Why is the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors getting mixed up in setting standards for national fast food chain restaurants to display calorie counts and nutritional data of their products? Supervisor Liz Kniss has proposed such legislation applicable only to restaurants with more than 15 outlets in the county. Her stated reasoning is that she wishes to fight the epidemic of obesity in the country, but I don’t see how this no-more-than-cosmetic move will do any such thing. For one thing, it leaves out the vast majority of restaurants in the county. The only result I can see is the high cost to the county’s taxpayers of policing something which has little value to the public.
I do believe that every commercial prepared-food outlet in this country should be required to provide basic nutritional information and calorie counts for every dish they sell—similar to the labeling found on supermarket food products—to those who want such information. That would include every restaurant, not just the fast food chains proposed by the county. This information could be printed on brochures, blackboards, menus or displayed lists. It doesn’t matter as long as the information is truthful and correct and easily available to the public. It is not difficult to write down a list of ingredients for a dish and calculate a calorific value, so the argument—recently used by the governor to veto a similar state bill—that these regulations will financially harm small businesses is certainly not true. It’s no more expensive than writing out a recipe or printing a menu.
However, the agency that should monitor this is not Santa Clara County but the FDA acting on legislation from Congress. Such legislation can only be effective if it is universally applied throughout the nation to all food outlets.
Unfortunately, none of this will do anything about obesity. Do you think that the overweight customers who habituate fast food chains are going to stop because they are able to access nutritional information at the cash register? How many of these same people will know what a calorie is or the maximum number of them that they should consume every day? It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than making nutritional information available on menus. It’s going to take education and self-discipline that will only come to those who are aware and really want to do something about it. What the county ought to be doing is discussing how they can educate people and help them make lifestyle changes that will benefit them and society as a whole. (Of course, the restaurant industry and the fast food company lobbyists will fight anything like this tooth and nail.)
Nevertheless, there are a growing number of citizen restaurant customers who are concerned about this issue and are endeavoring to monitor their food intake and make dietary changes that will have long-term health benefits for them and their families. Then there are the millions of Americans who have special dietary requirements or known food allergies, some potentially fatal. It makes sense to require restaurants to provide nutritional information to their customers. However, an expensive piecemeal effort from the county is the wrong approach and will have no real effect. This is a matter for the federal government which has the clout to apply such a requirement across the board for the benefit of all Americans.
The point is that even the “overweight customers,” of which I occasionally am one, don’t know which of the items on the menu is the lowest calorie choice. Going to a fast food restaurant means I’ve made a decision for less healthy fare, but I can still mitigate the effect. Do I choose the chicken sandwich or the burger? Intuition tells me to pick the chicken, but it turns out the burger has fewer calories. If I’d known that, maybe I would have made a different choice. That’s what this is about. More informed choices may result in incremental improvements in health.
Dear Jack,
Liz Kniss is not my sis.
I don’t care if you dis
her calorie lists.
But I would be remiss
not to inform you of this.
In 2008, election time bliss
is why Ms. Kniss
and nutritional labeling exists.
Jack—absolutely right on! And well thought out. You are so right about the vast majority of McFriendly’s gobblers who don’t know a calorie from a color, nor what their calorie intake should be. Another public school disaster. The Soups, some more than others, are just busybodies with no place to hang out except aove the audience at “their” chambers.
I think you overlook an even bigger Soups outrage—Yeager’s move to hire 350 more fire dept. union members to “enforce” fire safety in the hills. He says he got the idea from the Malibu fire, or was it the Oakland fire? Bullshit. It came from a meeting in his front room, or Zoe’s, with a group of the firefolks hustling him for more jobs, more union dues.
He’s expecting a BIG contribution from these guys in his reelection campaign, or a move to yet higher office. AND an endorsement. The comparison with Malibu is SO bogus! Where’s the residential density, Santa Ana winds, all brush no timber environment? Even the East Bay fire doesn’t compare for fire conditions.
