Bacon strips. (Courtesy Wikipedia.)
In an effort to reduce American obesity, the federal government will announce strict new calorie labeling rules for restaurants and other food-service establishments. However, these new regulations may be useless if not downright harmful to consumers.
As the Washington Post describes:
Chain restaurants, vending machines, grocery stores, coffee shops and pizza joints will soon have to display detailed calorie information on their menus under long-awaited rules to be issued Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration. The calorie-posting requirements extend to an array of foods that Americans consume in their daily lives: popcorn at the movie theater, muffins at a bakery, a deli sandwich, a milkshake at an ice cream shop, a drive-through cheeseburger, a hot dog at Costco or Target.
But there are three major problems with these new regulations.
1) It's doubtful they will significantly change consumer behavior.
As the New York Times noted:
[W]hether menu labeling has any effect on obesity and health is still an open question. Some studies have shown no effect, while others found one. A 2008 study of 100 million cash register transactions at Starbucks found a 6 percent decrease in average calories purchased after calorie posting.
2) They create a significant economic burden on grocers.From the Washington Post:
Some industry groups, such as those that represent grocery stores and pizza outlets, have argued that it is impractical and onerous to require calorie labels on food that is made to order and can vary by customer. They have insisted that the effort would shrink bottom lines far more than waistlines.
As the New York Times noted, this can be a problem with something as simple as pizza:
Determining the rules on calorie counts for pizza was apparently one of the thorniest issues the F.D.A. faced. Advocates worried that if pizza restaurants were allowed to provide calories per slice, they would divide pizzas into more slices, and pizza companies stewed over how they could calculate calories for a food that is often customized by consumers.
And of course, those higher administrative costs will inevitably be passed onto consumers.
3) They tilt the playing field away from fresher foods towards pre-packaged foods.As the Washington Post noted:
Requiring labels for fresh food made in grocery stores, delis and bakeries could cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars in signage, worker training and laboratory tests to determine the calories in each dish, [Rob Rosado of the Food Marketing Institute] said. He thinks it also might prompt stores to carry fewer freshly made items to avoid the regulatory headaches. 'You're penalizing any kind of freshness... It's going to be replaced with prepackaged food,' Rosado said. 'It's going to have a negative impact for grocery store consumers.'
In other words, the laws may have a perverse effect of driving consumers towards less-healthy foods!
Entities 0 Name: New York Times Count: 2 1 Name: Washington Post Count: 2 2 Name: Rob Rosado Count: 1 3 Name: Washington Count: 1 4 Name: Food and Drug Administration Count: 1 5 Name: American Count: 1 6 Name: Rosado Count: 1 7 Name: Starbucks Count: 1 8 Name: Costco Count: 1 9 Name: Food Marketing Institute Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1vHyWIs Title: Calorie counts: Coming to a restaurant, movie theater, vending machine near you Description: It's about to get a lot tougher to hide from calories. Chain restaurants, vending machines, grocery stores, coffee shops and pizza joints will soon have to display detailed calorie information on their menus under long-awaited rules to be issued Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration.