Why menus may have to include calorie counts
Reported February 07, 2009
Why should you you be able to see the calories in a supermarket sandwich but be in the dark over those in high street coffee shops?
Knowing the number of calories in your lunchtime baked potato, your Friday night takeaway or that bowl of spaghetti carbonara at your local Italian is something that could become reality if the Food Standards Agency’s new plan for catering outlets to introduce clear nutrition information becomes reality.
In some ways this is inevitable. After all, why should you be able to tell at a glance the calories in a sandwich you get from, say, Sainsbury’s, but be in the dark over those in high street coffee shops?
Dissenters say “leave our menus alone”, not wanting any more nannying where our food intake is concerned – and they have a point. But according to FSA research carried out last summer, most people welcome the idea of clear calorie labelling on menus so that they compare choices before purchase.
Preliminary work in New York, where labelling on menus of large fast-food outlets has been mandatory since April last year, has revealed that the information has led to consumers making choices that are on average 50-100 calories lighter. If you saved 100 calories on a workday lunch each day over a 48-week year, this would equate to 24,000 calories saved each year, which is equivalent to 7lb. Do this over a decade and you could save yourself from being almost four and a half stone heavier.
These are the kind of small changes to our eating habits that the Government is urging in its Change 4 Life campaign. In reality, it means slipping into somewhere like Pret a Manger and discovering that while the New York Deli Baguette has 572 calories, the Brie, Tomato and Whole Leaf Basil version has only 432. Given that either way, both are tasty and filling, this knowledge may just sway your decision.
Far from putting people off eating out, it could encourage them, a point not lost on potential “early adopters” of the FSA’s voluntary scheme, which include Subway and Pizza Hut. And, of course, parents can help to guide offspring to healthier choices.
Before anyone starts fretting that calorie information on menus could ruin an indulgent night at a special venue, the FSA insists that while they would love to work with the Roux brothers or Heston Blumenthal, no one is suggesting venues like these will be adopting the voluntary measures. It is the places into which we pop, regularly, that are in their sights and, personally, I can’t see the harm this.
Amanda Ursell is the Weekend nutritionist