Burgerville and Calories

This was kind of surprising...a restaurant chain called Burgerville is apparently going to be adding calorie counts to the receipt of the customer's orders.

The story appears here.

The story also criticizes the fact that the only way to know what the order's calorie count comes to is to order, then look at the receipt. The restaurant apparently says it's a side effect of the way their business is structured; you can pick and choose whatever combination of goodies you want on the burger.

I went to the website; I wanted to find out where there was a Burgerville since I never heard of them, and I wanted to see what their website was like. I learned that they are only in Washington state (okay, guess that's why I never heard of them) and that their website does have nutrition information.

All I can figure is that this is about the menus in the restaurants, as obviously they have nutrition information on the website. People must be able to go in and customize everything up the wazoo, so they're putting information on labels.

Personally, I think this is great. I don't like the idea of putting calories and nutrition right on the menu. I believe in making them available for people, but I don't want Johnny Public to stand there and drool on themselves, staring at the options and deciphering if it's a price or a calorie count on the list, changing his mind because maybe he shouldn't go with something with quite that many calories or because the fat is a little high, while I'm waiting behind them and know what I want to order. Look it up.

Most places do have the information. It's not rocket science.

Shoving it down people's throats isn't the answer.

Putting this information on the website, then adding it as a customized list on your receipt for you to glance at while shoving your burger down your gullet is a wonderful addon because it removes friction...the issue of waiting for Jimmy the Twit in line taking three times longer to order while people behind him actually already have their minds made up...and because it educates after the fact.

Quick thought: if you want healthy, don't eat out. I'm sure it's not always the case if you really try, but c'mon...sodium counts? Calories? Fried food most of the time? Don't. Eat. Out. If you're going to eat out and are concerned, go to the company website and look for nutrition information. Download and print the menu. If they won't tell you (APPLEBEES) then don't go there.

If you want to make it a cause, email their customer support and tell them why you won't be going to their restaurants.

But please don't mandate something that makes slow fast food lines even slower because people can't be bothered to educate themselves. I'm all for making information available; it's not like when I say the "information is available" that you have to dedicate hours of research or years getting a nutrition science degree. It takes a few minutes of searching a website to get it. Some restaurants take the next step and offer it printed in their facilities.

When the information can be reasonably found with reasonable effort, I think that's pretty good. Don't make it so idiot proof that idiots are holding up the people that actually do their homework.

What do you think?