Calories on restaurant menus to tackle obesity.

[Workingman]

Give me strength!

Do you check this loaf or that loaf for what's in every slice of bread? Do you meticulouusly weigh out every portion of breakfast cereal? Of course not. Do you look for calories on the label when you buy your cook-in sauce or ready meal? Do you even bother with the traffic lights? My guess is that most of us couldn't care less - we want X so we will buy X - job done.

This is a sop to be seen to be doing something. It is a waste of time.

Then we get the bleating froim the industry. It will cost £s thousand to implement and some will go bust. Rubbish! How big is the average menu - 30, 40 , 50 dishes? They have almost the same ingredients and one year to do this - a meal a week. About six years ago I downloaded a calorie count of some 15, 000 foods so I could easily do one meal an hour. To do it will cost sod all.

But regardless of that it is nonsense. The overwhelming majority of what many of us eat is not in restaurants, it comes from supermarkets, takeaways, and sandwich shops. We buy processed glop because we a) think it is cheap, b) it's easy, and c) we can't cook.

Obesity is a personal choice, sort of.

[miasmum]

Actually WM yes I do look at the traffic light labels

I look for fat content as much as calories though. I picked up an M&S steak pie that had 42gms of fat in it. That went straight back on the shelf. I am careful in the week and when I shop. When on holiday or eating out I have more or less what I like. But whereas on holiday Tim will happily have chips every night, I won't. He moans I don't let him have a pasty every day, and when we have a cream tea he has two scones I order one. Then when we look at the photos he goes, God I look fat. Yes, but why are you surprised?????

[Workingman]

Shell, I did say the majority.

Yes, a few of us check, but most of us look at the picture on the package and it's in the trolley.

Sadly Tim is more like most of us than you are. We just go for it. We don't look at the menu and think 'Hmm, 986 calories, I think I'll give that a miss'. We scronf it down and opt for the low-fat mayo with our pasty and chips later on. We know it makes sense.

We are bloody useless, and calories on menus will not change us one iota.

[Suff]

She'll, do you check the sugar content of the low fat products?

Fat cannot cause diabetes on its own. Sugar can and does.

Long untold story there. The last thing I look at is the fat content. With a BMI touching 40 the doctors were most disconcerted to find that my sugar tolerance was exactly normal and my cholesterol was within tolerance. Regardless of the fact I had been living on cheese omelettes for breakfast for the prior 3 months.

Recently my brother was put on the blood sugar diet by his doctor to fight obesity. Main focus? Sugar intake.

This is why I hate all this government interfering in things which are pretty obvious. If you are out for a meal, you are not calorie counting and it takes the government 5 decades to realise it has been putting out the wrong advice.

[Workingman]

If you are out for a meal, you are not calorie counting.

Exactly!

You are out for a meal, what you do for the rest of the (98%) of the time is more relevant... and you do not calorie count - do you? Be honest.

[Kaz]

The problem with this is that people who need to take notice probably won't, and those who don't need to lose weight because they already take care, are the only ones who will pay any attention.

[miasmum]

Exactly Kaz.

Suff I try to consider every option, but fat worries me because he has a history of heart disease in his family. His last diabetic blood check was good, which I will admit did surprise me, because he is perfect shape for diabetes, but so far has escaped, thankfully

[Suff]

Let me put it this way Kaz, if I am dieting I am not going to a restaurant.

The people who go to restaurants regularly either don't care or already have a good idea.

Nanny state is a waste of time.

Now, if you want to force McDonald's and burger King to put up notices saying "our food makes your clothes shink", I'm OK with that. Have to put them in very fast food place though including every chipper. Perhaps a midnight curfew on kebab and pizza shops too... Imagine the outcry

[Suff]

WM, honest truth, either I am dieting and I'm watching sugar or I am not and every beer is drunk with satisfaction.

The only thing I will not tolerate are sugared drinks, dieting or not. Although I am sad to say that since I found out that Coke Zero makes my feet hurt, my consumption of Zero drinks has fallen to almost nothing.

[TheOstrich]

I do casually look at calorie / fat / sugar content when shopping but I'm not fanatical about it, in the same way that I look at "Use By" dates but I'm not fanatical about them either.

WM, honest truth, either I am dieting and I'm watching sugar or I am not and every beer is drunk with satisfaction.

Gave me a wry smile, Suff. At my age, life is for living, not a prison sentence, so, as long as one is sensible ...

The next question, I guess - define "sensible".