It is fair to say that doing this job it is sometimes hard to stick to a recommended daily calorie intake. But now and again too much of what you fancy is no bad thing. We all know that if you eat too many biscuits, burgers and cakes there is going to be more of you to love.
So news that chain restaurants in New York, such as McDonald's and TGI Friday's, will be fined from 3 June if they don't display the calorie content of each meal on their menus strikes me as a step too far. A federal judge decided it was a reasonable approach to try to cut obesity.
Surely people have enough common sense to make a judgement for themselves and don't need it written in black and white. A bar of chocolate has the number of calories printed on the wrapper, but it doesn't stop people from eating it. Hopefully, this trend won't travel across the pond.
Certainly operators have a responsibility to give customers, particularly parents, a healthier choice, but my concern is that printing calories on menus will take all the enjoyment out of eating.
As author AA Milne said in one of his classic Winnie the Pooh books: "When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.
Jo Bruce,
PubChef editor
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