Nanny State In Montgomery County

Montgomery County, Maryland, is considering a law that would require food chains to post nutritional information about their food. In terms of its intrusion into people’s lives, this obviously isn’t that big. But it’s darn annoying and unfair to small business.

The big fast food chains like McDonald’s and Burger King already post nutrition information on their websites. (Links lead to nutrition pamphlets.) McDonald’s, in fact, prints nutrition information on nearly all food packaging. Since the proposed law applies to eating places with 10 or more locations, it might impose a substantial food laboratory bill on many smaller chains.

And, of course, the information isn’t that useful anyway: Thanks to modern semi-automated kitchens, fast food chains now produce most orders on demand. Chipotle, a former McDonald’s subsidiary, has run adds touting the more-than-a-million combinations of its ingredients. And, when I’m eating at Morton’s I’d just as soon not know the calorie counts anyway.