Too Much Junk Food?
Last week, an article in Macleans, a Canadian weekly news magazine, caught my eyes: “Despite alarming rates of obesity in Canada, you won’t see calorie counts on menu boards any time soon. Unlike the U.S., there’s just no political will for it.” According to one of the doctors quoted in the article who supports better nutritional information in Canadian restaurant, “When we go shopping for things we look at price tags before we buy them so we can determine whether they’re worth it to us. When we eat things, the currency of our weight is calories.”
This makes a lot of sense to me. Yet, as a former French, I can’t help wondering why such debate is even taking place.
Unlike in France, eating in North America is not just a daily task that involves commonsense and balance. It involves resisting the temptation of “cheap and fast foods” and getting used to split these giant food portions in two (doggy bag, anyone?). And yes, it requires reading labels.
You won’t find any nutritional information on products in France. I guess it doesn’t matter that much because most people follow a commonsense diet, or at least try to: eat more veggies than Nutella, nibble on bread but go easy on the mayonnaise, enjoy some dessert but a small portion of it. But in North America, a lot of restaurants offer super-fatty dishes.
Let’s consider that most people need around 2,000 calories a day. Can you believe a friggin’ carrot cake is 820 calories at Denny’s? That the Chocolate Chip Cookie Sundae is 1,660 calories at Applebee’s? At 500 calories, it makes McDonald’s large French fries look like a healthy meal!
Some comments below MacLeans’ article pointed out that that people should be smart enough to know that eating in fast-food joins everyday and drinking Coke constantly is not good for them. In short, yes, I agree. But it’s not that easy. Plenty of foods we think are “healthy”, that are even sometimes marketed as such, have an appealing nutritional content. Point in case, soups: for instance, Kelsey’s French onion soup is 450 calories, and at Dennys, the broccoli soup is 375 calories – this is three times more than any soup I eat at home.
Like the article explains, estimating calories in a meal isn’t always intuitive. What do you think is “healthier” at first glance: vegetarian Pad Thai noodles or fish & chips? Well, apparently, at Casey’s, the fish & chips is 330 calories, while the Thai noodles 740 calories. You can be truly shocked learning how many calories are in some seemingly innocuous food. I’m sorry, but something as simple as a cookie shouldn’t be as much as 1,000 calories, half of one’s recommended diet.
Now of course, people are free to eat whatever they want. Hell, it’s not like I’m a model myself: I love chocolate, I could eat pasta every day and life without bread would look plain to me. Yet, I had no problem cutting some food from my diet when I learn how “bad” they were. For instance, I learned that almost all bakery items at Starbucks sound healthy (oat bar, carrot cake, scone…) but they average 200 – 600 calories, way more than I expected. How did I learn that? Well, thanks to nutritional information posted.
Now, here is a question to ponder: how do these restaurants come out with these kinds of foods, and why?
Why do fancy coffees come topped with four inches of whipped cream and syrup? Why do burgers come with two, three even four beef patties, with bacon strings in between? Why do croissants need to be dipped in chocolate and cinnamon? Why are pasta dishes in restaurants often dripping oil? Some will argue it tastes better but honestly, do we really need that many “adds-on” to enjoy a meal?
I honestly can’t think of a single good reason to not make restaurants post nutritional information. Unless they don’t want us to know what we eat…?
Related articles:
- The Land Of Plenty
- Fast Food, Junk Food (4÷10)
- Things I Love/ Hate About Canadian Food
- Food in South-East Asia
- The Sweets, The Fat And The Scale
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Food
A very interesting post, but how to comment? You know I’m from Norway and even hate fast food — so I understand non of this things of food in numbers! Is this because we are so fare from nature and mankind origin, that we have forgotten why we eat: to get what we need of vitamins, proteins etc. and even more: Don’t know what food contains because it changed from the natural stuff to fast pre-made?
Since you mention France (then Europe), let me give you a story: I was in Rome (Italy) once — and you know they have great food traditions too. There was a lot of charming and nice restaurant in an old district with narrow streets climbing up a hill. After a lovely meal at one of them, back to the hotel, I passed a McDonald — well that wasn’t the worst, but there was even people inside eating? ( hope I make sense in this!)
Btw dear blog friend: Sorry for being absent for a while. Of course I could have written a lot of excuses, but I guess the most important is to assure you I haven’t forgot you (and do appreciate all you’re nice comments on mine)!
Yes eating is a tricky business. I admit to buying my lunch a bit too often in the afternoon time. A result of a lot of stress and bad planning, however we are quite good about making breakfast and dinner ourselves and as you have seen in countless of Rennys posts (on my cooking!) we make them like the French out of fresh seasonal ingredients. Clean fish, new carrots, fresh potatoes, and if there is fat (and there usually is) it is coming from cream or virgin olive oil. I believe the best is to use good ingredients. However I am in favor of labeling fast food because many do fall into that trap, from time to time or a little too often, and it can help us make an intellegent choice, of maybe just maybe when we see that those fries are 500 calories we think, maybe I will just pick up a yogurt instead!!!
Yes, Renny and I are making the rounds tonight and yes we were discussing you <3
Not sure about Canada, but in the US, the extra large (or supersize) soda (soft drink) offered in fast food outlets really shocked me.
I think it is OK to eat all those stuff. Just mind the portion.
I think the root of the problem, which you touched on a bit, is that, at least in the US, a lot of people don’t cook at all or only rarely. It’s much healthier to make fresh food yourself at home and control how much fat and salt go into it rather than just going out to eat at a restaurant, buying something from the cafeteria at lunch, or getting one of those frozen meals. It’s certainly much easier to have someone else cook for you and most people are so busy and stressed that they don’t have time to cook, but it’s definitely not as healthy!
And as for why we need things like super sugary pastries and huge hamburgers, it’s because they taste good! In moderation, of course.