The calorie police have scored a number of victories in recent months. First New York City forced chain restaurants with 15 or more units nationwide to post calorie information on their menus and menu boards. Then California passed a law requiring that information to be posted at all restaurants operating 20 or more units anywhere in the entire state, although it won’t be enforced until 2011. There’s even a bill before Congress—and endorsed by the National Restaurant Association itself because it can see which way the wind is blowing—that would require calorie information on chain menus nationwide.
The law annoyed me at first because I was worried that it would stifle chefs’ creativity, but I have to admit that last month, when I was in Boston, I stopped into a Starbucks for a quick cappuccino and, curious to know how many calories were in it, was disappointed to see that the only numbers on the menu board were prices.
I was in Boston for a conference, hosted by the Public Health Advocacy Institute, on how to help stem the tide of growing rates of obesity in the United States.
The PHAI is the group that in the past has talked about suing restaurants for making people fat, but it also led the charge in raising awareness of growing rates in obesity and contributed to changing the dialogue over the past six years about what people eat. The group was an early advocate of posting calorie information on menus, too.
Lynn Silver attended the conference. She’s the assistant commissioner of New York City’s health department and coordinates its anti-obesity efforts, including labeling menus.
She said she’d noticed that some chains had actually started reducing the size of their portions: Dunkin’ Donuts had introduced smaller donuts, she said, and KFC had taken some wings out of its wing snacks.
She also noted that they hadn’t lowered the prices.
That got me wondering if listing the calorie information might be a boon to restaurants that are struggling with food costs, which is approximately all of them.
It seems far-fetched, but is it possible that providing calorie information could actually change the value proposition to customers, making low-calorie items worth more than the great big, fattening hunks of meat drizzled with cheese and bacon and served with fries that so many of them know and love?
A couple of years ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service predicted that calorie labeling would result in portions with fewer calories, and that might, indeed, be happening in New York.
Then again, KFC’s portion adjustment could be part of a plan by its parent company, Yum! Brands Inc., to list calorie information at all of its units systemwide by 2011.
Either way, a study commissioned recently by Los Angeles County’s health department determined that if 10 percent of chain restaurant customers reduced their calorie intake by 100 calories per meal, that would avert nearly 40 percent of that county’s annual weight gain. So if listing calorie content works, great. If customers don’t mind paying the same amount for less food, even better.
But there are times when I’ve looked up at the calorie information of different French fry sizes and noticed that the difference between a small and a medium, and between a medium and a large, is generally just a few dozen calories—less than a bowl of cottage cheese. I’ve resisted the urge to trade up, but it will be interesting to see how calorie listings affect how diners react.
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and I are following how the calorie information affects customers’ ordering patterns, and I’ll keep you posted.
