The new federal menu mandate

As part of their effort to force Americans into preferred behavior, one of the surprises Pelosi had for restaurant owners was a new federal mandate to publish accurate calorie counts in menus for chains of 20 locations or more. I'm Ed Morrissey, senior correspondent at Hot Air, and I decided to investigate the effects that this federal menu mandate will have on consumers, restaurants, and the economy.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Obama
• ObamaCare
• restaurant
• calories
• Pelosi
• Davanni's

[Thisisnotmyrealname8]

UNCONSTITUTIONAL !

Anyone can find out the caloric content of what they eat. You can find such information on the internet and DO THE MATH yourself.

Vote out all Statist knumbskulls.

[swansontv]

How is this mandate Constitutional. In this example Davannis only has stores in MN. There is no interstate commerce and if there was it would still be a stretch of the interstate commerce clause.

I hope that conservatives seize the crisis that is Obama to roll back the federal power creep! Remember never waste a good crisis!

[bigvoodoo]

@LLORT3 What? Go back and read what I wrote. Then read what you wrote. bi-polar much?

[LLORT3]

@bigvoodoo

any company that must pay the full 30k to change its menus should go out of business. no american in their right mind would take their business to a company that doesn't know how to innovate with new technologies and knowledge of new diseases.

[bigvoodoo]

@LLORT3 - What an completely idiotic statement. What about the people making the rules? Shouldn't the rules they impose on businesses make freaking sense? This stupid rule is going to cost this small business 30 GRAND! And for what? Nothing! What if they make a rule that says they also have to print their menu in every language? You cool with that too moron?

[Jebusankel]

I think this is only telling one side of the story. The other side of the story is the cost savings in health care resulting from people making healthier lifestyle decisions. I really like this mandate because it makes for more informed consumers, which are requisite in a free market. There may not be a lot of people demanding it now, but that's because the expectation isn't there.

[raunchbear]

@kenschelper Every Pizza Hut and Dominoes I've been to has a take out menu so they'll certainly face these problems. Its really no different than burger places and their billions of possible combinations. Anyways, how is this to be enforced?

[kenschelper]

@raunchbear

Answer to question 4:

Pizza Hut and Domino's are predominantly delivery businesses and have virtually no eat-in restaurants anymore, hence no menu boards and printed menus. If they are forced to comply, they will likely do so on their web pages, something that we (because we have sit down restaurants won't be allowed to do).

[kenschelper]

@raunchbear

Answer to question 4:

Pizza Hut and Domino's are predominantly delivery businesses and have virtually no eat-in restaurants anymore, hence no menu boards and printed menus. If they are forced to comply, they will likely do so on their web pages, something that we (because we have sit down restaurants won't be allowed to do).

[kenschelper]

@raunchbear

Answer to question 4:

Pizza Hut and Domino's are predominantly delivery businesses and have virtually no eat-in restaurants anymore, hence no menu boards and printed menus. If they are forced to comply, they will likely do so on their web pages, something that we (because we have sit down restaurants won't be allowed to do).

[kenschelper]

@raunchbear

Answers to your questions:

The Health and Human Services Secretary (FDA) has been tasked with fleshing out this law. They will set the deadline for compliance as well as many other specifics such as size and font required for the calories, specific language required on the menus, allowable margin of error (for variations in preparation between cooks), etc. These details will largely determine how useful or useless the information is for consumers and how oppressive it will be.

[raunchbear]

1: Doesn't this take effect in a few years?

2: Aren't custom orders exempt?

3: Isn't it up to the FDA to make the details of how this will be implemented?

4: How will pizza hut handle this? They face the same problems and I doubt they'll sit back and go along with regulations that cost them 100 million dollars each time they use a different type of oregano.