Not only will hundreds of fire yahoos, who don’t fight fires, just harrass mountain residents, getting great salaries and benefits from the taxpayers, but will come up with outrageous requirements—I can see $100K costs for removal of “combustibles”—including trees—in a 300’ perimeter around a rural house, acres from the next house. And all this in infuriating “moral superiority” terms—we’ll save these people—from themselves. How did a flatlander resident of downtown San Jose come up with such an idea (totally supported by the media)? How come he has no ideas about making his downtown SJ a destination? 0 in it for him? George Green
Based on the information contained in the budget blog, the Supervisors, and county residents, would be better served by addressing how to reduce the airborne lead pollution in this county.
http://sanjoseinside.com/sji/blog/entries/participation_is_essential_for_a_budget_that_represents_neighborhood_intere/#comments
Of course, maybe all the brain damage from this pollution is why people eat fast food.
“Supes.” It’s short for “Supervisors.”
County Supervisors are responsible for upholding the health, safety, and welfare of the entire County, including incorporated areas and unincorporated areas. The voters of his district probably chose Supervisor Yeager because they believed he was the candidate most capable of administering the County’s many programs, including healthcare, public assistance, environmental health, law enforcement, and, yes, fire safety.
Though it is not Supervisor Yeager’s responsibility to promote downtown San Jose—it may not be proper for a Supervisor to support one city’s commercial development and not all of the others’—by supporting the County’s long-standing policy of only permitting urban development within incorporated areas and encouraging the annexation of all remaining unincorporated urban areas, he is doing his part to limit sprawl and the automobile-orientation that makes dense urban development so hard to achieve.
Great column Jack! I agree with George, it is about Kniss and her up and coming election. I have noticed that since Yeager has taken office, he has become fast friends with Kniss, and he joined up with her to push for a healthier way of life. (Let us not forget Yeager’s ban of unhealthy snacks in vending machines at the City, completely taking a way personal choice from people.) I guess it is okay to want to see citizens be healthier, but I must say that there are more important issues that need to be addressed by the county. Low-income housing, the Housing Authority’s treatment of clients, health care, hate crimes, gangs, and animal overpopulation, just to name a few, seem to fall by the way side. I just don’t know how these public officials keep involving themselves in our personal rights and choices.
I don’t do a lot of fast food, but the few places I might go to once in a blue moon do offer low fat foods, and some do have calories, fat grams etc. listed. I think people are educated on proper nutrition, I think they just don’t care. I also think it has to do with the fast paced lives we lead, and finances.
If you’re poor, you can’t really afford healthy foods. Example, I went to Safeway and bought a small salad bag, which cost $4.00. I bought some fruit, total of $7.45, I got some carrots, and some other fresh veggies to add to the salad, total came to about $35.00. Now I could eat off that for say three meals. But I could eat at a fast food place, get more food for say 4-5 days, for LESS, not to mention saving time by going through a drive thru, instead of preparing a healthier meal!
I personally try to limit going out to eat to once a week and when in a restaurant, I go for their low calorie platters, but hey, I still fight the battle of the bulge myself. I walk at least three days a week, but it only seems to maintain my weight. Old age and heredity I guess, any way my point is that I agree, we do need to know what we’re putting into our mouths, but Jack is right, it isn’t the BOS place to mandate or get involved with our personal life choices. We taxpayers already overpay a lot of other government programs to do that.
I strongly oppose any “nanny state” laws requiring menu-labeling at fast food restaurants in Santa Clara County. These types of laws intend to goad citizens into what meddlesome health “advocates” have deemed acceptable behavior.
There are many problems with this type of legislation. First of all, it treats people as morons. We know the difference between a cheeseburger and a salad. Second, it assumes that everybody needs to be protected from evil restaurants because they’re too fat. This, of course, ignores the fact that a lack of physical activity is to blame for much of the obesity “problem” in this country.
Some folks try to compare anti-fast food legislation to the fight against tobacco products. This is also absurd, since there’s no “second hand” food.
