Even though we’ve put nutritional information on every food product sold in grocery stores for at least 30 years, our nation’s restaurants and grocery stores have successfully lobbied to delay posting calorie counts on their menus for another year.
The Food and Drug Administration delayed rolling out part of the Affordable Care Act due to ongoing haggling with food manufacturers over what a menu is, what’s considered a serving and what happens when someone “has it their way,” changing the calorie count. Basically, restaurants — and grocery stores that serve prepared food — would rather we believe that they don’t know what they’re serving us than admit what they’re serving us: surplus calories through added sugar and fat.
Restaurants of America: have some pride. You’ve convinced an entire nation that cooking is too hard to do at home, yet pay minimum wage to those who cook for you. You set up play areas that you don’t have to clean by making your best child customers too obese and sedentary to play in them. And the chains (20 locations or more) that are targeted by this legislation run test kitchens to make food addictive, yet you don’t know how to count and post the calories in it? This is why we pass laws.