16 June 2008

Calorie laws & growing pains

For any who may not know, there is a new law in NYC that requires "any eatery with over 15 locations nationwide to display calorie information on all food and beverages." There's been some controversy over it, but for the most part businesses seem to be slowly complying. I know it's going to take a while for all companies to transition into this and there will be growing pains, but check out this ridiculous image:

Dear Dunkin' Donuts. O Rly?

I took both of these pictures in Penn Station, in two different Dunkin' Donuts right next to each other. Let me caveat quickly: I'm a Dunkin' Donuts fan. I like their coffee, I like the strategy they took to bring themselves back into relevancy with people. But come on, it's not like they made a mistake and put the wrong donuts behind the wrong signs – these labels obviously had to get printed somewhere. Some of you might be thinking, "Duh, you twit, of course a chocolate glazed donut isn't 80 calories." But still, creepy. Chains are complying, but are they telling us the truth? Will there have to be auditing as a part of this law? hm.

EDIT | Thank you to all who picked this story up: Gothamist, Eater, Midtown Lunch and NY Magazine! I also have to thank my friend Meredith, who noticed the discrepancy in the first place & gave me the photo opportunity.

9 comments:

  1. i recently started my blog again. and i have an rss feed on all my favorite blogs (you being one). i am so happy to be catching-up with you in a small way again! :)

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  2. i wonder if the 80 calorie one was supposed to go in front of the chocolate glazed munchkins (or holes? are they munchkins or donut holes? i never remember). that could be the key to the mystery. then the fault lies with the dumb person who placed the sign incorrectly.

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  3. same thing by me in brooklyn. all the munchkins are 70-80 calories. There is one cinnamon donut thats 70 calories when the powder next to it is 310.

    bad sign placement.

    Although there were far less cinnamon donuts then their higher caloried cousins.

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  4. but if i did have the choice between an 80 calorie donut and a 340 calorie donut, you bet i would pick the sugary-sweet one! And that there are less of them available than the 80 calorie, per se, you can agree.

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  5. ha, what a pic, Maybe there are other other types of choc glazed donuts that do actually have 80 calories.

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  6. also interesting to notice is that the reduced fat blueberry muffins have more calories than the full fat ones.

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  7. Ah really? I bet it's because they added a ton more sugar to compensate for lost flavor. gross!

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  8. yea the 80 calories chocolate glazed sign should have went under the chocolate glazed munchkins. i always wince when i order my munchkins at 80 calories a pop but i order them just the same. yummm.

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