That would mean putting calorie counts up on the menu board, which would not seem to be asking much.
From the vantage point of the chain-restaurant industry, whose lobbyists and spokesmen were much in evidence, though, this seemed a mission impossible; "unworkable," intoned Patrick Conway.
He is the president of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, in from Harrisburg to argue that while he was certainly not in favor of more childhood obesity, he was very much against menu-boarding.
Besides, he testified, lots of restaurants already provide nutritional info - on "kiosks, posters, signs, brochures, tray liners, packaging, customized receipts, and restaurant Web sites."
In other words, everywhere but where it counts. Everywhere but at the time and point of purchase, up there next to the price on the board when you're trying to decide whether to order the Roasted Turkey & Swiss Frescata meal (1,100 calories) at Wendy's.
Providing calorie counts off the menu is like listing the speed limit only on the back of a traffic ticket, quipped Margot Wootan, a public health specialist with the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, who in any case, had come to town by regional rail.
You'd think that you could intuit the number of calories in your food order without resort to a menu board.
But you would be wrong.
Once upon a time, maybe. But things change: The adult serving of burger, fries and Coke that Mickey D's sold back in the '50s is nowadays what they call the kid's meal.
At some spots, the baby back ribs are lower-cal than the chicken tenders. And a crispy chicken sandwich can be higher-cal than the Whopper.
Eat two jelly doughnuts and you're better off calorie-wise than having the bagel with cream cheese.
It's a topsy-turvy world: Fish can be a worse bet than fowl.
Even trained dietitians can't tell what's up.
