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Should we Display Calories on Restaurant Menus?
Let’s talk about calories: what they are; whether we ought to know more about them; and whether they belong on a restaurant or cafe menu.
In an attempt to curb a rising trend of obesity, the UK government has just expressed a demand for the display of calories on the menus of cafes and restaurants with over 250 employees. This idea is one that has recently proven to be quite popular among the general public. Do remember though, Brexit and Donald Trump were also popular…
In this post, let’s think about the matter of calories on restaurant menus, and delve a little deeper into why this is probably a bad idea.
What is a calorie?
Putting to one side your mum’s Facebook post-sharing about calories being measurements of deliciousness, or about them being small creatures that sew your clothes tighter as you sleep, let’s look at the facts.
A calorie is a unit of measurement used to measure energy, or more specifically, heat. When talking about food, we are referring to what are technically known as kilocalories (displayed as kcal on labels and packaging) though we still refer to them simply as calories. We use the calorie measurement to decipher how much energy is in the food and drink that we consume, relative to how much energy our bodies use in our…
