Another ObamaCare disaster:
The calorie label clause, buried deep within the ACA’s 10,000 pages, seems harmless enough at first glance. Each restaurant chain with over 20 locations is required to display the calorie content of each food and drink item it serves on signs and printed menus–with vending machine distributors subjected to the same rules. But the regulation also covers “similar retail food establishments,” a clause vague enough to give FDA regulators sweeping power to determine who does and doesn’t have to comply.
FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg admitted that she “actually thought [calorie labeling] would be one of the more straightforward tasks…but little did I know how complicated it would be.” Hamburg’s concerns are hardly unfounded, but it’s small business owners and franchisees—not FDA bureaucrats—that will feel the most pain under the new law.
What’s particularly stupid is that even if they could make it work without impacting businesses so much, it won’t even do any good, because calories are not what make people obese. All part of the Democrats’ war on science.
If this stupid policy stays in effect, it sounds like a good time to open a food testing business. When you factor in different crusts and topping combinations, there are millions of ways to make a pizza alone. The Obamacare laws require that each combination get tested. How about a sandwich shop like Subway? How many possible combinations of bread, meats, cheese and toppings will you find there? Throw in grocery stores that serve prepared food and all sorts of chain restaurants and the numbers of tests required will be in the tens (if not hundreds) of millions. How much would each test cost? We’re looking at a multi-billion dollar growth in the food testing business all to comply with Obamacare. Studies have shown that few people pay any attention to these restaurant food postings (new business opportunites for sign makers and menu printers, too!) so we’re seeing a great deal of cost for very little benefit to the public. But the bureaucrats benefit, as do the food testers, menu printers and sign makers. We just get to pay for it.
How about a sandwich shop like Subway? How many possible combinations of bread, meats, cheese and toppings will you find there?
I understand your point. But I have found the following to be useful:
Subway Nutrition Information
http://www.subway.com/nutrition/nutritionlist.aspx
(Includes sodium, sugar, and other info – not just calories)
Unfortunately, the law doesn’t allow reasonable approaches like what Subway or Papa Johns has of adding up the values of the individual ingrediants. The law, as written by morons, requires each combination to be tested and posted.
The FDA can write enabling regulations as they see the best way to implement it.
What does the law actually say about how the calories and other factors are to be measured? Does it give the FDA the flexibility or will they have to ignore the law as written the way Obama keeps doing whenever politically expedient?
From the certified text of the ACA, pages 1206-1211 of 2409:
SEC. 4205. NUTRITION LABELING OF STANDARD MENU
ITEMS AT CHAIN RESTAURANTS.
(a) TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS.—Section 403(q)(5)(A) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 343(q)(5)(A)) is amended— (1) in subitem (i), by inserting at the beginning ‘‘except as provided in clause (H)(ii)(III),’’; and (2) in subitem (ii), by inserting at the beginning ‘‘except as provided in clause (H)(ii)(III),’’. (b) LABELING REQUIREMENTS.—Section 403(q)(5) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 343(q)(5)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
‘‘(H) RESTAURANTS, RETAIL FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS, AND VENDING MACHINES.—
‘‘(i) GENERAL REQUIREMENTS FOR RESTAURANTS AND SIMILAR RETAIL FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS.—Except for food described in subclause (vii), in the case of food that is a standard menu item that is offered for sale in a restaurant or similar retail food establishment that is part of a chain with 20 or more locations doing business under the same name (regardless of the type of ownership of the locations) and offering for sale substantially the same menu items, the restaurant or similar retail food establishment shall disclose the information described in subclauses (ii) and (iii).
‘(ii) INFORMATION REQUIRED TO BE DISCLOSED BY RESTAURANTS AND RETAIL FOOD ESTABLISHMENTS.—Except as provided in subclause (vii), the restaurant or similar retail food establishment shall disclose in a clear and conspicuous manner— ‘‘(I)(aa) in a nutrient content disclosure statement adjacent to the name of the standard menu item, so as to be clearly associated with the standard menu item, on the menu listing the item for sale, the number of calories contained in the standard menu item, as usually prepared and offered for sale; and ‘‘(bb) a succinct statement concerning suggested daily caloric intake, as specified by the Secretary by regulation and posted prominently on the menu and designed to enable the public to understand, in the context of a total daily diet, the significance of the caloric information that is provided on the menu;
‘‘(II)(aa) in a nutrient content disclosure statement adjacent to the name of the standard menu item, so as to be clearly associated with the standard menu item, on the menu board, including a drive-through menu board, the number of calories contained in the standard menu item, as usually prepared and offered for sale; and ‘‘(bb) a succinct statement concerning suggested daily caloric intake, as specified by the Secretary by regulation and posted prominently on the menu board, designed to enable the public to understand, in the context of a total daily diet, the significance of the nutrition information that is provided on the menu board; ‘‘(III) in a written form, available on the premises of the restaurant or similar retail establishment and to the consumer upon request, the nutrition information required under clauses (C) and (D) of subparagraph (1); and ‘‘(IV) on the menu or menu board, a prominent, clear, and conspicuous statement regarding the availability of the information described in item (III).
