AIBU to think this is ridiculous?

Is this another sledgehammer to crack a nut? I suspect that it is the high calorie fast foods that the powers that be are trying to highlight! It is not about calorific value of one meal but the overall quality of diet people experience. If you eat healthily for 8 out of 10 meals and have 2 that are richer in calories then not a huge problem. If it is the other way round then it is an issue.

I live on the Mediterranean and a few years ago attended several cooking demonstrations given by a local chef. The Mediterranean diet is lauded as one of the best in the world. So you can imagine my amazement at the amount of olive oil and sea salt that was used. Not once measured just poured from a huge bottle and the salt taken from a pot. The end result was delicious. I then understood why I found it difficult to replicate the food in my own kitchen.

I do agree with Maw. I want to enjoy my time dining out. If needs be have a starter or a desert perhaps not both. Just be careful of 'salads' we all know that the term is used very loosely these days.

Love good Good, really do not want to look at the calories. As a adult I will make up my own mind.
Typing this in a coffee shop and eaten to many calories and enjoyed it.

Given that a standard piece of homemade Victoria sponge cake (an 8th of the whole) weighs about 70g (I just weighed one), I'm wondering what a cake that contains 60g of sugar must weigh and thinking it must be quite a big cake or piece thereof

Yes baggs that’s the point. Muffins and cakes in Starbucks and similar places are massive, so knowing the sugar content (I’m more interested in that than calories) would help me to make an informed choice about whether to have one or not.

As for a Victoria sponge cake, a standard recipe would contain 6oz sugar, plus a bit more if you put jam in the middle. So say 200g for the whole cake.

If your portion is 1/8 cake, then you’re consuming 25g sugar in one go. Your Starbucks cake with 60g of sugar would be equivalent to about a third of your homemade cake.

Sugar is implicated in not only type 2 diabetes, but cardiovascular disease and dementia too.

I think it’s only fair that people who want to control their sugar intake should have access to relevant information in the same way that other people who control their diet for health reasons (gluten intolerance, lactose intolerance etc) do.

It’s nothing to do with spoiling other people’s enjoyment or dictating to them what they should eat.

i don't look at the calories in prepackaged food so i wouldn't look at any calory information on a menu either.
if i go out for a meal then i'm going out to enjoy myself and if it involves chips/fries and a creamy dessert then that's what it's all about!
my guy is a head chef and he has costing and serving sizes off to a tee - but calculating the calories in a particular dish would drive him crazy.

calculating the calories in a particular dish would drive him crazy.

It's actually not that difficult. There are programmes available for download where you just type in the ingredients of a meal and the quantities used then divide by the number of portions it yields and it prints off either/both the traffic light system of information or a nutritional value label. The latter will give you the calories as well as sugar content etc., per portion.

Any chef planning a menu would obviously save the information for future use. Usually, only the specials board is changed daily and those dishes will be made from ingredients in stock so it should be easy to access saved information.

Baggs you are right, I should have said the accompaniments.
My usual curry, sweet potato, chick pea and spinach is only 792 cal., my usual accompaniment of mango chutney, rice and garlic nan added a further 771 cal.
It certainly opened my eyes to how easy it is to underestimate what you are eating.

paddyann Mine was a general comment about the current ethos around food. I don’t have a problem with calorie, sugar and fat content put onto menus as such but I usually have a good idea of these things anyway

I'm just concerned with the price! No way I'm going to concern myself with calories! Never have and never will!

Can understand how this could be done in a chain restaurant eg McD's and that it might work as a deterrent but I would have thought it was impossible in a high end restaurant with all the little dabs of sauces/dressings etc. I eat out as a treat and don't want to feel guilty by having calorie content advertised - in any event could it even be made exact?

Great opportunity for the “let’s sue brigade”. If they sneaked a portion away, had it analysed and could prove it contained more/fewer calories than claimed.
In portion control places it might be easy but when I go out to eat, I anticipate that it will have more calories than a meal I might prepare at home.
If I choose something with a sauce, with anything fried, or made with butter or cream, I know it will have a lot of calories so if I choose it I shouldn’t complain.
However I’d love to see calorie lists on carvery menus where you get meat then help yourself to as many vegetables as you want. I think of some of the plates piled mountain high with roast potatoes and other veg which were floating in butter or cream sauce and think, “Would you get all that if there was a calorie list next to it?” (They probably would.)

My standard Victoria sponge recipe is 4, 4, 4, 4, janea. Four ounces each of butter, sugar, flour and egg. Four oz of sugar divided by 8 is half an ounce. Add a smear of jam and smear of icing.

