Will the list include the ingredient contributed by the punk kid who spits on your burger? Because of such inexactitude I eat at home.

You've hit the key issue - it's discriminatory. To provide this info at Nick's, you'd have to publish a separate volume. Jeff Cogen is a complete idiot and clearly doesn't understand what a "right" is. I'm no lawyer (thank God) but I wonder if the restaurants affected have standing to sue for unequal treatment.

I know that two fast food giants (Mickey D's and Jack in the Box) list all their nutritional information on their websites. I don't think it would be a stretch for them to have it displayed in their restaurants. The small mom and pop places would have it more difficult...they tend to alter their menus depending on seasons, food availability, or daily specials.

If a restaurant is offering a consistent, mass-produced menu - like the major chains do - then compiling and publishing nutritional info is not a huge burden, especially when the burden is spread across many outlets. If a restaurant is inconsistent in portion sizes or suppliers or menus, then compiling and publishing nutritional info would be a big burden. So making such a law fair is all about where to draw the line. (Well, that and the degree of accuracy required. Within 10% seems fine to me.)

As I recall, NYC's recent implementation of this idea has it apply to chain restaurants with 15 or more outlets. That seems like a pretty reasonable place to start until one can see how it works.

(As for the idea itself? Hell yeah! It puts information in the hands of the end user, who can then make more informed choices... good or bad. Nothing wrong with that.)

Coming from a family that has a child with Type I diabetes, it would be EXTREMELY useful to have nutritional information available from restaurants. There are restaurants which we simply can not go to because estimating carbohydrate values is so difficult. Even restaurants which purport to have the information available frequently do not. There is no good reason to exempt local restaurants. Software is easily available which will generate the nutritional information based on a list of ingredients.

I would rather know all the ingredients used in each dish (also good for consideration of allergies and certain dietary restrictions). My BIG problem with this level of micro-regulation is the new opportunity it gives lawyers and plaintiffs to pick the big pockets. Imagine the payout in a class-action consumer fraud suit brought against some fast-food place that calculated the calories at 500 per burger when it was actually 600? Cha-ching!

What next? Customers must sign a statement swearing they have read this calorie info and still intend on ingesting the food?
People know damn good and well what they are eating and don't care. What a useless Nanny State law. Everyone knows fettucini alfredo is fattening. Fried chicken? Duh! Loaded baked potato? Please. People...don't...care. Someone would have to be living on Mars to to have some clue about calorie content.
Anyone who really is concerned can look the info up online or get a calorie count paperback.

I'm in favor of it.

There's a website called The Daily Plate that I have been using to look up restaurant food nutritional info, and the day I learned that a chicken burrito at Chipotle had 1200 calories was the day I stopped eating that.

So, if I can obtain the info right in the restaurant, I think that's a public service.

I recognize that they will have to figure out how to work in the nutritional info into a menu, and that there is fear it will become too cluttered, or that it will scare people away from eating their favorite fatty foods, but I'm sure that they can figure this out, especially the large chains with large marketing budgets.

And if I want to eat a bacon cheeseburger from Jack in the Box, I can do it, but be more aware of how it's fitting into my nutritional scheme.

That's my two cents about it.

Another foolish and intrusive nanny-state effort by people who can't seem to accomplish their core mission--roads, bridges, police protection--but they need to feel like they're "doing something". If you want to eat healthy, get off your lazy ass and cook your own meals using natural ingredients, high fiber, lots of fruits and vegetables, and nothing processed. I could write more, but then Tensk would call me a LIAR and the other guy would call me a fool, and it won't make any difference anyway, and at least my square is now in play in Bingo.

Bob W

On the original Bingo card.

Those local sustainable burrito cart burritos have more calories then a healthy person should eat in an entire day!

Everyone knows MickeyD's is unhealthy. The corner bistro with their $9 tofu burger with artichoke hearts and hummus is the real misleading culprit.

Anyone who really is concerned can look the info up online or get a calorie count paperback.

As long as the info is that readily available, I agree that that's enough.
I also think the ingredient list should be easily accessible.

MultCo should worry more about protecting us from freakin' criminals than from ourselves.

Burgerville already provides this information on request for their entire menu, without any legal prompting. It's obviously not that hard for even a smallish chain to comply as long as they have a consistent menu.

It would be a lot harder for a small restaurant to do it, particularly when the menu changes frequently with daily specials and such.

Just remember folks, Cogan, Wheeler and company are the same people that can't fugure out how to open the Wapato Jail or fix the Sellwood Bridge. But they can find money for eco-roofs and enforcing calorie counting menus at local fast food places.

I think Multnomah Country should require that food must look like the advertising pictures, too. See http://www.thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm

As long as we're at it. I think everyone using public restrooms should be required to wear latex gloves and shoe coverings. Portland could charge 20 cents for the gloves, because they would quickly choke our landfills. For those who are allergic to latex, plastic bags would be provided or you could bring your own fabric gloves.

Never too much for our safety. Oh, and about helmets...

A basic requirement in the success of "Three Card Monty" is to make sure the rube is distracted by any new movement

The basic problem is the structure of the Multnomah County Government and its Commission.

The chair, Wheeler, is the only member of the commission with administrative responsiblity. He is the manager of all the departments. The other four are legislators only. They don't do any other work and they don't manage anything.

So these four people have nothing to fill their time each day other than think up new laws and ordinances to impose on us. That's their job. If they don't come up with stuff, it looks like they aren't doing anything. They are, after all, paid a full time salary and are expected to spend their full time on the job.

Those positions, with the exception of the chair, should probably be part time positions. They should act like a board of directors... come in a couple times a month, make sure the chair is doing his job and the money is being spent wisely. Then go home and pursue other interests.

