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Food For Thought

Plans to tackle the prevalence of junk-food and increasing obesity in Irish society should be welcomed. But focusing purely on the calorie count is the wrong way to go about it.

Niall Stokes, 19 Apr 2012

There’s a number of reasons why this is a bad idea.

Anybody who knows anything about food and nutrition will tell you that the calorie content of a specific meal is not the real issue. Good nutrition comes down to a few very simple concepts. The first is that we should eat a balanced diet. The second is that we should not eat too much. The third is that we should avoid junk food. And the fourth is that we need to very carefully monitor our intake of sugar – because sugar has addictive qualities and the over consumption of sugar can lead to diabetes, the incidence of which has also been soaring in Ireland.

There is another problem with the Minister’s plan: the calorie count in particular foodstuffs is of concern to a lot of teenage girls and young women in particular for all the wrong reasons. Anorexia has also been on the increase, including among young men. And so to have the calorie count highlighted at every turn may in fact have no impact at all on people who eat too much, while putting even more pressure on those for whom not wanting to put on weight is already a dangerously unhealthy obsession.

How practical is it anyway for restaurants that are committed to producing great food? It may be relatively straightforward for a fast food chain to measure and tabulate the calorie count of the meals they sell. There, portions are strictly controlled. Every meal is the same. The menu is limited and formulaic. The ingredients are bought in bulk and over a period of months and even years the menu stays the same. It won’t cost them a lot.

Almost exactly the opposite is the case with restaurants where quality is of the essence. They will generally use whatever local ingredients are available. The menu can change from day to day. Portions can vary. And there are areas of imprecision, for example in relation to knowing how much energy is retained in the system from particular foodstuffs. And so it will be a labour intensive and costly process to calculate the calorie count of every dish, every day. As a result, if it is imposed, it will give a further competitive advantage, in terms of pricing, to treadmill restaurants over those that try to do things the right way, and who want to deliver really good, nutritious food.



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