On our way to chipotle the other day for lunch, a coworker mentioned some recent legislation being passed in New York “requiring restaurants with standard portions that make caloric information publicly available also post the information on menus, where consumers can see it when they order.” A possible response is that companies will stop presenting this sort of information publicly. According to the article, Wendy’s “still offers nutritional information online, with a note to New Yorkers. … ‘We have served notice to New Yorkers that the information isn’t for them,’ Lynch said.

We recoiled at the idea of ‘locale-sniffing’ to prevent New Yorkers from accessing specific online content, saddened at the possible ramifications of this legislation. Potentially, now no one will have access to this information.

I initially assumed this was an ADA issue, similar to the target lawsuit wherein users with disabilities are not able to access the same information. It could also be related to socio-economic status and the ability to access the Internet, although my coworker argued that the ability to access a library would likely not be any more difficult than accessing the fast food restaurant in question.

The article, however, seems to promote this for another reason. They want users to have access to the information as they order. I had already wondered if the Subway napkins would suffice, but since you would have already received your meal by the time you saw a napkin, I suppose not.

(Can you tell there was a long line at chipotle?)

We then started questioning the logistics of the request. So what comprises a “menu”? Was it a list of items, with prices? If there were no prices, would it still be a menu? What if the user had to pick and choose and individualize their meal? This lead me to think about “suggestions” for meals — again, like Subway. You select items to put on your sandwich, but are a list of ingredients really a menu? What if a company gave out ’suggestion cards’ of popular combinations (ah, the marketing, you could collect them!) — if there was a single item per card, that’s not really a menu, is it? [Note, I did see in the article that this legislation applies to restaurants with standard portions, so "build your own" places may actually be exempt due to a lack of standarization]
And then the part of the brain that makes us coders kicked in.. What if rather than a list (<ul>), you represented all of the options to the user at once, like a tag cloud? You could size the options according to their individually popularity, but not restrict users to standard offerings.

For the record, I don’t believe that Chipotle themselves advertise their nutritional information, but you can find it at chipotlefan.com. My regular fare weighs in at a hefty 1020 calories, but even that knowledge doesn’t stop me from indulging now and then…

Chipotle Nutrition Facts Serving Size: 1 Burrito Amount Per Serving Calories 1020 Calories from Fat 370 % DV* Total Fat 41g Saturated Fat 11.5g Cholesterol 30mg Sodium 3125mg Total Carbohydrate 134g Dietary Fiber 15.5g Sugars 5g Protein 33g Vitamin A 59% Vitamin C 54% Calcium 46% Iron 30%