If you’re like me, you may be watching the healthy changes taking place in New York City restaurants with glee. First, on July 1, the trans fat ban took effect for restaurants, bakeries, cafeterias and food carts – these establishments cannot use trans fats in preparing meals.
The latest change in NYC is that as of July 18, fast food and casual dining restaurants are required to display calorie counts and penalties apply for those restaurants that do not comply. (If you live in Seattle, Santa Clara and San Francisco, stay tuned for similar rules to come this year.) The rules apply to restaurants with 15 or more locations that have standard size menu items. According to the New York Times, the new rules affect about 10% of all restaurants in the city.
You may be surprised at what you learn about the calories in some of your favorite food items. For example, an 8 oz. grilled chicken sandwich from McDonald’s has 420 calories, while the hamburger (at only 3.5 oz it looks tiny by comparison), has 250 calories. A Dunkin Donuts plain bagel with reduced fat cream cheese has 440 calories.
Consumer comments about the regulations run the gamut of `I can’t believe this lunch has over 1,000 calories and I never knew it,’ to `People choose fast food because it’s fast, not because it’s healthy.’ One consumer recently told me that she was in NYC and bought a cup of coffee and was surprised to see the sign above the walnut bran muffin indicating it has 430 calories and 18 grams of fat. While we might know that a muffin has a lot of calories, actually seeing those calories posted at the point of purchase might be what makes the buy / don’t buy decision for us.
So how about you, do you think these changes will set a precedent for other cities throughout the US – maybe even nationwide? And more importantly, do you think they’ll affect the way you eat?Kerry
