Gridneo

You're a corporate shill, that's obvious, and you're trying to justify the behavior of a company that cares more about its bottom line than peoples' health.

Change the damn menus. Your lies are uncovered, so just do it already. It's obvious that you can't win.

Buran

synergy

dantsea

Also, for those that say that if you don't like it, don't eat there--for me, this is more about a public health and education issue. People who care about this sort of thing already aren't the ones we need to worry about.

And I didn't know a small fries was as many calories as a burger. I'm pretty nutrition-conscious, but I don't have this stuff memorized.

jendaviswilson

dvdchris

Look, the basic issue here is health related. I want to know (within reasonable limits) what I'm eating and I want my children to know as well. I'm going to suggest to my local lawmakers both at a city and a state level that this NYC law is worthy of adoption.

With the health issues we have in America combined with a Health Care system that's poor at best we each need to start accepting some of the responsibility involved in our own health. To me that means making educated choices about diet, exercise, alcohol and tobacco to name a few.

I've quit smoking and joined a gym. I eat at home more so that I can have better control over what goes into my body. When I do eat out I want to make informed decisions. If Wendy's (or McDonald's or any other QSR) doesn't help me do that then I'll pick places that do.

SeattleGuy

SaraAB87

vladthepaler

silverlining

"At Wendy's®, we're unrivaled in our passion for giving people what they want - and uncompromising in giving people what they deserve."

HEY WENDY'S--WE WANT CALORIE DISCLOSURE ON YOUR MENUS.

(Or Wendy's has apparently decided the public doesn't deserve to know that they're eating a 1500 calorie sandwich ;) )

silverlining

Charles Duffy

[www.nutritiondata.com]

hustler

@Beerad: No, it's not just you. I think the assumption is everyone should already know what is and isn't bad for you and if it's bad you should never eat it. You aren't supposed to consider whether cake A has less fat or calories than cake B because CAKE IS BAD, DON'T EAT IT STUPID FAT PERSON!!1!ONE

I can only assume these people subsist on a diet of just vegetables and water.

Rectilinear Propagation

The chain is called "Know Fat" and it's a low-fat and healthier alternative to fast food (i.e. french fries are cooked in vegetable oil and burgers are less greasy)

When you get your receipt with all your food that you bought on it, the receipt has the calorie listing for each item that you bought and totals the calories next to your price total.

I think it's genius!

p.s. I can't remember or not but I think they had the calories on their menu as well....

metalhaze

FLConsumer

Karl

Does this look -- or sound -- like we have something to hide?

dennyl

No WONDER you're sad!

acambras

I've been trying to find the exact wording of 81.50 Health Code Regulation, but haven't been able to. Anyone can help me out with that? I ask because Wendy's states, "[H]owever, since most of our food is made-to-order, there isn't enough room on our existing menu boards to comply with the regulation."

If you look at the PDF, you'll understand their concern if the regulation says (and as I said, I don't know) they have to list every derivation of their menu. They do make their food fresh. There's no binning like at McDonald's or Burger King. You order a double cheeseburger, and they make it when you order it. They have their "standard toppings" but it's not like McDonald's where your "special order" or "grill order" screws up the whole clockwork. They make their sandwiches to order.

As I said in my previous post, then, why does everyone hate Wendy's when they've been providing the information for years and years, while there's no requirement that the Russian Tea Room provide the caloric content (or suffering content) of their foi gras?

balthisar

Huh? Letters to the court? What kind of jackassery is this?

Anyway, watch the law of unintended consequences rear it's ugly head: due to NYC's nanny-state regulation, the rest of us our losing our opportunity to really find out what's in that food as restaurants strip nutritional information off their WEBSITES.

Sure, the market (and hopefully, the ballot box) will eventually sort this out - if consumers want the information badly enough, they'll demand it - but in the meantime, NYC's paternalistic attitude is having repercussions on the rest of us.

MikeWas

suburbancowboy

Despite those drinks having huge amounts of calories, most people also don't realize the calorie count (among other things) in their morning lattes.

