Roach in the box

I recently read about how municipalites and state governments are pushing to have the calorie content of menu items published next to the items themselves in chain restaurants and eventually all restaurants. I first wondered if this would really make anyone change their eating habits, but apparently at least one person has.

So I guess my real beef with this whole thing is that I feel like I am being herded like cattle. When I was in college, the combination of high calories and low price was what I was looking for. Since then, I have begun to yogurt up a little, but it has been easy to educate myself with the current tools available. Is the major retooling that this is going to require really worth all the time and effort? Will chefs have to give up their freedom and variety and make the "daily special" a thing of the past? I hate not knowing what is in my food as much as the next person, but won't this just make it worse? You are not requiring restaurants to teach nutrition, you are requiring them to post one variable of a lengthy equation. Furthermore, it's something that they can easily get around by putting crap like olestra back into our food again. I don't know the answers to these questions, but this is starting to make me hungry for some taco smell...