Nutritional Issues/Menu Labeling + Trans Fat Ban
SB 120 (Padilla-D) OPPOSE • AB 97 (Mendoza-D) OPPOSE
Bottom line message:
California is faced with proposals purporting to address Californians’ health and nutrition problems such as obesity and heart disease. Unfortunately, two of the bills (SB 120 (Padilla-D): Menu labeling and AB 97 (Mendoza-D): Trans fat ban) inappropriately place the responsibility, liability and duty for these problems and their respective solutions on restaurants. Doing this does not fully account for the reality and true causes of health and nutrition problems, recommendations by experts and the complexities associated with obesity or heart disease. Furthermore, the bills are unduly harsh on restaurants, costly, impractical and do not accomplish their intended goals.
Background:
Only about 25 percent of meals are consumed in restaurants; the remaining 75 percent of meals are consumed at home.
Health, heart disease, diabetes and obesity are all very complex issues that involve genetic and environmental factors. Health experts state that it is by reducing all fats (through diet and exercise) that these diseases are effectively reduced.
This year, the two bills introduced are:
SB 120 (Padilla) – Menu Labeling: Requires any restaurant that has the same trade name and a similar menu with nine other units in California, regardless of whether the restaurant owner owns less than 10 units themselves, to list the nutritional information (i.e., fat, trans fat, sodium, calories) of every standard menu item on their menu. If a restaurant only has a menu board, it will be required to list the calories of each standard item on the menu board and provide written information to customers with full nutritional information. This bill would exclude those menu items that are on the menu for less than six months.
AB 97 (Mendoza-D) - Trans fat ban: This bill would ban the use of trans fat in food establishments by 2009 and in bakeries by 2010. It imposes monetary penalties on those who are not in compliance.
Talking points:
Menu labeling
Menu labeling is not the solution to advance public health and fight obesity. Market realities in the food service market make implementation of this proposal impractical if not impossible.
The vast majority of meals are prepared in the home. That means the majority of people’s food staples are currently purchased at the grocery store and therefore already contain nutritional information. In the time since nutritional information has been mandated on packaged foods, there has been no decrease in obesity or health issues in California. In fact, there has been an increase. It does not, therefore, make sense to mandate that restaurants provide nutritional information as it presumably will not have any affect on obesity or public health.
The diversity of the food service industry is immense and this one-size-fits-all mandate will only punish the food service industry while creating more confusion and negative experiences for restaurant customers.
Nutritional content can vary significantly even for identical dishes, making it impossible to comply with the bill.
Providing all nutritional information is overwhelming and unrealistic.
Cost of compliance would be significant and could cause financial hardship. Associated costs would include printing, reprinting and analysis by a laboratory or professional for each menu item.
This proposal imposes significant liability upon food service establishments, especially since restaurants are often the targets of shakedown lawsuits.
This proposal would hamper innovation in restaurants as creativity in the kitchen will be discouraged. To meet the legal requirements of this bill, chefs and cooks will be motivated to measure ingredients and food items meticulously to ensure that a meal achieves compliance.
Rampant customized ordering renders nutritional information useless. Due to the diversity of California’s restaurant clientele, consumers often customize their orders. In fact, over 70 percent of orders in food service establishments are customized by the patron.
Trans fat ban
The government ban of artificial trans fat will not accomplish the goal of improving the overall health of Californians and takes a very narrow and misleading approach to a much larger health issue. Such a proposal ignores personal responsibility and the complexities and true causes of obesity and heart disease.
Removing artificial trans fats alone may result in people reverting back to oils containing saturated fats, which are also not good for you. Thus the health benefits of this ban is unclear.
The majority of meals are consumed at home and thus a ban does nothing about the vast majority of foods eaten.
Supply and cost of alternatives is a real problem; a government ban would only penalize those least able to obtain or afford alternatives to trans fat oils.
A government ban is unfairly detrimental to small mom-and-pop restaurants.
This is a slippery slope. Where does government intervention end? There are many products or ingredients that are arguably bad for you but a government ban is not the answer.
A government ban ignores the responsiveness of the industry and is not the only way to change industry practices.