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Food labelling has arrived
SHOCKING news is on the way for fans of one of the world's most popular leisure activities: eating. Changes in US labelling laws means Asian branches of international restaurant chains are set to reveal to customers what they are actually putting into their mouths. They are not going to like it.
I mentioned this to a restaurant investor I know. He just shrugged "Logically, this should be bad for business." he replied, using his teeth to pick the meat off a roast leg of something or
other, probably his accountant. "On the other hand, we make up our own rules in Asia, so who knows?"
Sniffing a story, I headed to McDonald's at Hung Hom train station in Kowloon. There was no nutritional info on any menu boards or printed food lists. It seemed to be a false alarm.
I decided to stay for lunch.
Five minutes later, a stray breeze (or a sneeze from the swine flu sufferer at the next table) lifted the edge of the paper mat under my burger and fries. It was covered with tiny, faded marks.
Intrigued, I finished my meal and took the grease-stained sheet back to the office. It was a puzzle. McDonald's had managed to print the top of the sheet in full colour with large pictures of tempting foods urging you to eat more, but had oddly only managed to print the
text on the underside in tiny letters in light blue ink.
Using an electron microscope to increase the size of the text about 10,000 times, 1 could just about read it. Yes! It was the missing nutritional information I had been tipped off about.
After reading it, it was easy to see why they had made it so hard to decipher. The meal I had just eaten had more calories than a bus-full of deep-fried Texans. It could have fed Ethiopia for a week. I worked out that I wouldn't have to eat again until December. 2015.
Swallow two burgers in quick succession and you would explode. Even the little packet of salt was bad for you, having shockingly high sodium content.
I phoned the restaurant investor. "They have started providing nutritional information, and it's stunning
stuff," I told him. "A portion of large fries gives you the same amount of calories as eating a herd of wildebeest with full-fat mayo."
He wasn't worried. "Rules about eating are not interpreted the same on this side of the planet," he said. To prove his point, he emailed me some information about new food laws in Taiwan, in which vegetarian dishes have to be completely free of "meat, eggs, onions and garlic."
I called him back. "I don't get it," I said. "Since when have onions and garlic been types of meat?" He replied:" told you, this is Asia. We make up our own rules here.”
Can you imagine what fun a US lawyer would have in Taiwan? "our staff served my vegetarian client a dish containing a bit of onion and he has been
left traumatisd by nightmares of the suffering he has caused these innocent vegetables."
Bonappetit.
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