“I have testified at several of these hearings over the years and closely followed others throughout the country. Each time, the restaurant industry finds unique ways to obfuscate the science and facts to thwart the bills. Consider a few of their claims as part of these smoke-and-mirrors tactics:

• Physical activity, not food intake, is to blame for obesity. (Studies show the opposite.)
• Calorie posting will not work. (Studies show that patrons order 50-300 fewer calories when given calorie information. Decreasing intake by just 100 calories per day is enough to stop weight gain in most of the population.)”

He feels very strongly that providing nutrition information is helpful, despite what the restaurant associations say. He closes his op-ed piece with this statement,

“This law will not cure obesity, but it will make an impact. Waiting for a national bill is just another excuse.”

What do you think? Is nutritional information important to you as a consumer, or do you eat what you want despite the information?

Currently, the National Restaurant Association is working with members of Congress on a nationwide uniform standard. Therefore, the NJRA does not understand why New Jersey needs to rush to place another mandate on the restaurant industry. Note that menu labeling has proven not to work when mandated in other states or voluntarily provided by some restaurants. (emphasis added)

While this bill is targeted today at restaurant businesses with 15 or more units in New Jersey operating under the same name (certainly a reasonable dream for today’s entrepreneurs!), this is the first step towards requiring this expensive and ineffective mandate for all retail food establishments.

Legislating human behavior hasn’t been very successful, so why should this program be any different? The NJRA (New Jersey Restaurant Association) outlines their argument in four bullet points which are basically

1. Menus are advertising, not PSAs
2. Labeling increases risk of litigation
3. Analyzing is costly and doesn’t change behavior
4. Consumption + lifestyle is the real problem

It’s an interesting argument, and not one that we’ve heard yet.

All comments were initially lost when everything got up and running again. But thanks to the awesome comment tracking system from IntenseDebate , we were able to restore the comments in a matter of minutes.

So thanks for your patience, and thanks for sticking with us. We realize postings have been few and far between lately, but we hope to change that in 2010.

We try to stay apolitical here at Get Nutrition Facts, but with politics at the forefront of the news and daily living these days, it’s hard not to get involved. But continuing the calorie counts legislation that we have discussed a few times here, comes another gem from Examiner.com:

The provision contained in the federal health care bill provides for national uniformity for all chains and retailers with over 20 locations, and although originally opposed by industry, is now embraced because it sets a national standard, and preempts local laws that enact or continue to enforce standards against chain restaurants and other retailers.