New York City : Health Watch

Calorie Counts Coming to City Fast Food Spots

BuzzEditor — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:22:00 GMT

The New York City Department of Health has made another move to force fast food purveyors to provide honest health information up front.

After an earlier set of rules was struck down by a federal judge, the DoH regrouped and yesterday passed new provisions that require any chain operating at least 15 outlets nationwide to put calorie counts on menus and anywhere else customers might pick their food from.

These new regulations are being put in place to help combat the ongoing obesity epidemic. As the notice of adoption (PDF) points out, in "New York City, obesity prevalence has increased by more than 70% in the past decade. More than half (54%) of New York City adults are overweight or obese, and 1 in every 5 adults is obese; 43% of elementary school children are overweight or obese."

The DoH argues that the fight against fat needs to fall squarely on establishments as even trained professionals often have trouble estimating caloric content. A recent poll found that only 11% of adults could correctly identify which of the four breakfast choices from Denny’s Restaurants had the fewest calories and which of the four menu items from McDonald’s had the most calories.

Of course, many restaurants aren't happy about the new rules (about 10% of the city's restaurants will be affected). Displaying nutritional information may be embarrassing for some chains (Burger King, for instance, may not like explaining why their cheeseburger has only 330 calories while the Whopper Junior with cheese has 410 calories and the Triple Whopper with cheese has 1,230). The DoH is hoping that rather than risk humiliation, many chains will retool or even drop menu items.

Though it is unlikely that this fight is over, assuming the new provisions aren't challenged again by a group like the New York State Restaurant Association, which sued the last time, they are set to go into effect March 31.

Vermin Video Instigated Increase in Closures

BuzzEditor — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:42:00 GMT

Since a video of rats scampering around a KFC/Taco Bell the day after a health inspection surfaced last February, rats in restaurants has become a hot topic (and not in the Pixar/Disney sense). Now new numbers show that at least New York's Department of Health has taken the scandal to heart.

The New York Post has crunched the DOH numbers and found that "25.2 percent of the 28,955 eateries inspected in the 2007 fiscal year, which ended June 30, failed their initial exams. A year earlier, the failure rate was 19.9 percent." Just as significant, 48 percent of those cases involved what inspectors called "signs of active rats."

Increased rodent awareness training for inspectors is thought to have contributed to the jump in citations, though the bump in closures hasn't stopped intrepid TV crews from filming the vermin in situ.

Calorie Counts Not Required

BuzzEditor — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:38:00 GMT

New York's restaurant industry won a victory in court yesterday when a federal judge ruled that the city's fast food restaurants may not be forced to list nutritional information on their menu boards. For now.

Judge Richard Holwell found in favor of the New York State Restaurant Association, which had sued the New York City Department of Health over a regulation dating to last December requiring fast-food restaurants who already made their nutritional information available elsewhere to post it on menu boards.

The judge found that the new rule went beyond a 1990 federal regulation that already required the disclosure of nutritional information and therefore is preempted by federal law.

The Health Department is expected come back and try to get the labels posted again. "We are confident that calorie labeling can be legally mandated by the City and will help New Yorkers be better informed and make healthier choices,” said the Department in a statement.

Don't Just Eat Locally, Eat Sensibly

BuzzEditor — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:48:00 GMT

How do you conserve food miles?

Let us know on the Zagat Discussion boards!

“Food miles” (the distance that your food has traveled before consumption) has become a hot topic as the threat of global warming has loomed larger. But is this the right thing to focus on? New research in now emerging arguing that while food miles can be worth noting, they miss the whole story. An op-ed in the New York Times by James E. McWilliams brings this to light thanks to a study from Lincoln University in New Zealand: Instead of just counting the miles from production to your plate, the researchers counted everything they could put a number to, and got some surprising results:

Most notably, they found that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. Similar figures were found for dairy products and fruit.

So maybe the key isn’t necessarily only eating locally, but eating carefully and asking the right questions about how the food was produced. Nobody ever said eating environmentally would be easy!

Fast Food Slow To Drop Trans Fat?

BuzzEditor — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:29:00 GMT

A little over a month since New York City's trans fat ban went into effect restaurants have been quickly figuring out how to deal with the new requirements, some better then others. Specifically, it seems that some fast food restaurants are having trouble getting their food into shape. To prove this, a new study from the Center for Science in the Public Interest released yesterday found that Burger King and Wendy's are still serving french fries chock full of trans fat:

In mid-July, CSPI purchased large orders of fries from five different McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s outlets in Manhattan and had an independent laboratory analyze them. McDonald’s had the least trans fat (0.2 grams per serving). Wendy’s had 3.7 grams per serving, and Burger King had 3.3 grams per serving (though Wendy’s serving size was 25-percent larger than Burger King’s).

While shady, those numbers are still actually legal. According to the law, restaurants are required to use oil containing less than .5 grams of trans fats but are free to sell food with much more. That loophole closes July 1st, 2008, when restaurants must begin to guarantee food with less than .5 grams of trans fat per serving.

To learn more about trans fats and the city's new guidelines, visit www.notransfatnyc.org.

83% of NYC Restaurants Now Using Trans-Fat-Free Frying Oils

BuzzEditor — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 15:56:00 GMT

More than 80 percent of city restaurants have switched to trans-fat-free frying oils, according to a recent Health Department survey. As of July 1st, NYC eateries – from fast-food joints to temples of haute cuisine – can no longer use partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, shortenings or margarines for frying and spreading if they contain more than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving. The ban will extend to baked goods and prepared foods starting July 1st, 2008.

In a statement, Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said the results of the study "confirms that the switch is feasible." The city has set up a Trans Fat Help Center to assist restaurants with the transition; for more information, visit www.notransfatnyc.org.

See the Department of Health Press Release