Should restaurants be required to list calories and fat grams on their menus?

I think that restaurants should list calories and fat grams or as close to an upper bound of these two as possible. It is almost impossible to determine the exact quantity of fat or calories in a dish at a restaurant since food preparation can vary. It is also good to at least have these facts because of people on diets. Many people are so concerned about their diets that without an estimate about how bad they are eating, that the restaurant could lose business. Though certain meals may be weened out by this menu technique, restaurants could keep track of statistics to help eliminate meals that are not consumed after the addition of the nutritional information.

Obesity is a primary concern for millions of Americans these days and strict diets are popping up everywhere. Without restaurants being able to show the their nutritional information they may be helping to make this epidemic worse. Thus if restaurants weren't listing this information, it may curb some appetites. Without listing the information, people who are on diets may not end up spending any money at a particular restaurant because they do not know what they can eat. If everything is deep-fried and there are no healthy alternatives, people who are health-conscious may choose another restaurant resulting in loss of sales for the restaurant and furthermore loss of other potential customers. These potential customers may here from just one person that the food is not healthy and lose their appetite for that place. So in the interest of the restaurant, it may be best to show the information for people who are dieting.

Restaurants could also benefit from this move to include nutritional information. If they change their menu to include this information, they could start tallying what people eat and survey the customers to find which food is being eaten. With this information, restaurants could trim their menu and perhaps decrease the prices of other foods. Raw materials for certain dishes could be eliminated with this technique and the restaurant could save a few bucks and help boost sales by decreasing the prices of other menu items.

All in all, it is a tough decision. Restaurants should show the information for the benefit of people on strict diets and the for potential for increased sales. This will not be my decision to make, I think it is worth a try for businesses though.