The Menu Is The Meal

at

This afternoon

The Restaurants Association of Ireland has responded to proposals which would see displaying calories on menus becoming mandatory for all restaurants, pubs, catering establishments and eateries..

Adrian Cummins, CEO of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, says:

“It looks like this proposed legislation for presenting calories on menus is being rammed through by the Government with little thought about the negative effects it will have. This really is nanny-statism at its best.

Enforcing calorie count menus will cost the state tens of millions of euro to implement, money that would quite frankly be better spent elsewhere.

Chefs will also be spending more and more time doing paperwork than in the kitchen, which will do nothing to make the career more appealing when we are facing a chef shortage….

…Yet again, the government are stifling small businesses who cannot afford the administration of this. It’s unacceptable.”

The Restaurants Association of Ireland have called on their members to make their voices heard and submit a submission to The Department of Health and Minister for Health Simon Harris TD [at link below]…

FIGHT!

Submit a submission here

Restaurant owners urged to object to plans for calorie information on menus (Irish Examiner)

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23 thoughts on “The Menu Is The Meal

  1. Toe Up

    The chefs will now need to get up earlier in the morning to complete the additional paperwork. All part of the FG plan to increase their voter count.

  2. Ciaran

    How about:

    Grilled Chicken Sandwich 5000 calories
    Fried Chicken Sandwich 5000 calories
    Sparkling Water 0 calories
    Soft Drink 5000 calories

    (Everything rounded up to the nearest 5000 calories)

  3. postmanpat

    Paperwork? sure just make up a plausible number (rounded down of course) I’m sure they don’t have to show their math formulas in any great detail. Just add up the ingredients , a child could do it. it is a waste of time of course. how long to calculate an item . a minute? and how often to restaurants change their menu? here’s all the math you need : eat out more often = get fat sooner.

    1. Rob_G

      Even easier than that – myfitnesspal has the calories listed for basically every meal in creation, you would just need to look it up there.

  4. thepaddyman

    Can they not just have a 3 stage of food warning: Healthy, moderate and unhealthy.

    I used to think calories were a good thing. But now i don’t even notice them in McDonnell’s…

      1. thepaddyman

        Yes could even do it like the weather with a colour warning and detail description if you eat much of the unhealthy poopy-poo you will be soon fat.

  5. Dr.Fart

    Selfish Cummins is protecting his own interests here, and will do so even if it costs people their health. It’s clearly a good idea to do this, as lots of people simply don’t know that a lot of what they eat is bad for them. To all of you who say people should have enough cop on to know, this is why we have laws and rules etc., because many people don’t have cop on, and they’re a part of society and we have to look after everyone.

    some of the patients i’ve had over the years who really just do not know what many do.

    1. Riz

      “…as lots of people simply don’t know that a lot of what they eat is bad for them”

      I dare say even more don’t have the first notion of what a calorie is or for that matter what a Kilojoule actually represents. This labelling of foodstuffs with calorie counts is stupidity at it’s worst (best?) Anyone who is interested in their calorific intake is more than likely watching what they eat. Anyone who isn’t will quickly scan past these numbers so they can order their double-quarter-pounder with cheese and bacon without any impedance as to their choice or without the slightest thought to their health.

  6. class wario

    interest groups are obviously never going to back stuff that imposes even tiny things on them but tbh im a bit torn on this. while potentially good, i also think there’s myriad other ways to represent good food choices and what constitutes ‘healthy’ food. reducing this down to a calorie count, while useful for some, is very, well…reductive. it just seems like a diet planner stunt rather than a wholly useful bit of public policy.

    also, i also imagine there’d be a bit of difficulty in accurately doing this for freshly prepared stuff and that a degree of variance would be allowed for. in such instances, is there a benefit to this? would a broad estimate shed much light on things? just seems like another way in which this would differ from counting calories for mass produced and apportioned foodstuffs

    1. fFs

      A nob of butter to taste or an extra little glug of oil in the pan will add 100 calories – you could never keep it correct and it’s pretty useless without that. never mind trying to quantify pinches of salt etc.

  7. Spaghetti Hoop

    Anyone remember when dieters referred to all food items in ‘points’? God they were insufferable to go out for dinner with.

  8. Scundered

    Very few people give a toss about calories once the temptation is in front of them, they’re sold already, if you really want to change health in society then you need to remove bad choices from view. But too many humans on the planet anyways so let them eat cake.

    1. Brother Barnabas

      using cake as a strategy to reduce the number of humans might work in the long run but in the short run those cake-eating too-many humans will take up even more space with their big lardy bottoms and fat legs and squishy bellies and man boobs and all the rest of it

      and I dont like looking at it

  9. Skeptik

    Nanny state would impose restrictions. What’s being proposed is to give us the information so we can make better choices (or not – our choice).
    I would like to know more about what I order in a restaurant. We get this information in the supermarket. What are they afraid of?

    1. Spaghetti Hoop

      How about just learning about the calorific content of foods and bringing that information with you? You know, tucked in the wee brain – something like an average bowl of fries is x calories and a roast duck is y. Crazy idea I know.

  10. GiggidyGoo

    Ah Jeez. Who will police this? Sure a chef could make up any old figure for the calories and put them on the menu. Doubtful there will be chemists etc. visiting restaurants, ordering food and conducting on the spot tests.

  11. Matt McGuirk

    If people knew the calories they were consuming on a typical Saturday night out, restaurants would close over night.
    Nevermind all the calories in the beer, wine, spirits and chipper at 3am.

    Restaurants will suffer, and they’re completely correct about the chef shortage – this will put even more people off.

  12. Ger Nalist

    Would love to hear Cummins explanation as to how adding calories to regularly revised menus will cost “millions”

Comments are closed.

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