Turning a blind eye to nutrition

Can forcing restaurants to put nutritional information on their menus help Americans make better eating choices?

Theoretically, yes. But the early evidence is discouraging.

Congress last year mandated that chain restaurants list calories and other nutrition information on their menus. That requirement hasn't yet taken effect, but a new study of one such effort found that listing calories, fat and sodium beside food choices at a Washington state taco chain for about a year resulted in . . . no significant change in the calories customers ordered.

The finding isn't definitive; the chain was already tagging healthier options with a special icon, so customers may have already known what was best.

But it's disappointing nonetheless, given that Suffolk County and New York City already have calorie-disclosure laws. Nassau had one but repealed it in favor of the pending federal law.

Forewarned is forearmed, yet the Seattle-area study suggests that disclosure alone may not lead to healthier choices. It's just hard to get folks to eat better, even when two-thirds of Americans are overweight - and most wish they weren't.

Still, disclosure makes sense. People are entitled to know what they are eating. And having to list calories may prod some chains into slimming down some of their worst calorie bombs out of sheer embarrassment. hN