High Caloric Confusion

In a post on line at Crain's, the magazine examines the early returns on the silly DOH menu labeling scheme. And, as we predicted, confusion reigns because of the menu offering ranges that the law can't easily accommodate: "At Chipotle, for example, a burrito is listed as having somewhere between 420 and 918 calories, while a salad weighs in at anywhere from 155 to 823 calories. “It's such a wide range,” says Kelli Garcia, a Chipotle customer. “It seems silly to put it there.” The restaurants say that because their meals are made to order and come in varying sizes, calorie counts can't be boiled down to a single number. Serious calorie-counters, like Ms. Garcia, say that they will have to continue to rely on nutrition-related Web sites to calculate the caloric content of restaurant meals."

We had pointed this all out from the very beginning. As we said in January: "First of all, the burrito posting will not, because of the myriad combinations of possible burrito selections, be on each item. Even the clueless fast food haters at DOH couldn't require fast food outlets to post calories on every conceivable menu items-the menu board would be out the door and down the block.Instead the chains of 15 outlets or more will be allowed to post a range for certain items like burritos. So Taco Bell or Chipotle will post the following: Burrito (400-1500 calories). A burrito consumer will simply have no idea what her burrito combo contains; which is precisely why the industry opposes the regulation."

And check out the calorie range for just a salad-an item that all of us intuitively believe should be healthier than a taco; except when you add all of the possible dressings and toppings, items that don't have to be listed separately. All of which leads to total confusion for even the most nutritionally savvy consumer.

And one customer that Crain's talked to really gets it: "“It's such a wide range,” says Kelli Garcia, a Chipotle customer. “It seems silly to put it there.” The restaurants say that because their meals are made to order and come in varying sizes, calorie counts can't be boiled down to a single number. Serious calorie-counters, like Ms. Garcia, say that they will have to continue to rely on nutrition-related Web sites to calculate the caloric content of restaurant meals."

Exactly so. The whole scheme reeks of a social science experiment gone amok-and let's make sure that the folks at Dewey, Cheetum and Howe don't do the review of all of this silliness. The experiment, aside from being silly, is also expensive-around $2,000 per fast food outlet. Which puts the overall compliance cost city wide at around $5 million!

So by all means let's put this scheme to a rigorous evaluation; but just not by the folks at DOH with an ax to grind. If an independent review is done, we'd be able to see just how ineffective the whole idea is, not to mention unnecessarily intrusive on the lives and freedom of New Yorkers and New York businesses.