customers process the calorie information as they are ordering. Many restaurants currently post nutritional information in a hallway, on a hamburger wrapper or on their Web site. The new law will make calories immediately available for most items.

"The nutrition information is right on the menu or menu board next to the name of the menu item, rather than in a pamphlet or in tiny print on a poster, so that consumers can see it when they are making ordering decisions," says Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, who wrote the provision.

It was added to the health bill with the support of the restaurant industry, which is facing different laws from cities and states. Sue Hensley of the National Restaurant Association says it will help restaurants better respond to their customers.

more...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CALORIES_ON_MENUS?SITE=CONGRA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[RC]

1. How about doing the same thing for sodium?

For some of us sodium content is more important than calories.
And another thing about calories. A calorie is not just a calorie. It does make a difference if that calorie is from fat, sucrose or high fructose corn syrup.

[vaberella]

2. France does this. This is why I eat at home. They have numbers on everything.

I freak when I see some of the calories. I had to stop buying Sausalito Macadamia Chocolate chip cookies---I knew they were bad, just not that bad.

[babylonsister]

3. Sausalito Macadamia Chocolate chip cookies-they sound

so good, how could they not be bad for you?? :D

I'm really trying to get into roasted cabbage and sweet potatoes; those sound infinitely better!

[vaberella]

4. Eeek. I can't eat those...

I'm on a tomato and Pink lady fix with spinach. Spinach is like my no.1 veggie.

[babylonsister]

5. What's a Pink lady fix? And

I use fresh spinach in everything! Kind of funky in my spaghetti sauce, but I get my greens.

Also am loving fresh roasted asparagus, though I should modify the sea salt that adds so much.

As for the cabbage/sweet taters, it's a surprisingly sweet dish, so it sort of makes me think I'm satisfying my urge for sweets.

[vaberella]

6. Really?! That's for the last statement.

Huh...interesting. We should have a health food thread. I like that. Oh Pink Lady is an apple. I'm sorry I wasn't very clear. It's like a green apple (granny apple) had sex with a red delicious apple and their love child is a pink lady. Sufficiently tart with high levels of sweetness. I love them. When I'm in the states I make candy apples and apple pie with them. ^_^

Spinach is delicious. Ahh, I love roasted asparagus and I have to modify my sea salt intake as well. I live on that I think. You know what I'll try your cabbage and sweet taters, I'm a bit iffy because I went to a Irish party once and they had boiled cabbage and any time I think of cooked cabbage I think of that pile of mush. :D I'll give it a try.

[Jokerman]

7. K & R.