Our collaboration began in a nutritionally correct neighborhood, Brooklyn’s Park Slope, whose celebrated food co-op has a mission statement to sell “organic, minimally processed and healthful foods.” I hit the streets with two questionnaires…Half of the 40 people surveyed were shown pictures of a meal consisting of an Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Salad and a 20-ounce cup of regular Pepsi. (You can see it for yourself at TierneyLab.) On average, they estimated that the meal contained 1,011 calories, which was a little high. The meal actually contained 934 calories — 714 from the salad and 220 from the drink. The other half of the Park Slopers were shown the same salad and drink plus two Fortt’s crackers prominently labeled “Trans Fat Free.” The crackers added 100 calories to the meal, bringing it to 1,034 calories, but their presence skewed people’s estimates in the opposite direction. The average estimate for the whole meal was only 835 calories — 199 calories less than the actual calorie count, and 176 calories less than the average estimate by the other group for the same meal without crackers.

You know what's rich (besides, apparently, those Fortt's crackers)? The French Doctor who helped Tierney conduct the experiment then turns around and accuses Americans of being joyless fatties who are nonetheless obsessed with nutrition. “Being French, I don’t have any problem with people enjoying lots of foods,” says the Frog. “Europeans obsess less about nutrition but know what a reasonable portion size is and when they have had too much food, so they’re not as biased by food and diet fads and are healthier. Too many Americans believe that to lose weight, what you eat matters more than how much you eat. It’s the country where people are the best informed about food and enjoy it the least.”

Health Halo Can Hide the Calories [NY Times]

“'More and more, people are looking at calories in, and calories out,'” one shrink tells The Times. Here in New York, we kind of have no choice but to look at them: chains have to post the calorie content of each item in plain sight. Last month, California became the first to require the calorie counts statewide, while variations on the mandate are sweeping the nation; two proposals currently before congress would make posting calorie content a nationwide law. At customers' request, Starbucks has added "nutritional guardrails" for each item. Coke and M&Ms will soon list calorie content on the wrappers.

"Public health officials acknowledge that people rarely change their eating habits overnight, and that there is a lot more to good nutrition than simply counting calories. Still, they are trying to make sure consumers stay calorie conscious. Just to hammer the point home, the New York City health department earlier this month put signs inside subway cars pointing out that most people need only about 2,000 calories a day."

Well, does it work? Hard to say. Apparently, the New Yorkers polled were surprised by the calorie content of their favorite treats, and obviously some elementary notion of nutrition is not a bad thing. Then too, apparently the practice has led some places, like Starbucks, to reduce their portion sizes — never a bad thing. Yes, people obviously need to lose weight; but even in this piece The Times refers to this drastic measure as a "Hail Mary" by desperate public health officials trying to halt the spread of diabetes and obesity. While I certainly believe hearts are firmly planted in the right place here, my concern is that such policies could do as much harm as good. The article quotes a young woman who works at Chipotle (which under NYC law discloses calories): "The customers talking calories, she said, are mostly women, and mostly slimmer older women. Men, especially the younger ones, just ask for everything, and often ask her to double the portions."

Look, I'm not surprised some people gravitate towards calorie-counting, and even that they've demanded places like Starbucks do the math for them. Formulas and numbers comfort people, but they are also an easy way to develop compulsive attitudes towards food. The times in my life when I counted calories were not my happiest, nor my healthiest: I may have eaten fewer calories, but I also smoked more and lost a lot of the pleasure in good food that I think keeps me healthy now. Anxiety and guilt are as likely to be the product of such paternalistic practices as are thoughtful choices. (I should say that my boyfriend, thin and cheap, was delighted to see how many calories a Dunkin' Donuts bagel and cream cheese had: "so much more energy for my money!")

You shouldn't be not eating Starbucks baked goods because they're calorie-laden; rather, you shouldn't do it because the banana bread has the texture of sawdust and the glazed donut tastes like Play-doh smells. I'm skeptical of the canonization of French women, but I do think this sort of nonsense would be greeted with heavy skepticism in any reasonable Parisian boulangerie, if only because it so officiously interferes with the sacrosanct pleasures of eating. In fact, lately I avoid these places not out of guilt but because the calorie count makes me anxious and I start to get that unhealthy twinge of "numbers over nutrition" thinking. There is a wonderful Iris Murdoch quote: "Every meal should be a treat and one ought to bless every day which brings with it a good digestion and the precious gift of hunger." Amen.

Calories Do Count [New York Times]