I recommend that you read “Preserve right to eat without guilt: Don’t post calories of fast-food dishes” by Richard Berman in yesterday’s Mercury. [see http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_7638877?nclick_check=1 ] I agree completely with Mr. Berman’s position.
#7- “There are many problems with this type of legislation. First of all, it treats people as morons. We know the difference between a cheeseburger and a salad. Second, it assumes that everybody needs to be protected from evil restaurants because they’re too fat. This, of course, ignores the fact that a lack of physical activity is to blame for much of the obesity “problem” in this country.”
Hugh, you are absolutely correct! Sitting at a desk all day long, playing video games, watching too much TV, and endless hours on the computer account for much of the obesity problem. When I was growing up, many, many moons ago, we spent more time outside playing, hiking, going on walks, bike ridding, playing sports, exploring with our friends, than we ever spent indoors. We also had chores, unlike kids today. My parents spent nice days outside, and both worked in manual labor. Hum… I think times have definitively changed.
7.
…but you don’t know the difference between a cheeseburger and a chicken sandwich or a milkshake, or whether any of those contain transfat. And, you have no way of knowing that the salad that is billed by the commercials as healthy is really loaded with fats and salt.
Denying people the ability to learn what goes into their bodies treat people as morons. It says to the consumer, “You are too stupid to understand what all this complicated nutritional information means.”
Hell, I’m with Jerry Brown. Let’s put Prop 65 signs on every outlet selling poisonous substances, from toy stores to restaurants to grocery stores.
That is a very interesting name, Mr. Jardonn. Is it French?
Republicrat—Nothing ludicrous about politicians perverting responsibility to the electorate to make a whole lot of hay for themselves, whether it’s Cheney and Haliburton or Yeager and the firefighters and Zoe’s Demo party machine. I’m not the only one that’s noticed the problem. The poll percentages for discontent with politicians are on my side, not yours. “Experienced” politicians have less success eliminating the people’s problems than the newbies, as the Murky reported yesterday—because they’re better at reelection fundraising strategies. George Green
$$$$$$$ is right.
Without proper labeling we’d never know that breaking a CFL lightbulb will turn your home into a small superfund site… er what’s that.. that’s not… aw rats.
shush novice, grownups are talking.
you need to use your grammar if you want to take part.
Jack asks: “Why is the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors getting mixed up in setting standards for national fast food chain restaurants to display calorie counts and nutritional data of their products?”
The answer is simple, Jack—because they have neither the expertise nor the will to attack the endemic problems with government, and the majority of elected officals locally and nationally seem to believe that protecting us from cradle to grave is what we all “deserve”. “Deserve” is the new word in government and advertising. It is the mantra of the entitlement generation. We are all told we “deserve” this, that, and the other.WRONG!! All we “deserve” is equal opportunitry to succeed.
The plain fact is that they cannot solve the basic, nuts and bolts problems that plague us, so they use these feel-good, sanctimoniouis smokescreens to make it appear that they are actually doing something to earn their pay. Ms. Kniss is one of the major practictioners of this “art”.
Does anyone really believe that the morbidly obese mother of four on WIC reads those labels, let alone understands them?
Government needs to get out of our lives and deal with the big picture issues that affect the planet, and stop deluding itself that these bullshit yuppie laws have any real effect on anything.
Seriously does anyone actually read these ludicrous comments by George Green?
“shush <insert blogid here>, grownups are talking.”
Day late $$$$$$$ short.
You already outta material? Don’t despair.
Here’s some new material I’ve worked up for you. Feel free to sprinkle ‘em into your upcoming posts for added hilarity.
Sonoma Chicken coupe
Sonoma Chicken croup
Sonoma Chicken soup
Why don’t you use the English language correctly so that people can tell what you’re trying to say?
Supervisor Yaeger should stick to solving problems—including health care—in Santa Clara County, and not go to Ethiopia for 10 days on a medical junket.