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Calories on Menus: Are We Missing the Big Picture?
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England has recently made it the law that any restaurant or pub chain that employs over 250 people must place calories on menus. This has been welcomed by some and derided by others. After reading several articles online I thought that it would be a good idea to take a look at what the science says, and give my own opinion.
Calories on Menus
This podcast was incredibly tough to plan, as people justifiably have strong periods for and against calories on menus. When making any decision that can benefit one group of people and negatively affect another, you are going to inevitably piss people off. And I didn’t want to do that for the sake of a podcast.
I’m linking to the three studies that I mentioned here in case you want to read more on the subject. Perhaps you think that I came to the wrong conclusions?
Beer
This is the first podcast where I didn’t drink a beer during recording. One of the things that I’ve found is that drinking alcohol during a podcast can make me more reckless with how I communicate. This is not a discussion that would benefit from alcohol in my opinion, so I avoided it.
To be honest, it was a lot easier to do the podcast this way! But perhaps the chaos of beer-influenced talk is what people listen out for? Who knows.
Calories on Menus: Quick Note
As I said, I have tried to make this podcast as respectful as possible. I am no expert on eating disorders, but I am responding to the criticism of other non-experts, and I have been as objective as possible. My initial reaction to the news was much less nuanced than what you will hear on the podcast, which I hope goes to show that bias hasn’t affected my opinion.
But if I have got something catastrophically wrong, I’m sorry.
P.S. If you liked this type of podcast, then why not check out some of my articles? I try to throw science at commonly held nutritional beliefs, to varying degrees of success.
References
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5378635/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23760909/ [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22918176/About the Author Matt Smith
Matt Smith is the owner of Beer N Biceps. He has a degree in Sports Science, 10 years of experience working in the fitness industry, and has written for hundreds of fitness websites. He is a lover of good quality beer and believes that drinking in moderation can form part of a healthy lifestyle.
