Calorie Contempt

I read in the paper the other day that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) wants to make it law that all eating establishments put calorific content on their menus. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4245718/Restaurant-menus-to-calorie-information-under-Government-plans.html

With it being January, the world-renowned ‘New Year New Me’ month, I wasn’t sure how I felt about this idea. Don’t get me wrong. I am, of course on the ‘lose half my body weight’ diet like every woman (and one man) I’ve spoken to at the moment. Surely though, a diet is just day-to-day eating? Every day at work I will force myself to overlook the gooey goodness of a tuna melt and opt for salad and a cup of soup instead. Every afternoon at work, I will kidnap Jo on my venture to the vending machine (she helps enforce my will power to pick a banana over a bag of Maltesers). Every night after work I lose multiple minutes of my life at Waitrose scanning the calorie content of everything I pick up before putting it back, as its’ surplus to calorific requirements.

But, all that is OK, I can live with it, as it’s during the week, I’m supposed to be good then. The weekend is a whole other ball game, a yummy dough ball as it were. Whether it be Saturday or Friday, or both if I’m honest, I go out to eat and enjoy every bite of my starter main and dessert, and love that I can wash it down with a gorgeous glug of Pinot Grigio!

I do this safe in the naïve ‘I know no better’ state of mind. Because I don’t know any better, yes I can take a round about stab at how many calories a baked camembert, cranberry and rustic bread starter has, about 150, right? But I don’t know for certain, and this uncertainty leaves my dieting realms wide open to new and exciting possibilities!
If the calories were put there in black and white it would be too much to handle, I’d break into a cold sweat every time I was on a date! ‘ohmygod, if I order that its like 550 calories per portion, he’ll think I’m a pig!’ actually forget dating, every time I go out for dinner with my Mum I’d break into a cold sweat, a sharp intake of breath as I order the hot chocolate fudge cake with ice cream, the cost of therapy would be off the charts! And I bet restaurants would suffer. Once women could see exactly how many calories they’re inhaling on their one night off from the diet, eating out will become a thing of the past.

Of course on the other side of the calorie coin, it may be handy for that rare breed of person who has will power and would find calorie content on menus helpful…. I for one am not one of these, and will be registering my horror at this very idea over dinner tonight while I’m tucking into a plate of my favourite dish – Carbonara’s calorie free, right?