The point, as you say, is portion size. I thought I had gathered from other posts of yours (perhaps some time ago now) that you were trying to avoid added sugar in your diet altogether, so I was a bit surprised that you would even look at Starbucks cakes ?

My approach is this: when I want a Starbucks coffee and a Starbucks cake, that's what I have. I don't find that I care about sugar content. Worry free treats are allowed in my life. This approach seems to have been harmless so far.

I think the main thing about the adding calorific content to menu items in eat-out-eries is that it won't make a blind bit of difference to the people it aims to make a difference to which, in my view, means it's probably going to be another glorious waste of time, energy and expence.

expense

I dont think it is neccessary to put calories on menus,
People go out to enjoy a meal are out to enjoy themselves, and i dont think an odd meal out would matter, not to me anyway,it would take the pleasure out of it

How can the truth ever hurt? I have long ago realised that when people say ‘ nasty’ as in, for example, ‘the nasty party’ they mean people telling unpalatable truths.

I think it is great that diners now know their pizza is often equal to about ninety per cent of the recommended daily intake.

Make better choices or forgo one meal/snack to overindulge on another.

Slight tangent, but the current popularity of cake is a cause for concern, given the obesity crisis and increase in type 2 diabetes.
Today I went to a coffee morning and the pressure to eat case was huge. ( I resisted). We have cake at every opportunity. Birthdays, someone leaving a job....
I wish there were some other treat as enjoyable but less damaging.
I would imagine that most people know which foods are “naughty but nice” , without needing to be told, but I am not convinced that a restaurant menu is the right place to give the calorie count.
I do like to see “light bites” on a menu though, and one pub I go to offers portions in two sizes, large and small, and not just for pensioners or children. I like that idea.

W'spoons have been doing this for years but what's wrong with using your common sense to suss out that anything with a sauce, lots of cheese, cake or ice-cream, fried or sauteed in butter etc etc, will inevitably be more calorific? There are descriptions of the meal on most menus, therefore you can calculate whether it's fattening or less so.
Do we need to be nannied?

You can always so NO to cake. Birthdays are once a year. You can choose a small slice or share with someone else.
I get somewhat annoyed when skimmed/lo-fat/half fat/dairy free etc are the only option to a foodstuff.
Low or no fat are often 'worse' for you than the real deal and have more sugar or other additives to enhance the taste.

I don't think it's being nannied. Nobody is being forced to follow any information on a menu but it might make you have second thoughts about a dish that's particularly high in calories if you want to add an extra course or have another glass of wine.

I think that nurses should take the advice handed out by the NHS.
Many of them (and paramedics and police) are massively overweight.

Not enough exercise nowadays. Children driven 200yds to school, sitting at home with playstayions or on social media, watching Sky, Netflix, eating ready meals, snacking. Even doing jigsaws, knitting, making jewellery or sedentary hobbies, mean that whatever you've eaten is not being burned off as energy.
I walk a lot and ride my bike for 5-8 miles every day in the early morning before breakfast but fortified with a cup of coffee.
It's invigorating.
Not everyone can do this but to shift weight you need to excercise beyond a leisurely pace or a bit of gardening.

Great idea as I would like to know myself but if I was going out for a meal it wouldn’t make any difference to what I order as like you say Petipois it’s a treat but would help me know how much I need to cut back the next day or how much exercise.

Would those who want to know the sugar content of a starbucks muffin or slice of cake, be prepared to pay more? How is it possible to accurately assess the sugar content of a chocolate chip or blueberry muffin when the amount of choc chips and blueberries in each cake vary? The amount of sugar in cream cheese frosting or buttercream and jam would be a nightmare to calculate.
Who will do this?

I eat out occasionally and I go out to enjoy myself. I want to eat what is nice, on the menu, not what is calorie free or low. I regularly eat slimming world menus, home cooked, not pre-packed, at home. A special meal should be special. A nice glass of wine, a lovely two or three course a la carte meal. This will do no harm, as I will return to my normal diet, the next day and until I make my next sojourn to a class restaurant/pub for my next soiree into decadence.
Sorry. life is too short to worry about counting calories on a night out. Enjoy the evening and repent for the next few days and then go out and enjoy yourself, again.

I intend to!

I was reading earlier today that the NHS want Cornish pasties to be made without pastry, the pastry to be replaced with pasta. I can`t see that going down too well in Cornwall, definitely not here, I and my family hate pasta.