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Calories Will Be Counted In New York
The New York Health Board thinks that certain chain restaurants (at least those with a minimum of 15 branches) should display calorie information on their menus. In fact, this is due to become law by April 2008 so they seem to be convinced that this is a good thing.
The New York Health Board thinks that certain chain restaurants (at least those with a minimum of 15 branches) should display calorie information on their menus. In fact, this is due to become law by April 2008 so they seem to be convinced that this is a good thing.
The Health Board is hoping that this new regulation will help customers make healthy choices when they see how many calories they are about to consume. In this way they hope to make a contribution to the growing problem of obesity (latest figures are at a staggering 65%!) and thus reduce the incidence of heart disease and diabetes. They are now gathering comments and there will be a public hearing in January 2008.
Are you convinced that calorie counting really works ? Well, calorie counting IS crucial as you need to balance what is going into your body with the amount of activity you do to burn those calories. We are told by the diet gurus that calorie counting is really important in getting weight down initially and also in keeping it off. Each person has to decide how many calories are suitable for their own weight goals.
Dieting by counting calories means there are no forbidden foods - everything is allowed - as long as you eat less calories than you burn up each day you will see the weight come off. But you really have to know what is going inside your stomach and what your body is doing to burn those calories.
So, are the fast food chains really guilty when it comes to giving us too many calories and not even telling us what they are giving us ? A survey was carried out and found that up to a 30% of normal lunch items contained over 1,000 calories - that is half your daily amount of calories. When people were asked, if this information was readily available, they said they could not find it.
Now, I ask myself, are people at fast food eateries going to bother looking at these calorie charts ? Apparently yes, because another survey found that customers when they do have this information, then they use it and it does help them to make a smart choice about what they are going to eat. When this information was NOT available, then about 10% were miscalculating their calorie intake by about 600 and that is a lot.
When people go food shopping, the calorie information on the packaging is read carefully - about 75% of people surveyed said that they did that. As regards whether this determined if they bought the item or not, over 50% said that it was important in making that decision.
Many scentific bodies (Harvard University among them) have studied the Mediterranean Diet at length because the people of the Mediterranean basin have long enjoyed better health than many other nations. And it is not due to the sun ! Calorie counting is easier with this diet and there are a wide variety of recipes and foods to choose from.