Pie-in-the-Sky on the Menu

As the cockamamie scheme to use calorie posting to reduce obesity goes slowly forward we can always count on the editorialists at the NY Daily News for a huge dose of comic relief. Here's their take from today's editorial observation: "Talk about living off the fat of the land. Seven restaurant chains have begun posting calorie information in their outlets in the city - and the numbers are, to put it mildly, gut-popping...It's enough to make you think twice about ordering - and that's the point of Health Department efforts to enact calorie-posting rules starting this week."

Here's the rub. No one has been able, least of all the Department of Health, to demonstrate that this calorie information-information that will be confusing because of the complications of the fast food menus-will be utilized to make the customers choose healthier foods. And the idea that the restaurants are trying to avoid the loss of profits is silly: the private sector knows how to adapt to new demands from its customers.

The News ends with this flourish: "The industry should take its appeal and, pardon the pun, stuff it. Rather than worry about fat profits being nibbled away as customers realize what they've been eating, the chains should concentrate on meeting the potential new demand for, say, less whopping Whoppers." If the Daily News believes that this scheme will transform the fast food menus then we know what they've been consuming over at 33rd Street-pie-in-the-sky!