‘‘(iii) SELF-SERVICE FOOD AND FOOD ON DISPLAY.—Except as provided in subclause (vii), in the case of food sold at a salad bar, buffet line, cafeteria line, or similar self-service facility, and for self-service beverages or food that is on display and that is visible to customers, a restaurant or similar retail food establishment shall place adjacent to each food offered a sign that lists calories per displayed food item or per serving.
‘‘(iv) REASONABLE BASIS.—For the purposes of this clause, a restaurant or similar retail food establishment shall have a reasonable basis for its nutrient content disclosures, including nutrient databases, cookbooks, laboratory analyses, and other reasonable means, as described in section 101.10 of title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (or any successor regulation) or in a related guidance of the Food and Drug Administration.
‘‘(v) MENU VARIABILITY AND COMBINATION MEALS.—The Secretary shall establish by regulation standards for determining and disclosing the nutrient content for standard menu items that come in different flavors, varieties, or combinations, but which are listed as a single menu item, such as soft drinks, ice cream, pizza, doughnuts, or children’s combination meals, through means determined by the Secretary, including ranges, averages, or other methods.
‘‘(vi) ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.—If the Secretary determines that a nutrient, other than a nutrient required under subclause (ii)(III), should be disclosed for the purpose of providing information to assist consumers in maintaining healthy dietary practices, the Secretary may require, by regulation, disclosure of such nutrient in the written form required under subclause (ii)(III).
‘‘(vii) NONAPPLICABILITY TO CERTAIN FOOD.—
‘‘(I) IN GENERAL.—Subclauses (i) through (vi) do not apply to—‘‘(aa) items that are not listed on a menu or menu board (such as condiments and other items placed on the table or counter for general use); ‘‘(bb) daily specials, temporary menu items appearing on the menu for less than 60 days per calendar year, or custom orders; or ‘‘(cc) such other food that is part of a customary market test appearing on the menu for less than 90 days, under terms and conditions established by the Secretary.
‘‘(II) WRITTEN FORMS.—Subparagraph (5)(C) shall apply to any regulations promulgated under subclauses (ii)(III) and (vi).
‘‘(viii) VENDING MACHINES.— ‘‘(I) IN GENERAL.—In the case of an article of food sold from a vending machine that—‘‘(aa) does not permit a prospective purchaser to examine the Nutrition Facts Panel before purchasing the article or does not otherwise provide visible nutrition information at the point of purchase; and ‘‘(bb) is operated by a person who is engaged in the business of owning or operating 20 or more vending machines, the vending machine operator shall provide a sign in close proximity to each article of food or the selection button that includes a clear and conspicuous statement disclosing the number of calories contained in the article.
What happened to laws? Now bureaucrats can decide whatever they want? I can’t WAIT for Republicans to do this, to see how you twist in the wind trying to claim it’s not legitimate when it’s not something you like.
What a nightmare. I mean its ok to add such labels to industrially manufactured products in which the recipe is always the same and production is carefully monitored. But the overhead of doing this to ever changing restaurant menus… I supposed they can give the chef a computer where he inputs the ingredients and he gets an estimate of the calorie count. There are free programs to do this. But this is overly complicating things for no good reason.
Laughing my ass off at “calories are not what make people obese.”
“Miles per hour are not what make people speed!”
That’s a stupid analogy. You don’t seem to understand nutrition.
Nutrition isn’t thermodynamics, it’s biochemistry. Most people don’t lose weight by counting calories. The kind of calories are much more important.
Okay, Rand “THE FDA KILLED MY DAD!” Simberg.
The source of calories plays a role in nutrition, sure. Bodies use different materials differently. But nutrition is about the quality of a diet, not just about whether or not you’re going to gain or burn fat. Eating more than you use is the cause of obesity, plain and simple. Miles per hour = calorie count. Speed limit = recommended daily intake for your height, weight, gender and age. Speeding = obesity.
You could lose weight eating donuts if you eat fewer calories overall than you burn. You’ll be terribly malnourished, but you’ll be thin.
You could lose weight eating donuts if you eat fewer calories overall than you burn. You’ll be terribly malnourished, but you’ll be thin.
But few people are capable of doing that, and as you say, you’d be terribly malnourished. If you eat the right things (e.g., not doughnuts), you’re unlikely to overeat. Few people succeed in weight loss by blindly counting calories.
So, yes, the key to losing weight healthily is to eat more nutritious foods, and fewer calories overall. Some people can’t do that because they’re lazy.
No, “fewer calories overall” is not that important. What is important is what kind of calories, and how efficiently the body burns them. It’s possible to lose more weight on a higher-calorie diet than someone on a lower-calorie one. It is not about simple thermodynamics.
“Some people can’t do that because they’re lazy.”
I hope you don’t think fat people are fat because they are lazy and/or immoral.
