{"id":23042,"date":"2013-11-21T10:32:47","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T15:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=23042"},"modified":"2013-11-21T10:32:47","modified_gmt":"2013-11-21T15:32:47","slug":"the-food-police-have-a-gargantuan-appetite-for-ordering-other-people-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/11\/21\/the-food-police-have-a-gargantuan-appetite-for-ordering-other-people-around\/","title":{"rendered":"“The food police have a gargantuan appetite for ordering other people around”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Reason<\/em>, A. Barton Hinkle<\/a> explains why the Food and Drug Administration’s latest regulatory move may cost more than a billion dollars, require millions of hours of work … and provide no measurable benefits whatsoever:<\/p>\n

In comments shortly after the menu labeling rules were proposed, the Center for Science in the Public Interest \u2014 they are the folks forever hectoring the public about the dangers of Chinese food, Italian food, movie theater popcorn, etc. \u2014 insisted that \u201cif a restaurant has both an inside and drive-thru menu board, both must list calories.\u201d And: \u201cThe calories should be at least as large and prominent as the name or price of the item.\u201d And: \u201cCalories should be posted for each size beverage available.\u201d And: \u201cThe color, font size, font type, contrasting background, and other characteristics should all be comparable to the name and price of the item.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more: \u201cDeli items or prepared foods that are dished up into standard containers should have signs posted next to each item with calorie counts for each container size available. For example, potato salad that is typically dished up into half-pint, pint and quart containers should list calories for one half-pint of potato salad, one pint of potato salad and a quart of potato salad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rules such as these, the CSPI says, should apply not just to restaurants and supermarket delis but also to \u201csalad bars, buffet lines, cafeteria lines, and self-serve, fountain soft drinks.\u201d Moreover, \u201cCalories must be posted for each pizza topping, sandwich component, omelet selection, sundae topping, or salad ingredient or dressing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The object of such Byzantine busybody-ness is plain enough: to \u201cnudge\u201d (former Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein\u2019s favorite word) people to ingest fewer calories.<\/p>\n

Just one small problem: It doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

\u201cRestaurant menu labels don\u2019t work, study shows,\u201d reported Today<\/em> back in July: \u201cNo matter how much calorie information is on the menu list, people still choose the food they like, not what\u2019s supposed to be healthier, researchers from Carnegie Mellon reported Thursday. \u2026 \u2018Putting calorie labels on menus really has little or no effect on people\u2019s ordering behavior at all,\u2019 says Julie Downs, lead author of the new study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Reason, A. Barton Hinkle explains why the Food and Drug Administration’s latest regulatory move may cost more than a billion dollars, require millions of hours of work … and provide no measurable benefits whatsoever: In comments shortly after the menu labeling rules were proposed, the Center for Science in the Public Interest \u2014 they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,831,74,66,13],"tags":[322,661],"class_list":["post-23042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-business","category-food","category-health-science","category-usa","tag-nannystate","tag-regulation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5ZE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23043,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23042\/revisions\/23043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}