Legislators: Get Out of Our Business—Get Out of the Kitchen!

“I’m their chef, not their dietitian,” was a quote from Chef Anthony Bourdain at a meeting I recently attended. He was responding to a question about his use of butter and cream from an individual who knew he was a classic French Chef (shame on them).

This occurrence really plays to my frustration with legislators regulating our industry with menu board nutritional mandates, dictating where fast food restaurants can or cannot be built and blaming foodservice operators for our nation’s increasingly obese population.

Compliance to misdirected legislation on menu board nutritional information is opening the door to lawsuits nationwide. There was a recent lawsuit by a patron who ordered a Weight Watcher meal at an Applebee’s and had it analyzed to ensure it matched the posted (mandated) nutritional information, and of course (as predicted), they did not match up.

Forced posting of nutritional information on menus demonstrates a total lack of the government’s understanding of the foodservice industry. It is nearly impossible for every order to yield nutritional content exactly as posted due to a variety of reasons. Building a dish using anything other than 100% pre-portioned ingredients pretty much guarantees deviations from nutritional content posted.

I have faith that when Applebee’s menu developers created and analyzed the Weight Watcher meal for inclusion on the menu, it was done with honesty and integrity, not with the idea that a random patron would be bent on proving it incorrect in order to profit. Enter the chef or line cook building the dish for that particular patron and factor in variation and creativity. I’m assuming that with good intentions he or she may have added a little more dressing, sautéed it in a little more oil, added just a little more cheese, or made the portion a little bigger, all which make the dish a little better. The cook took pride in creating a wonderful dish; the customer took the operation to court. I have the feeling we are going to see more of the same coming soon.

The legislators that are getting into our business are the same folks who decided that the Senate dining room should change the name of French Fries to “Freedom Fries” after 9/11 (not realizing that french (small “f”) refers to the cut-style, not the country), that foie gras should be outlawed in Chicago and that parents aren’t responsible for their kids’ obesity.

Done Venting

Posted by Mike Gordon