Unless you live in a ping pong ball, I'm sure you have heard that the health care bill has finally been passed. I don't want to comment a whole lot on it. I was fired up about it, I admit, in the onset of it being pushed through but now I just don't care. To a degree. I think that everyone is freaking out because it's change, and change usually freaks people out, but I really don't have a clue what is all in it and how it will effect (affect?) me. So I am going to wait and see how this goes, hold my breath and pray that it goes well nonetheless, but just wait to see what changes. Obviously, this is going to affect me a lot, so I really hope it turns out for the better.
However, there is one part of the health care bill that I do not agree with. Buried deep in some language in there is a new requirement for all sizeable food chains to post nutritional information on their menus. That way, no one can go any longer without knowing to the full extent how many calories is in that burger they just bought.
Yes, I see some benefits in this. For one, I bet that most people will be downright shocked to find out how many calories really are in the foods they eat. For example, I know that some pasta dish from Ruby Tuesday's can run you up to 2000 calories, and I'd bet hardly anyone is aware of that. I have done some research on these things so that I, the opposite of the average American, can actually try to order things with higher calories. You might be surprised to know that the majority of foods at restaurants, versus fast food joints, are actually waaaayyyyyy higher in calories, fat, and especially sodium than fast food places. Yes, the portions are larger, but even after you figure that in, the food is pretty unhealthy. On the Today Show once they had someone on to demonstrate this. I don't remember specifics, but I remember that some dish from PF Chang's was the equivalent of eating, like, 2000 Pringles or 30 orders of McDonalds fries. Yeesh! So, posting a person's caloric intake will be beneficial for that. It will also be helpful for those who have diabetes or any other illness where you have to watch what you eat as far as calories, sodium, sugars, etc.
But the big problem that I have in all this is: if this is the first step, what is the next? What I mean by that is that if the government is stepping in and demanding that this info be posted, what's next? I can see a snowball effect from here and the next thing you know our everyday products will have some new logo on them displaying the carbon footprint, since everyone is on such a 'green' kick right now. What would be after that? Possibly a water footprint (not getting a whole lot of press at the moment, but with the impending water crisis I foresee a lot more talk about it in years to come.) Is it necessary to know that information? I would argue no. We already have brands and companies that display their efforts to be more efficient or become more 'green' and that is just fine. And we already have a way to know if our foods are certified organic or not. I don't really think it needs to go any further than that.
Maybe you could say I'm just resistant to change or that I'm taking a right-wing stance on this, but I just don't agree with it. I don't see the need for it. If companies want to have the information about their foods available upon request, awesome. In my own experience, I was interested to know it, so I looked it all up online easy-peasy. If they don't want to put it on public display, I don't think they should be forced to. Plus, coming from a designer, it is going to seriously clutter up the already-cluttered menus. I find the McDonald's menu confusing enough when I'm looking around to try something different, and now I'm going to have to navigate around a bunch of extra words and numbers? Ugh...
No comments:
Post a Comment