http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN1636081320080416
I wonder if the calorie count is per serving or per portion? Most restaurants serve huge portions which are often multiple servings.
And, I find it very sad that the Restaurant Association is fighting this ruling. One would think they’d be glad to provide the information for their customers up front and without laws forcing them to do so. It’s such a pity that so many businesses have such contempt for their customers that they can’t provide a genuinely useful (and relatively inexpensive!) service like nutrition information.
They don’t have to divulge the recipes, but it would be nice if they offered a full listing of ingredients, highlighting the ones that are the most common food allergies (wheat, dairy, egg, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, seafood, corn, sulfites, sesame seed, celery seed, sunflower seed, gluten). Neither a listing of ingredients nor a nutritional breakdown will give consumers the recipe. Printing menus with nutritional information doesn’t cost any more than printing menus without them – they still have to print the menus. Now, designing the menus to be aesthetically pleasing may be a bit problematic, but it’s neither an insurmountable problem nor an expensive one.
So why are restaurants so reluctant to make sure their customers have a pleasant dining experience when, increasingly, a part of that pleasure is for the customer to be able to order a dish knowing it won’t hurt them without having to go through exrtaordinary lengths to get the information they need?
My daughter’s allergic to soy. The effort we often have to go through to find out if a dish contains soy is amazing, time-consuming, and leaves us so exhausted we no longer feel like eating there. If restaurants were more open about these simple things, maybe they’d have better business. People aren’t going to stop indulging in fine foods, but they will appreciate being able to better plan their meals armed with useful information.
