The headline screamed, or perhaps whispered: “Fast Food Chains Display Fat Content” This story from yesterday’s Reuters news wire notes that many fast-food restaurant chains already provide their customers with comprehensive nutrition information. McDonald’s and Burger King, writes Reuters’ Vivian Chu, “have long disclosed the nutritional content of their meals on their Web sites, as well as on posters and brochures available in stores.” The newer, hipper Ranch*1 “lists the calories of its food on its napkins,” and Subway “is doing the same.”
Someone should tell Samuel Hirsch. The obesity lawyer and his portly client, Caesar Barber, sued four fast-food chains last week (McDonald’s and Burger king topped the list). Their lawsuit’s central claim? That “the Defendants failed to warn” consumers “of the quantity and levels of fat, salt, sugar, and cholesterol content” in their food.
Apparently a 3-by-4-foot poster describing the nutritional content of every conceivable menu offering isn’t enough for some people. The misnamed Center for Science in the Public Interest’s president, Michael Jacobson, complained to Reuters that “the posters are a mass of numbers, and they’re very inconvenient to read.”
