Monday Feb 26 2007
The Center for Science in the Public Interest, (man that’s wordy), is calling for regulation of restaurant portions, or adding nutritional information to their menus. No doubt next to the gigantic pictures of the enormous cheese covered food, or the other giant size accoutrements my hand is wrapped around in the photo below. Furthermore they created the term “extreme eating” as a catchy buzz word to sell their nonsensical spiel. And it worked: all of these newspapers and TV stations jumped on the story. Scanning a couple of these stories I see they’re almost reprints of the CSPI press release. Hello news directors? How about some opinion or counterpoints?
This is what bothers me:
They urged local, state and national governments to make restaurants list nutritional data on their menus.
Why does this need to be regulated? Oh yeah, for the same reason Sen. Carl Kruger doesn’t want you crossing the street with an iPod. Michael Jacobson of the CSPI wants to further a nanny state in order to protect you from YOURSELF. Michael Jacobson wants to sit right next to you at lunch vis a vis his puff attempts at legislation and tell you what’s best for you.
I say fuck ‘em. Anyone who slides into the booth at ApplebeeRuckersTuesdays or Shenanigans or similar corny themed restaurant knows they’re not getting healthy food. (If you can even find your dish under the grease, chili, and cheese slathered on top). If I want to order a piece of chocolate cake the size of a fax machine than I should be able to. I actually LIKE the gargantuan portions. It means I can split one meal with a friend, or take my meal home and have two or more meals later. Or I can share a hunk of gooey lava raspberry cake between friends. (Yes Michael Jacobson, some people share items and limit their intake). You don’t need to be TOLD a hamburger topped with bacon and chili aside a mountain of fries is unhealthy. The obvious speaks for itself. And everyone knows it’s bad for you.
On the other end of the spectrum is the Center for Consumer Freedom, a group that debunks and debates the CSPI’s premise. Unfortunately they also hate PETA and animal rights groups, which baffles me. People having the right to make their own decisions is a totally separate issue than animals being used and abused inhumanly for various foods and products.
Is there a point to bringing up nutrition and portions at restaurants? Sure. But regulations and laws should exist to protect people from plummeting elevators, crashing airplanes, and tainted peanut butter. Not things you’re capable of controlling yourself. The U.S. may be hefty, but we’re not a bunch of fucking babies as the CSPI would have us believe.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many U.S. chain restaurants are promoting “extreme eating” with dishes that pack at least a day’s worth of calories and fat, without giving customers facts about their orders, a consumer group said on Monday.
Displaying restaurant offerings including a cheese-laden chicken-and-pasta dish they dubbed “Angioplasta,” officials at the Center for Science in the Public Interest said such dishes help fuel national epidemics of obesity and heart disease.
They urged local, state and national governments to make restaurants list nutritional data on their menus.
Michael Jacobson, the group’s executive director, took aim at “table-service” chain restaurants like Ruby Tuesday’s and Uno Chicago Grill. Such places increasingly stuff their dishes with extra unhealthy ingredients, he said.
“What we’re finding is that table-service restaurants have launched into a whole new era of extreme eating,” Jacobson said. “If we’re going to deal with the epidemic of obesity and the tremendous prevalence of heart attacks and strokes, we’re going to have to do something about restaurant foods.”
Jacobson’s group often criticizes at a variety of restaurant foods. Some critics deride the group as self-appointed food police.
Jacobson showed reporters an appetizer offered by Uno Chicago Grill that he said contained 2,050 calories. It was a cross between a pizza and stuffed potato skins, with a deep-dish pizza crust crammed with mozzarella and cheddar cheese, mashed potatoes, bacon and sour cream.
Ruby Tuesday’s offers an entree called Fresh Chicken & Broccoli Pasta so loaded with cheese and other stuff that it tipped the scales at 2,060 calories and 128 grams of fat, he said. Jacobson dubbed it “Angioplasta,” alluding to angioplasty, a medical procedure to open clogged arteries.
One slice of The Cheesecake Factory’s Chris’s Outrageous Chocolate Cake had 1,380 calories, with layers of cake, brownies, coconut pecan filling and chocolate-chip coconut cheesecake, the group said.
The average daily calorie requirement is about 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men.
The trade group National Restaurant Association said many restaurants provide nutritional information about their menus, and nearly all have healthy dishes available.
“Pointing to a select few menu items at a select few restaurants as being high in calories, and generalizing that to all restaurant fare is misleading, inaccurate and does the public a grave disservice,” the association said in a statement.
Jacobson said restaurants have had more than enough time to voluntarily provide nutritional data such as calorie, fat and salt content but many do not — and those that do often make the data hard to find.
“Restaurants have every right to make these foods and you have every right to eat them,” Jacobson said. “But I think at the very least these restaurants should give consumers the information that would enable them to make some decent eating choices.”