Calorie counters go from preachin' to meddlin'

No doubt if you’ve gone to some fast-food places lately you’ve noticed on the menus they have the names of the items and the prices listed next to them, and now the calories. Thanks, Center for Science in the Public Interest!

I suppose for those following strict diets (but who probably wouldn’t be in a fast-food joint for anything other than coffee, water or unsweet tea since everything else has calories) this is good. They can hold up the line as they calculate the calorie count for a side salad, a yogurt and fries —no, scratch that, make it apple slices. (Again, what they heck are they doing in a fast-food place?)

Have we reached the point where people think they need to carefully weigh, measure, calculate the content and conduct a national poll before eating anything? Do these folks advocating calorie menus seriously think if you really want a double bacon cheeseburger with chili cheese fries and a large milkshake —to go —that having the calories for that combo is going to deter them into ordering the Yogi Bear special —fruit, nuts and berries?

I was reading a story about just how far this calorie menu thing is going. The Food and Drug Administration has adopted rules and still is ironing out some of them. Food chains —fast, slow, sit-down, stand-up, any with 20 or more locations —will have to list calories on their menus. Pizza chains are trying to get an exemption because they contend there are 34 million ways to order a pizza which would mean 34 million different calories counts. Seriously, that’s what the story said, so now you know there’s somebody out there thinking, “I wonder how long it would take to try 34 million different pizzas?” And he’s not thinking about calories.

Up next, grocery stores and convenience stores. Canned and packaged goods already have calorie labels. These rules would apply to those hot dogs tanning under the infrared lights, the rotisserie chickens and deep-fried corn on the cob. Once more, I doubt anyone eating deep-fried corn on the cob and tanned hot dogs is interested in the calorie counts, or will be deterred.

Then comes movie theaters, and they’ve gone from preachin’ to meddlin’. The FDA hasn’t decided if the calorie counts will be required at cinemas, but folks with the Center for Science in the Public Interest are pushing for it.

Through the years, the Center has denounced most everything from apple pie to alfalfa sprouts, from granola to grilled cheese, from Chinese food to Mexican food. It despises bacon in any size, shape or form. They may be healthy folks at the Center, and nice, but I’m not sure I’d want to sit down and drink a seaweed smoothie with them.

Back to movie theaters, the Center folks think people should know if their popcorn and drink are going to have a day’s worth of calories. Nope, don’t want to know. I want my popcorn and big orange drink while I’m watching a movie and I don’t care about the calories. Theater food is exempt from calories, especially my popcorn and big orange drink. That’s part of the fun of going to the movies. I refuse to watch a big-screen movie while munching on broccoli and celery and sipping tap water. That’s unAmerican.

I realize we should be a bit more responsible in what we eat. We should dine more on healthier fare than junk food and be a bit more conscious of what we’re eating. I’ve even found a way to oven “fry” dill pickles to eliminate the fat. But, people lived for years eating all kinds of food, good and “bad,” healthy and junk. They didn’t worry, they ate and worked and went about their lives, some of them never hearing about calories. Some were healthy, some weren’t, that’s life. When I want to know the calorie count, I’ll look for it. I don’t want it staring at me on the side of my popcorn bucket as the lights dim and the feature begins.