Chain Restaurant Dietary Choices

When deciding what to eat for dinner, the nutritional value of food can be an important aspect of the decision. However, unlike grocery items and tobacco products, fast-food items do not require nutrition labels. Zinczenko emphasizes to his audience that the nutritional information, provided by the fast-food companies, can be confusing to understand:

One of the author's good points, is the fact that even though fast food restaurants have now started showing their food's nutritional values, they seem to deliberately show them in such a way that makes it easy to miss a few important details.

Zinczencko complains that unlike many other hazardous items, fast food does not come with warnings on how terrible the food is for one’s health and its future effects. He emphasizes that even if the customers were able to obtain the nutritional facts, they are not palpable, but rather obscure. He points out that the fast-food companies make the nutrition labels vague and misleading; they calculate the calories for every separate part of the meal, and they make it so the consumer must pay attention to serving size as well. He observes that the fast-food industry can get away with confusing labels because there are not any Food and Drug Administration labeling requisites (Word Smart, p. 220) covering fast food. Zinczenko complains that there is not any sort of nutritional labeling on the menus at fast-food restaurants. Now, nine years later, there are some changes, but his point is still valid. McDonald’s menu now states the calories of each meal, but as Zinczenko points out, it is very difficult to

Consumers could spend as much as $10 more per product if proposed label changes go through. The FDA is proposing new food labels by changing its look, and what information is places on the label. Improving food labels would not improve the public’s health because it is (1)costly, (2)will take lots of time and, (3)it is unnecessary. I believe that the new labels won’t help public health because people are not educated enough to know how to read them. More money should be spent on educating people on the labels rather than changing them. If the new labels are made the people who knew how to read them before will now have to learn how to read the new labels. With the new labels means more money spent on things that is unneeded.

A randomized trial of calorie labeling on menus. Hammond, D., Goodman, Hanning, S. R., Daniel, S. (2013).

If restaurants did not have these nutritional facts people on diets would not know what they are eating. They will assume that it is healthy when it is not. Some pregnant women have to eat a certain type of foods for their baby. Some pregnant women need to eat less or more calories, carbs, vitamins, and fats. At Walmart you are able to see what some items are like they will use the words “ Lite, Lowfat, or Heart Smart.” If restaurants had something similar or, just have the information we would have healthy babies and healthy citizens. In the passage “Label the Meals,” it states that “only 18 percent of people started to go out to eat in the 1977 30 years later the percentage almost doubled.” If resturants did not have these facts posted a

Food and Drug Administration has proposed the menu-labeling rule in year 2011 and the final rule was completed in December 2014. The rule commends that franchise restaurants and food chains stores will be required to include calorie count on the menu and labels under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In December 2015, the law will be in effect nationally (Health Affairs, 2015). This law only is applicable for regular menu items except daily specials and alcoholic beverages. The required information to be included on the menu is following; calorie counts, average daily calorie intake, and alternative options for ingredients (Health Affairs, 2015). In 2007, New York City started requiring the chain restaurants to indicate the calories on menu

According to the text in “Label the Meals”, when labels are available, research shows that about one-quarter of customers use it to limit what they decide to eat. This helps customers be more healthy and that is our purpose with labels. These customers that limit what they decide to eat usually end up eating 400 less calories than to when there are no labels. This is needed because over the past 30 years, Americans have nearly doubled the calories they recieve away from home. This is a risk for all of us and can promote sodium and fat consumption.

America has been faced with the growing obesity epidemic. This is becoming very wide spread among all races and class levels due in part to the abundance of inexpensive food available and how easily people are becoming persuaded to but things they do not need. David Zinczenko published article “Don’t Blame the Eater”, Zinczenko argues that fast-food industries are not doing their job to provide clear enough nutritional information for hazardous food.

In Zinczenko’s article he said, "that there are a lack of alternate food options and there are no calorie information charts on fast food packaging, the way there are on grocery items (Zinczenko 394).” This information Zinczenko states may have been true back in 2002 but now of days, government is stepping in. According to the New York Times, President Obama signed off in 2011 that any American patron that enters into a McDonalds, Starbucks, Burger king, or any major restaurant chain, will be required to put calorie information on their menus and drive-through signs. This legislation also requires labels on food items in vending machines. In addition, anyone can find any

The number of fast food chain restaurants has drastically increased, and the number of weekly home cooked meals has decreased for most families. Convenience has become a way of life for Americans. We have people do many things for us, so we do not have to leave the confinement of our home. With the use of apps like Favor and Uber Food, many Americans have their restaurant-ordered food delivered to them without leaving their couch. With all of this convenience, we have sacrificed nutritional value in the types of food we consume.

Section 4205 of the Affordable Care Act hones in on menu labeling in restaurant or similar establishment where there are twenty or more places doing business under the same name serving similar food, excluding schools or establishments that do not have a set location9. Ownership type is not considered7. Standard menu items must have calories listed adjacently with additional documentation of sugar, fat, protein, cholesterol and fiber that is available upon request7. Temporary items that are available for less than 90 consecutive days or less than 60 days throughout the year are not required to have labels7. Location definition excluded food trucks, airplanes and trains from having

Obesity has become a symbol of our American culture and ways of life. Across the U.S. Americans are eating for a multitude of reasons; socially, emotionally, and nutritional. Becoming overweight does not happen overnight, it’s a gradual process that’s ignored. It is estimated sixty-eight percent of Americans are overweight, with thirty-four percent obese. Eating comes easy when the meals prepared are delicious; whether baked or fried, simmered over a heated grill. A large amount of people does not take time out to read the packaging labels for nutritional values in a lot of the foods that’s purchase; the ingredients on most labels are not that hard to understand concerning the calories, sugar, or saturated fat, which is not good. However,

Despite years of federal silence, this FDA-required menu-labeling rule is not the first of its kind. In 2007, New York City mandated that chain restaurants provide consumers with product calorie counts. Menu labeling has also taken root in other parts of the country. In the interest of national, industry-wide consistency, the National Restaurant Association is in support of the FDA’s new requirement (Goldman, 2015).

For decades the Fast-food industry has supplied Americans with tasty, comforting food, quickly and at a low cost. It was not until recently, when the health craze first hit America in the late 1980’s that the corporations developed a new approach to marketing health food products to fit their customer’s wants (Nielsen). The most common fast food chains, such as McDonalds and Subway, started advertising “healthier” food items on their menus to continue appealing to the general public. While fast food restaurants give the impression of offering healthy food, nutritionist studies show healthy alternatives are not as nutritious as advertised and can lead to possible calorie underestimation and overconsumption (Chandon 85). In order to