Greens push kilojoule counts on large fast food outlets

I love these stories.

I’m a tall lean bloke from a family with a long history of producing tall lean blokes. My problem is that I need to try really hard to put weight on, so I can pig out on grease bombs, chips, coke, cake, beer etc for weeks at a time and not gain an ounce.

Meanwhile, some of my mates gain flab if they walk past a Maccas. Hahahahahaha…..

Erg0 said :

Standing in line at a Starbucks in New York, I realised that the coffee and muffin I was planning on consuming added up to almost 900 calories. I got a piece of banana bread instead of the muffin and had the coffee with skim milk – 400-odd calories saved. Taking me as a sample of one, the system works!

That said, I hardly ever buy takeaway coffee and don’t exactly need to be told which items on the McDonalds menu are highly calorific.

Fortunately the little pizza place at 7th and 39th I went to late last year didn’t have energy content. That 3 cheese pizza lasted about 4 meals!

Standing in line at a Starbucks in New York, I realised that the coffee and muffin I was planning on consuming added up to almost 900 calories. I got a piece of banana bread instead of the muffin and had the coffee with skim milk – 400-odd calories saved. Taking me as a sample of one, the system works!

That said, I hardly ever buy takeaway coffee and don’t exactly need to be told which items on the McDonalds menu are highly calorific.

Chief Ten Beers said :

What’s with this obsession of telling people how to live?

Because health care for obesity-related illness is expensive, and with the current obesity rates, the country is facing a health care bill that will make the supposed “ageing crisis” costs look like chump change.

If people can see just how many calories they are consuming when they push this “food” into their maws, many of them will actually make the decision to eat less of it.

It’s easy to think “it can’t be THAT bad” when you buy a big mac. If faced with the bald numbers, many people will at least have to then make an informed decision.

harley said :

How will they define “major”? Will it just be if they were founded in the USA?

Why shouldn’t this be applied to everyone?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s s stupid idea, but why pick on the big successful companies only?

RTFM.

Seven local franchises or 50 nationwide.

So only the large and successful, although local player Zambrero will be caught up and I reckon the Kj count on those burritos is pretty large.

(in fact this will seriously mess up the adaptability of the menu, but rigid doctrine’s the green way right?)

How will they define “major”? Will it just be if they were founded in the USA?

Why shouldn’t this be applied to everyone?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s s stupid idea, but why pick on the big successful companies only?

I think it’s a great idea, I don’t see anything wrong with informing the customer about their purchase. If nothing else, it might help people to make an informed choice about what they’re consuming (although lets be honest, once you’ve rocked up to Maccas, you’re not going to leave on the grounds that the food is too unhealthy). If it helps people to consider what they are fuelling their bodies with, even just for a few seconds before they order a double, then I think it is a step in the right direction.

It’s on the packets already and has made no difference by all reports.
Those who care already know. Those who don’t won’t bother reading it or understand it anyway.

I think people should take responsibility for themselves, it’s becoming a communist country!
We don’t need someone telling what to eat, next thing they will be having us weighted at the railway station lol, only obese people.

What’s with this obsession of telling people how to live? I guess it will push up my health insurance and other costs but that happens anyway.

This scheme has been tried in many areas of the USA, with zero effect. It’ll just raise the cost of food and operating restaurants. see: http://www.obesitymyths.com/myth5.5.htm

It’s hard enough to find out what the meal costs with their menu boards now, let alone having to know the kJ value, the amount of sodium,potassium, magnesium, vitamins C,D,B1 and B2, the fact it’s “Australian Beef”, “real chicken”, fresh from the farm, cooked only in canola, baked not fried, tick approved for the heart, yada yada yada………..
I just want to know that I can afford to get a Pepsi-max, burger and fries with some change from a twenty and I don’t have to go put money in the meter while I wait for it.
Next the Greens will want mums to provide their kids with nutritional information fact sheets with their packed lunch so the school knows that the kids are being looked after. Then, I’ll be eating my smoko and find the devon has been imprinted with it’s salt and fat content using edible grade ink. Oh, wait, by then they will already have banned meat products from devon, it’ll be a pressed, soya-based substitute.
Go away Greenies, let me decide what’s good or bad for me.

If you’re eating that crap more than once a week, you probably beyond caring about the energy content.

The Greens seem to be doing a lot of pushing today. What do you know that we don’t, JB?

It may not do a vast amount of good, but I can’t see any down side.

…some fast food outlets changed the ingredients of their food products to reduce the energy content…

I think some people are missing the point.

Ignorance by the general fast food eating masses aside, the intended benefit is that once the actual values being shown is mandated the restaurants in question may redesign their menu to reduce the massive numbers they are forced to display. If that simply means using leaner meat or less sugar then how can that be a bad thing, generally speaking?

So we want to recommend a daily kilojoule intake despite the fact that our BMR/RMR varies from person to person by gender, age, height, build and exercise level.

Besides, people buying fast food know it mostly isn’t healthy. And those who don’t understand this wouldn’t have the mental ability to work out what the kilojoule values mean anyway.

How is this going to help exactly?

If people are buying fast food from these larger companies so regularly that it is posing a serious risk to their health, wouldn’t they have already read and ignored the nutrition information that is on the packaging?

I think it’s about time. I think many people would be shocked to learn how much energy is in that crap. I know so many people who say things like “I went for an hour walk, so I can have a piece of cake with my coffee”. Are you kidding? If people knew how easy it is to intake energy, and how hard to expend it, they might be a little more thoughtful about what goes in. Bring it on!

nobody cares. I don’t eat a double quarter-pounder to lose weight

So when I am waiting in line for my supper triple whopperMac with extra cheese I can know how bad it is for me? Do they think people care that much.

I know they should but really?

Interesting that the same government that removed the panel on cigarette packets telling consumers the quantities of the key ingredients, is insisting that food packets must have a panel on them telling consumers quantities of the key ingredients.