Calorie Counts on Menus
The discussion
Oluwaseun: Printing calorie counts on restaurant menus is a cheap public-health measure, and I'd extend it to every café and takeaway. People can't make informed choices if a muffin secretly has as many calories as a full meal.
Hannah: As a dietitian I've seen the research, and the average effect on what people order is tiny, maybe twenty or thirty calories per meal. Meanwhile, for anyone with a history of eating disorders, those numbers on every page can be genuinely harmful.
Ravi: My concern is more practical. My parents run a small restaurant, and the dishes change weekly, so paying a lab or a consultant to calculate every new item would cost more than the profit on it.
Oluwaseun: The requirement could apply only to chains with more than twenty branches, which already have standardised recipes. That handles the small-restaurant problem.
Hannah: Chains-only is more sensible, though I'd still prefer the information on request or a website rather than printed next to every dish.
Ravi: A chain threshold would protect places like ours, so I'd be fine with it. I'm actually in favour of labels for the big fast-food brands, because their portions are where the real problem is.
Oluwaseun: I'd rather the numbers stay visible on the menu, but a chain-only rule is a compromise I can accept.