The Oregon legislature displays the same problem. Legislators legislate. If they can't come up with any good legislation, they will come up with bad legislation just to prove they're doing something.

"I know that two fast food giants (Mickey D's and Jack in the Box) list all their nutritional information on their websites. I don't think it would be a stretch for them to have it displayed in their restaurants."

If you look in McDs the information is displayed where the public can read it already.

I have no idea what Mult Cty end purpose is, but if it is to discourage visits to McDs, it ain't working.

"What a useless Nanny State law."

But it's not a nanny state thing at all. It does absolutely nothing to direct consumers to choose (nor providers to supply) one thing over another... it simply ensures the information necessary for people to make informed choices is made available in more situations. It's much more libertarian than a real nanny state trans-fat ban.

Power to the people, man! [raises fist holding cheeseburger]

I second John Fairplay's sentiment that Commissioner Jeff Cogen is an idiot. But most folks now running our city and county are idiots. But as my mom was prone to say, "it could be worse."

P.S. One observation:
Guilt really sells well in this town & state. You got the idiot Oregonian echoing the idiots running the government about how guilty we should all feel about having worked hard all our lives so that we might one day enjoy a comfortable, prosperous life. Yet the people selling the guilt are making money off the same government in the form of grants and jobs. People selling the guilt trips are in it for the money. For example, activists standing on the street corner chiding passerbys to contribute to saving the Polar Bear are being paid to do so by organizations receiving government grants. That's the real news the Oregonian should be reporting.

Anyone in favor of boycotting the Oregonian for a month? I still want the classifieds but I just as well listen to cityhall than read the Oregonian opinions.

It's a great idea!

The big chains spend tens of millions of dollars to market and brand their products. The chains constantly bombard consumers with enticing images and "specials" to move their products. Even the layouts are scientifically designed to put you into sensory overload, the sizzle of the grill, the aroma of fries wafting through the air as you stand at the counter. More often than not, they hit their mark. And I'm ordering the biggest, juiciest looking meal deal, and super-sizing it for just a few pennies more.

Why not give the consumer a fighting chance? At least if the caloric info is readily available as I'm glancing through the menu, I've got the opportunity to engage my brain before I place my order. Sure it's available on the web, but waiting til I get home to look it up is too late. Damage done.

The marketplace is already signaling that it's a good thing. As some chain's are already doing it.

I think the reason they are so willing to disclose, even without prompting is they know their customers aren't there to have a healthy meal. Just some quick calories. Damn there goes that lawsuit blaming fast food for making people fat.

Sure, "informed decisions". So restaurants tack on the calorie lists, but for 8 ounce servings. But we all order the 20 ounce servings. Now Multnomah Co will require math classes be provided by all chains because who can calculate the calories with a 8/20 math split? It is a Nanny County.

Alan DeWitt, if you think this measure is "libertarian", then I think you don't know what "libertarian" means. The fact that they didn't do something even more onerous and ridiculous doesn't make this onerous and ridiculous measure somehow "libertarian." I think Dave Lister hit the nail on the head.

He wrote "more libertarian"

I care less about the calorie counts and the fat grams than I do the cleanliness of the kitchen, the food storage/handling practices, and how government responds when there's a norovirus/hepatitis/salmonella outbreak.

Government (in general) does a lousy job inspecting restaurants: how about better enforcement of existing law, and fewer nanny-state innovations?

Anybody eat the P.F. Changs at Bridgeport in the last few days? AUTHENIC Mongolian cuisine, just like in the old country: heh, heh. {editorial note: I'm not blaming the Democrats for third world food borne illness}...

http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2008/08/articles/norovirus/norovirus-sickens-31-customers-and-10-employees-at-pf-changs-in-oregon/

I'll bet those long lines aren't going to be a problem tonight.

"Why not give the consumer a fighting chance? At least if the caloric info is readily available as I'm glancing through the menu,"

Puh-leeze, we inundate people with messages about good nutrition and they know fried/fatty/salty food is no good and they still walk into McD. Now you tell me a calorie chart is gonna stop them?

"So restaurants tack on the calorie lists, but for 8 ounce servings."

You'd hope they'd be required to treat one purchase as one serving. Either that or to offer an 8 ounce price as well. :-)

As for the libertarian statement, it's a scale:

|------------------------------------+------------------------------------|
Libertarian..............^........................................Authoritarian

What we're talking about here is, I judge, about at the caret. It doesn't force any individual to do anything, although it does force some businesses to implement a regulation that is a minor burden to them. (Of course you may not agree with my assessment, and that's fine.) The term that's recently come into vogue for this sort of thing is - I kid you not - soft paternalism. Horrible name, but not all that horrible a concept: steer people to make "better" choices without any coercion.

Alan, this regulation is a burden on these businesses (and therefore is anti-libertarian). I don't know anything about you or what your business is, but I can tell you that most of the people who make (or support) regulations like this and assert that they are a "minor" burden on the businesses they are regulating don't know jack about the operations of the businesses they are regulating (or the challenges the businesses face). Sometimes issues are important enough that they justify regulation of businesses or individuals (such as--probably everyone would agree-- restaurant cleanliness), but stuff like this does not.

Wow...do people REALLY go to fast-food joints assuming they are getting nutritional food? If you go to some place like Carl's Jr, and dont know that the giant burger, large fry and bucket of soda has a high calorie content...you need to thumped with a tack hammer.

Now, what is the next step? Are they going to make us submit our family menus to them for review? What if we have neighbors over? Do we have to provide them with a "calorie card?"