But how much you use is determined by a very complicated system, and you don’t even have to absorb all the food you consume. With some animals eating more food just pushes out the old food faster.
Other complexities are that different gut flora differ in how much they break down your food into human-digestible components, so what might be a 300 calorie item for one person might be only 150 calories to someone else. It’s been determined that obese people seem to have gut flora that are much more efficient at breaking food into sugars and other highly digestible components.
It’s also been learned that some species of gut bacteria are releasing metabolic signals to trick their hosts into storing more food as fat, and interfering with their hosts ability to burn fat for energy, and limiting how much food energy is available in the blood stream, so that their host feels weak and hungry despite consuming copious amounts of food and putting it on as fat.
The type of calories you consume can swing the gut bacterial population one way and another, favoring certain species, and having a potentially profound effect on how many calories are consumed and how those calories are used.
Gasoline and diesel have different BTUs, but some cars cannot properly run on diesel. The same is with food. Calories is a secondary consideration to things such as insulin spiking.
100% agreed.
And some people (I’m one) run about as well on fast starchy or sugar carbs as a gasoline car runs on diesel.
Little known fact: Most marine mammals are fat because they eat too much. Cheetahs are all skinny because they stick to salads and diet and exercise a lot.
At the margins thermodynamics is predominant, but we don’t care about the margins, we care about the broad middle ground where actual, real-world dietary behavior comes into play. If you starve you’ll lose weight, if you binge eat you’ll gain weight, these are uninteresting facts. And using them as the basis for attaining a healthy body is dangerous.
Indeed, it’s possible for a diet that involves eating more calories than a competing diet to result in greater weight loss and greater improvements in health. This is true even for equivalent “calorie burning” levels of exercise and for intake differences of hundreds of calories per day. Not to mention the differences in ease of diet adoption and maintenance. This is why the naive thermodynamics argument is so unhelpful, because it encourages people to use starvation as a means of weight control, which is medically unsound and often more deleterious to health than helpful.
Same feed input, cattle fatten 13% faster. The difference? A hormone implant:
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/beef11691
But bomb calorimetry is the whole story. For sure.
This is a nightmare, surely cooked up by people who have never set foot in a kitchen. In a restaurant, things vary. For one thing, some ingredients are seasonal, so a meal might not have the same vegetables in January as in July, or the same fruits, etc, and thus different calories. There’s also the fact that serving sizes often vary a bit. And that’s just a few of the problems with this outbreak of nannystate malicious meddling.
As for calories… Calories are just part of the big picture, and perhaps the most misunderstood part. For just one thing, a calorie is defined as the energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree. But, what we see as calories on food lables (in the US, anyway – it’s different in most of the world) are kilocalories. They are a measurement of the chemical energy, which is not the same thing at all as the energy a human body would derive from them (that varies massively with type). They are a highly inaccurate means of reflecting the actual food energy derived by a human being. One example of this; if you don’t understand what a calorie is and how it is measured, you’d assume that consuming an additional thirty million calories a month (A million a day) would cause weigh gain, right? Nope, it’s dependent upon the type; a gallon of gasoline contains around thirty million calories, but it is absolutely not going to cause you to put on weight if you drink it (even assuming it didn’t kill you, your body can’t extract food energy from it). That’s a drastic example, but there are many of food calories being quite different from their net human-body food energy. Calories just aren’t a suitable unit of measure for food energy. It’s kind of like using temperature to measure altitude; they are related, but there are so many variables as to make it virtually useless.
A house cat needs about 240 calories a day, and good quality hay has about 800 calories per pound, so a house cat should go through a fifty pound bale of hay in about 5 months.
Careful; that makes so much sense (To government minds) that I foresee government guidelines in many a tabby’s future, mandating a diet of hay (hey, it’s fat free, so it’s gotta be good for ’em, right?)
“Each restaurant chain with over 20 locations is required to display the calorie content of each food and drink item it serves on signs and printed menus–with vending machine distributors subjected to the same rules.”
So a person who owns 20 restaurants but not under the same chain would be exempt but the guy who owns one franchise isn’t. This law is designed to help put fast food restaurants out of business. Democrats don’t like them because the wrong type of people eat there and the wrong type of people work there. Fast food isn’t any more unhealthy than sit down restaurant food and many of the people who run the five star restaurants that Democrats like to eat at could afford to meet this mandate easier than a franchise owner.
This law should apply to all restaurants so that everyone can feel the effect of the Democrat’s anti-business policies not just the people Democrats don’t like.
This law is designed to help put fast food restaurants out of business. Democrats don’t like them because the wrong type of people eat there and the wrong type of people work there.
Yes, these types of control are detailed in Cass Sunstein’s book, “Nudge”.
For the democrats, it has always been about control, never about helping people.
I should say, Progressives, not democrats.
Progressives seem to hold the levers of control for the Democrat party these days. Not just party power positions but in government institutions, academia, and activist groups.