A La Mode<\/i>!” href=”http:\/\/www.techcentralstation.com\/1051\/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-052203B”>in restaurant menus<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe state of Maine recently introduced legislation requiring all restaurant chains with 20 or more franchises to print nutritional information for all items listed on menus. The state of New York is considering similar legislation.
\nNow comes Texas, with a menu labeling bill sponsored by Rep. Dennis Bonnen, which just passed the Texas legislature’s Public Health Committee. Rep. Bonnen’s bill would require all restaurants with three or more locations in the state to label every menu item with its fat, calories, cholesterol, carbohydrates, fiber, sugar, and protein content – on every menu. It would also require every item on every menu that gets more than 1\/3 of calories from fat to print the warning: “Eating Fatty Foods May Lead to Obesity.” Failure to comply would result in a $100 fine and up to six months in jail – for each offense.<\/p>\n
Okay, aside from the offense (or aesthetic displeasure) one may take at being nattered at by Big Mother as to how many french fries you’re eating, what’s the harm?<\/p>\n
Well, for one thing, it means that any time a restaurant wants to change a menu, or try a new item, or even let the chef go hog-wild with an entree du jour<\/i> — it all has to go out for testing first. Add that to the cost of the meal out, of course, not to mention the reduced chances of seasonal or other menu changes.<\/p>\n
And heaven help you if you don’t get the serving proportions correct, or try to guesstimate the calories that new creation Chef George whipped up has, or if one of the help spoons an extra ladle of gravy on or smears a bit too much mayo on that sandwich.<\/p>\n
The perennial fat police at the Center for Science in the Public Interest – one of the key interest groups behind the labeling legislation in Maine – just recently filed a lawsuit against McDonalds Corporation for mislabeling the serving size of its reduced-fat vanilla ice cream cone. CSPI based its suit on the serving sizes McDonalds publishes on its national website versus portions CSPI researches measured at two, isolated Washington, D.C. franchises.<\/p>\n
That’s right — get too much <\/i>food, and you can sue the sous-chef <\/i>out of the restaurant. Or, more likely, its deep-pocket corporate masters.<\/p>\n
Most people kind of like getting extra. But not, I guess, the CSPI.<\/p>\n
Do we really need this?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even as school textbooks are banning the word “obese” from their vocabulary, some lawmakers want to put it back — A La Mode!” href=”http:\/\/www.techcentralstation.com\/1051\/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-052203B”>in restaurant menus. The state of Maine…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":48529,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/25\/calorie-counts-go-nationwide.html","url_meta":{"origin":230,"position":0},"title":"Calorie counts go nationwide","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Nov-14 10:18am","format":false,"excerpt":"Good. I've been in states and cities where this is required, and live in one where it isn't, and I think it's a fine idea. I know it's had an influence at times on my decisions. It's hardly a panacea, but it's useful information for consumers. Originally shared by +Breaking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13370,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/09\/calorie_counting_fast_foo.html","url_meta":{"origin":230,"position":1},"title":"Calorie counting fast food","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Jan-09 4:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It just became a lot easier to count calories when you are visiting a fast food (defined loosely) restaurant. Fatburgr (not to be confused with Fatburger) aggregates the nutritional info...","rel":"","context":"In "Restaurants"","block_context":{"text":"Restaurants","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/food-drink\/food-drink-restaurants"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/chili-cheese-fries.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5833,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/07\/12\/foxy.html","url_meta":{"origin":230,"position":2},"title":"Foxy","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Jul-04 3:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Extensions I'm currently using with Firefox. (And I promise I'll quite nattering about it Real Soon Now) ... I've ranked these as *** (essential) to * (nice-to) Add Bookmark Here:...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8109,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/05\/18\/a_high_pitched.html","url_meta":{"origin":230,"position":3},"title":"A high-pitched wine","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 18-May-05 12:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Some nice advice on ordering wine in a restaurant. Good stuff, though I was chagrinned to see this item: Restaurant owners will often price the wine they buy cheapest at...","rel":"","context":"In "Wine, Beer, & Liquor"","block_context":{"text":"Wine, Beer, & Liquor","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/food-drink\/food-drink-wine"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22066,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/09\/unblogged-bits-tue-9-aug-11-2330.html","url_meta":{"origin":230,"position":4},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Tue. 9-Aug-11 2330)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 9-Aug-11 11:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... SyFy - DORK TOWER, Tuesday, August 9, 2011 Want to Sue the FBI for Spying on Your Mosque? Sorry, That's Secret. | Mother Jones - Because, of course, we know, historically, that you can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":335,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/30\/whats_cookin.html","url_meta":{"origin":230,"position":5},"title":"What’s cookin’?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 30-Apr-03 3:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting (and amusing) article here on the fine art of menu writing. If you dine out at all, a lot of this probably will be familiar to you. Traffic-jamming...","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}