Schmee

As others have noted, it lets you easily make trade-offs and if you're already vacillating between two items, it's easier to choose the lower calorie one.

formergr

formergr

Yummy food that isn't full of fat and sugar is expensive.

TechnoDestructo

I've got to side with Wendy's and the other protesters. It has nothing to do with consumers and everything to do with free speech and the ability to conduct business. Equal protection ought to apply to artificial persons as well as natural persons.

balthisar

ThePlaz

Answer to follow.

bedofnails

A Big Mac: 540 calories. 45 grams of fat which equals to a yummy 9.484 TEASPOONS of fat! That along with 1040 mg or salt. Maybe the salt is meant to soak up all that fat. Imagine just going into your kitchen, getting down the bottle of coooking oil and try choking down almost 9 1/2 teaspoons of the oil right out of the bottle! That is what we are getting with a Big Mac!

Medium Fries: 380 calories. 20 grams of fat which comes out to 4.215 teaspoons of fat. Don't forget to add the 220 mg. of salt they contain on top of the salt you will surely add to the fries.

And to wash it all down a Medium Coke. Forgot to check the calories but it comes in with a whopping 58 grams of sugar which equals 12.223 teaspoons of sugar! So while you are putting away that bottle of cooking oil just grab the bag of sugar and try eating a bit over 12 teaspoons of sugar. By the way it has 15 mg of salt in it also!

With just the fat alone that comes to 13.699 TEASPOONS of fat and 1275 mg of sodium in one meal! I didn't even bother adding the sugar that is included in the fries and Big Mac but with just the Coke alone it was 12.223 teaspoons!

SkyeBlue

What? No, it's just me? Okay, never mind.

Beerad

Sure I can go to the website and see how much everything has, but when I'm running into Wendy's after a long day of working, how do you expect me to figure out what I want then find a computer online and compare it to everything else on the menu, it just isn't feasible. If they have it right on the menu, I can compare everything right there as I'm choosing my order.

Darkest Daze

SadSam

Some fat fuck is going to skip the Double Douche Burger because it says 1200 next to it? Nanny State says YES!!1

Black Bellamy

shch

@dbeahn: The USDA recommendations are for a 200 Calorie diet. Some people need more, some need less. I'd hope most people need more so they have the energy to run around.

He

ExGC

doctor_cos

orangesauce

myrights

If you went to McDonald's and had one hamburger, a small order of fries, and a 12 oz. coke, that's only 610 calories. That's a reasonable dinner for an average person. Why don't people eat that? Because they sell it as a kid's meal, and there's no counter balance calories to compare.

Do you know the difference between getting a sandwich with cheese and without? How about how many more calories a plain Quarter Pounder is than a Cheeseburger? Or a Cheesburger with fries vs. a Quarter Pounder without fries? Should people at a restaurant of ANY kind have to do more research than they put in in buying a car?

Places like McDonald's are all but coming out and saying they're making food for impoverished minorities (Twista, anyone?). When they do that, I think it's not out of the question to ask for them to make the math a bit easier.

It may not seem like much, but even cutting 100 calories a day can be the difference between gaining a pound a month and not. And since these companies make the food, is it too much to ask for them not to hide their nutritional info?

What always cheeses me off about the "take responsibility"argument is that there's always one group taking advantage of another group's weakness, then saying that same group should suck it up and work harder. That's like an adult baiting a kid into an argument and then saying the kid should know better. Where's the responsibility of these companies not to make business models based upon other people's ignorance?

Flynn

BACONATOR RULES.

Ok Im done.

iamthor

It's a great idea, but in order to make sure people see it BEFORE they order (or in any meaningful way), you'd have to completely redesign the cash registers. Some already have nice displays (like newer drive thru's), but most are old school dot matrix-y displays. For it to work, you'd have to display it on a screen, and that means major equipment expenses. I'm all for it, but I think the companies would have a legitimate complaint about unreasonable costs.

Perhaps they could mandate that all new chains had to adhere, but then you'd start seeing places resist upgrading their registers...

What would be really cool is if you had a kiosk where you did your order, so you could noodle around a bit, seeing what changes do what (w/ mayo, without, etc).

