24 August 2011

Government joins Greens for war upon the franchises.

| johnboy
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The Greens are celebrating gaining Labor support for their campaign to force restaurant franchises to list kilojoules on their menu boards.

“The Greens legislation will apply to large food chains which have seven or more outlets in the ACT, or 50 or more in Australia.

“NSW already has similar laws for fast food outlets to display the kilojoule content in at least the same font size as the price on each of their food items. This Bill will bring the ACT in-line with its neighbour and looks to build on the NSW model. Other states, including South Australia, are considering similar legislation.

“There will also be a requirement for menu boards to state that ‘recommended average daily energy intake is 8 700 kJ’.

The legislation also requires the Minister for Health to undertake a review of the legislation after it has been in force for three years and consider whether salt, fat and carbohydrates should be included in mandatory display information.

An unintended consquence is that the less affluent will be able to choose which option offers the best kilojoule/dollar value.

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daddy said :

I do hope they are going to program the terminals to limit the kJ content you can purchase in a single transaction. I would suggest fingerprint scanning each person in a group as well to ensure everyone is covered and no-one can be buying for “my friends over there”.

Perhaps a card-based mandatory Kj pre-commitment be introduced that requires eaters to set their maximum Kj before they start eating and lock them out when purchases reach their limit.

Given that fat people usually play the pokies as well, we will only need one card.

Lets go further – if you reach the limit on the pokies then your Kj allowance decreases; conversely if you eat healthily then we let you spend more on the pokies.

creative_canberran12:12 pm 26 Aug 11

zippyzippy said :

I don’t get why so many people seem personally offended. Don’t like it, then ignore it, just like a lot of people probably do for the nutritional info on the packaging of food. But it’s good that it’s there in terms of revealing nutritional info clearly for people who want or need to know (think people concerned about weight or other health problems, parents feeding kids etc). Plus it makes nutrition more of an active factor for consideration when places like kfc build menus, and it means slick advertising can’t distort the bare nutritional truth – all good things.

No one is destroying your way of life. There will just be factual information available to help consumers make choices. And anyway, don’t forget how the obesity epidemic is not good at all for Australia, including in terms of how much it’s costing us – that has a much bigger impact on our way of life.

Oh would you take your lefty defence and drown it in some wheat grass juice.
Do you have any clue about what the kj actually mean? Having a single figure next to an RDI figure will do nothing for people, because it doesn’t take into account a person’s existing weight, their level of physical activity and so on. The RDI is based on an “average” adult regime.
So if anything, Mr Tyre Waist is going to look at the board, see a burger is only worth 2500 of 8700 and go… yeah, not even close to the limit, might have two.

zippyzippy said :

You are comparing the provision of nutritional information to a totalitarian 1984 state?

Well one could say that. However, deeper and more perspective readers may have discovered more relevant underlying themes, vis a vis the encroaching and incremental interference within all aspects of daily purchases and performances of routine matters, by an unelected party, which seeks to instil a moral and ethical constriction on the lives of the citizenry to further its own goals. If they have no elected power, but the ability to enforce conformity, what monstrous servilities would these quasi-religious apparatchiks enslave our community with, and manipulate our choices of such mundanities as the foods we eat down to?

Or I could just be taking the p!ss. You decide.

Ben_Dover said :

Dictat from Greens Headquarters No. 26383767238393782783.

I am taking trouble with you, Canberrans,” Rattenbury said, “because you are worth trouble. You know perfectly well what is the matter with you. You have known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged. You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable to remember real events and you persuade yourself that you remember other events which never happened. Fortunately it is curable. You have never cured yourself of it, because you did not choose to. There was a small effort of the will that you were not ready to make. Even now, I am well aware, you are clinging to your disease under the impression that it is a virtue. Now we will take an example. At this moment, how many lentils are each citizen allowed per week?”

(apologies to Eric Arthur.)

You are comparing the provision of nutritional information to a totalitarian 1984 state?

Dictat from Greens Headquarters No. 26383767238393782783.

I am taking trouble with you, Canberrans,” Rattenbury said, “because you are worth trouble. You know perfectly well what is the matter with you. You have known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged. You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable to remember real events and you persuade yourself that you remember other events which never happened. Fortunately it is curable. You have never cured yourself of it, because you did not choose to. There was a small effort of the will that you were not ready to make. Even now, I am well aware, you are clinging to your disease under the impression that it is a virtue. Now we will take an example. At this moment, how many lentils are each citizen allowed per week?”

(apologies to Eric Arthur.)

Chop71 said :

ACT= Nanny State

Giving people more information = nanny state?

How do you figure that?

I don’t get why so many people seem personally offended. Don’t like it, then ignore it, just like a lot of people probably do for the nutritional info on the packaging of food. But it’s good that it’s there in terms of revealing nutritional info clearly for people who want or need to know (think people concerned about weight or other health problems, parents feeding kids etc). Plus it makes nutrition more of an active factor for consideration when places like kfc build menus, and it means slick advertising can’t distort the bare nutritional truth – all good things.

No one is destroying your way of life. There will just be factual information available to help consumers make choices. And anyway, don’t forget how the obesity epidemic is not good at all for Australia, including in terms of how much it’s costing us – that has a much bigger impact on our way of life.

farnarkler said :

Next it’ll be plain packaging for fast food!

