I cannot say that I was keen on New York City passing a law to force fast food restaurants to post the number of calories on the food items they sell. It struck me as a single state initiative that would cause of lot of bureaucratic difficulty for no very good reason.

Still, I am intrigued by the results, now that outlets have started to comply, and by the lesson that one’s instincts about which foods are calorie-rich are not always accurate.

A case in point: the Starbucks next to our office in Manhattan, which now has calorie labels on its cakes and pastries.

So, which one of these would you guess had the most calories and which the least?

1. A slice of marble cake with a chocolate swirl in it

2. A slice of banana nut loaf

3. A slice of lemon cake

The answer is 3. For the record, the first has 430 calories, the second 460 calories and the last 500 calories. Somehow, I was fooled by the fact that lemons sound healthy, and nuts and bananas natural, while chocolate sounds sinful.

Just goes to show. Mind you, I am still not sure that I favour the law.

May 7th, 2008 in Food and Drink | Permalink