Flynn

Personally, i always knew that fast food was bad for me. But the reality was that I had no idea how bad until I was informed of the nutritional content.

As a direct result of this information, I have decreased my fast food intake from two times per week to two times per month. And that makes a difference.

bluegus32

Consumer: And how many calories does that sandwich have?
Wendy's cashier: 340
Consumer: Oh. And how many calories do those fries have?
Wendy's cashier: 210.
Consumer: Oh. And how many…
Angry person in line behind consumer: Lady, just order your lunch and get on with it!
Consumer: Well, if they'd put this stuff on the menu I wouldn't have to ask. And how many calories…

cmac

ptkdude

VulcanMike

It's one thing to have some vague knowledge somewhere in your brain that "this is bad for me". It's another to have to look at the number of calories right there when you're placing your order and thing "HOLY SHIT! That value meal really IS a great deal - it's 3 DAYS worth of calories, all in one meal!"

dbeahn

Buran

frogpelt

sandwich_pants

Of course it's not their fault. Because if they admitted it was, THEY WOULD HAVE TO ADMIT THEY ARE LYING WHEN THEY CLAIM THEY CAN'T GET THE JOB DONE.

They don't want to let anyone else do it for them, either, because they don't want their sales to tank.

I'm so sick of this "it's not my fault" culture.

Wendy's, you suck and I'm not going to patronize you until you get a backbone and own up to your lies.

Buran

Don't be tricked. Instead of buying a Wendy's value meal, spend the same amount of money at the grocery store and feed 3 times the people.

lincolnparadox

Now, I think it can be a bit ridiculous to have exact numbers on the menu but why not add the calories for the standard item, it's better than nothing and everyone knows extra cheese == extra calories.

An in-store kiosk could be good, but presents a fairly substantial cost.

Overall, I think that if you are concerned about calories, etc. then you should be able to obtain it from the website. I suppose that discriminates against those with no Internet access, but then, wouldn't paying for Internet access be a wiser financial decision than buying the Baconator?

LTS!

skitchparks

How far do we have to go to remove personal responsibility in all aspects of life?

sleze69

B

French fries have so many carbs in them that diabetics and others suffering from hypoglycemia will buy a bag to stave off the attack ... the fries work better, since they convert to glucose slowly over the course of an hour.

Want a healthy meal at Wendys? Ditch the sugared soda and fries. Order a salad, an Orange Juice, and the Baconator ... and ditch the bun.

kbarrett

Notice that Subway at least makes a concerted effort to get some factual information to their customers. Even though there really are myriad ways you can have a subway sandwich, they are still providing estimates of the nutritional content based on the supplies they have available.

Rey

sonichghog

I wonder if the law allows that? If it doesn't, it should..that would at least allow consumers a place to start from, even if calorie counts had to be approximated.

Grrrrrrrrr

night_sky

@rbf2000: I'm sure the profitablity of french fries and soda is stratospheric compared to other menu items.

Grrrrrrrrr

You have yours without black olives and I keep them on mine, do they still have the same calories.

Does a wendys burger without pickles and tomatoes have the same caloires as one with them?

sonichghog

We all know they're charging signifigantly more for that extra product than it cost them, at least severalfold. So, yeah, higher calories sandwich equals higher gross profit and higher profit margin on that sale. As such, seeing the calorie counts would very likely dissuade a good number of customers from buying those higher-calorie, higher-cost, higher-profit sandwiches.

Sidecutter

Seems pretty transparent and morally reprehensible to me.

bluegus32

Great idea, but nobody would ever do it. :(

AlteredBeast

So I ordered the "Baconator"...which feels about as healthy when you eat it as it sounds. I've been working to adjust my diet, and the occasional "treat" like that would easily be detered by having the calories listed on the menu.

I wish it DID have that info, as I felt like crap after eatting that. I would have been better off in many ways if I ordered a salad (which I'm sure has more calories than I realize, too).

AlteredBeast

raybury

That's the only reason I can think that these restaurants would want to prevent people from being able to easily identify the nutritional information.

rbf2000

ptkdude