And pictures of obese people on the packaging. “this could be you”

This stupid and offensive policy has already been implemented elsewhere (eg New York) and has had zero impact on obesity and fast food sales.

As others have pointed out, a meal at an ordinary restaurant is just as likely to be laden with kilojoules. It’s all about the symbolism of giving the fast food chains one in the eye, self-righteousness being the defining quality of the Greens and their hangers-on. Sanctimonious jerks, the lot of them.

We seem to be plummeting into a new wowser era, abetted by gutless Labor politicians.

Next it’ll be plain packaging for fast food! Which morons voted Bresnan and the rest of club mongoloid in?

microaggressioncrimewave6:15 pm 25 Aug 11

Finally the government will help me figure out why I’m so fat.

Why yes I do have the mental capacity of a small child, that’s why I voted green in the first place. It’s working out great!

ACT= Nanny State

colourful sydney racing identity8:58 am 25 Aug 11

I initially thought this sort of thing was a good idea but after giving it more consideration I don’t see how this is going to change anyones eating choices and even I think this is a bit over the top (bearing in mind that I lurve the nanny state).

luther_bendross8:52 am 25 Aug 11

I’m tipping that most people eating at Macca’s, KFC et al don’t give a salad fork about kilojoules. Thankyou Greens, now how shall I wipe my ass?

I look forward to the government funding positions in restaurants to spoon feed me also.

Tetranitrate11:44 pm 24 Aug 11

Mr Evil said :

So, are you saying that a Big Mac really isn’t a healthy food choice?

OMG – WHY DIDN’T SOMEBODY TELL ME EARLIER????

If only I’d known this was the case, then maybe my television remote wouldn’t have gotten wedged between my stomach rolls last week.

Thank you Greens – now I can turn my life around and become a ballerina, like I’ve always dreamed of being one day……

In all seriousness big macs aren’t actually that bad if you’re aware of what you’re eating and actually treat the burger alone as the better part of a meal.
– it’s around 2000kj, which isn’t going to kill anyone who’s eating an otherwise balanced diet.
Large fries and a large soft drink will pretty much double that though.

So, are you saying that a Big Mac really isn’t a healthy food choice?

OMG – WHY DIDN’T SOMEBODY TELL ME EARLIER????

If only I’d known this was the case, then maybe my television remote wouldn’t have gotten wedged between my stomach rolls last week.

Thank you Greens – now I can turn my life around and become a ballerina, like I’ve always dreamed of being one day……

creative_canberran10:12 pm 24 Aug 11

justin heywood said :

What is the relevance of the ‘number of outlets’ to the problem? Bad food is bad food. Why should this apply to the big chains and not Oportos, Kingsleys etc?

Applicability is 7 or more in the ACT or 50 or more Australia wide.
Kingsleys has 8 operational stores so they will need to comply.
As will Oporto who have well over 50 locations Australia wide.

The reason for a threshold regarding the number of outlets would assumedly have something to do with the capacity of the business to afford the necessary tests to determine the nutritional values of their foods. Take certain local asian and middle eastern restaurants who have 2 or 3 locations. If they had to put the kj of their stir fries and pides on their menu, it could cost quite a bit to produce the food and have it analysed. Where as chains tend to have labs in house or the financial capacity to contract the work.

justin heywood8:10 pm 24 Aug 11

What is the relevance of the ‘number of outlets’ to the problem? Bad food is bad food. Why should this apply to the big chains and not Oportos, Kingsleys etc?

Wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that that the targets happen to be those evil American multinationals, would it?

The Greens really piss me off. Anybody with half a brain is increasingly concerned about the environment. But in order to support the one party which (ostensibly) has the environment as their main platform, you also have to sign up to all their other anti-capitalist flat earth idiocy.

The dumbing down of society and removing of personal responsibility. What a joke.

More like, the Greens presuming to know best and telling others how their lives should be lived.

Who cares? Its on the side of the box already. It won’t change my eating habits.

If anything, it will probably make the board type face smaller (so they can fit it all in), making it hard to read 🙁

creative_canberran7:22 pm 24 Aug 11

I wish they’d cut it out with this shallow BS. This means nothing. Those who care likely already have a fair idea about the nutrition value of the food, and those who don’t will eat it regardless.

Why don’t they get their act together and hurry up with the food safety register and labels, something that will actually do some good.

The Greens and the ACT Labor Government would give a better outcome for ACT ratepayers if they dropped this “mung bean mentality pre-occupation” nonsense and spent some money on repairing footpaths in Tuggeranong. The cracked and collapse concrete footpaths (generally only on one side of the street) are not being replaced; rather the contractor (driving a very new truck) simply spreads some bitumen mix in the cracks and dusts it off with sand. It is a “first class-third world” job. The sections too large to fill with the ration of tar and sand are simply left with the bare earth exposed.
Obviously the money that should be spent on it is instead going towards maintaining bike paths.
I hope the government’s pedestrian public liability exposure is adequate.

Tetranitrate5:54 pm 24 Aug 11

Honestly don’t care much. I’m fairly aware of the kj and nutritional content of fast food anyway though – which is why when I do end up going to maccas or whatever I only every get a burger and never get fries/soft-drink.

I do hope they are going to program the terminals to limit the kJ content you can purchase in a single transaction. I would suggest fingerprint scanning each person in a group as well to ensure everyone is covered and no-one can be buying for “my friends over there”.

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