So what if it's only an average? That would still be useful information. You'd know the ballpark estimate of the kcals in the dish, at least. I think you're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, there.

I'd be happy with an average. We live in a litigious society, however, and I could foresee lawsuit and government pressure on restaurants owing to some plates having more fat and calories than the others.

I am all for calorie labeling even if it's just a caloric "range." It was damn hard to lose 40 pounds and I really want to keep it off. Because I'm a small woman I can only eat approximately 1,700 calories a day without gaining weight. So I'd really like to make sure I'm not blowing my entire caloric "wad" for the day just by ordering salmon with miso glaze.

Somehow we have lost sight of the fact people don't eat out every night. It's a special occurrence when we actually throw away consideration of things like cost, calories, and health benefits.

Thats a generalization, and an inaccurate one to boot. I may eat out as many as 10 times a week depending on how busy I am. I love to cook & am pretty good at it, but the time and energy often are not there. I would prefer not to have unhealthy garbage place in front of me when I go out.

If you're really careful, you can eat at fast food places regularly and probably do alright. But it negates the things that drive people to fast food to begin with: cost (less unhealthy items are rarely on the dollar menu) and convenience (you have to seek out the healthy items and verify their healthiness). So we're in basic agreement.

But the attitude changes are two-fold. It's not just choosing McDonald's over Jack in the Box. It's eating less when you go there, which while not healthy isn't as unhealthy. I'm no an uneducated and I ate a whopping $1,200 calorie breakfast for a year. Now I eat fast food breakfasts once a week (and with a smaller helping). The signs aren't to credit for all of that, but the reinforcing of how bad that stuff is (even though I always knew it was bad, it's simply different when there is a number value assigned).

Of course, I'm not an uneducated individual. And I'm married to an MD. So what works for me and my friends, who are usually educated and sometimes also MDs or married to them, may not work for people outside my demographic. Fair enough. But I don't think that negates any value to the law. Obesity may correlate inversely with education and wealth, but it's far from absolute. I guess I'm not seeing the downside here.

Somehow we have lost sight of the fact people don't eat out every night.

That's really dependent on who you are, where you live, and what kind of lifestyle your job allows you to have. I know people in NYC who probably have never used the kitchens in their cramped apartments. They eat out all the time, mostly because they know they'd be wasting groceries if they purchased them. Diners in NYC have the pluses of restaurants staying open much later and a wide variety of delivery options available to them, so much so that the prices, generally speaking, aren't prohibitive.

Some of this also rests on your definition of eating out. Is it merely going to Burger King or is it a formal, sit down, white tablecloth experience (or Applebees)?

Also, we're restricting this to chains, not Mom and Pop joints or nice, stand alone one-offs. So, if you walk into say, Per Se, in NYC, you're not going to see calories next to the mind blowing prices.

Obesity is inversely assoicated with household income. The whole notion that calorie reporting from a chain located only in high end retail areas is odd. Its the quintisential merlot democrat complaining about his choices and then reflecting them on a society that is entirely alien.

It's not the lack of information about calories, it's the lack of knowledge how to cook. It's not our love of food, it's the convenience of fast food when you're tired at the end of the day. It's also the cost and expense of fresh produce, which one can partly blame on government agriculture subsidies.

That may describe you, but it does not describe a lot of diners. My wife and I ate out all the time. And of course put on weight, of course. Eating out is a really easy habit to get into. When we moved up here, we stopped eating out so much. But it took relocating to an entirely different city to break us out of our bad habits. Nutritional posting, however, might have reinforced the point and gotten us to eat out less frequently

Our current city posts nutritional content. A lot of people that were against the idea have changed their mind. Before, they thought "like anybody thinks eating a Big Mac is healthy!" but afterwards were thinking things like "I knew it was bad, but didn't know it was that bad" and "Who knew there was such a difference between food at Jack-in-the-Box and McDonald's?"

On a sidenote, the measurements for Jack and McDonald's have closed considerably over the last couple months. This could be an argument for (Jack had to make their sandwiches healthier!) or against (they're juking the stats!).