So I was at the shops today and I felt like a muffin. Went to Muffin Break, and discovered they now have the kilojoule content of all their muffins posted. I discovered when I got home that apparently this is a new law in New South Wales – fast food retailers with 20 or more outlets must post kilojoule content of all their products in font no smaller than the prices.
Anyway, I was all prepared to grab a double chocolate muffin. But seeing those numbers on there made me stop. And think. And dither.
A single double chocolate muffin is 30% of the average adult daily recommended kilojoule intake. That’s insane!
I actually contemplated a Weight Watchers approved bran and something-or-other muffin instead. After a couple of minutes of uncertainty and soul-searching – a couple of minutes more than I intended to spend here – I eventually chose a lemon poppy-seed, which was only 24% of my kilojoules for the entire day.
Subway put up these kilojoule counts a few months ago, and since then I’ve steered well away from the meatball subs and the cheeses and sauces, and gone with the lean, mean choices. And now these signs are going to be appearing all over the place.
I think I’m going to be eating significantly less fast food in the future. And working out more. And you know, I’m glad this is going to make me eat healthier.
I don’t think just the energy in the food items make them healthy or unhealthy. It’s more of a matter of how much you overeat.
Of course, usually when eating those items with lots of kilojoules people don’t eat less something else – a muffin is just something extra. At least that is for me, and I wouldn’t eat 30% less of other things after eating one muffin…
Also, the kilojoules themselves seem nice. Food seems to be rated here in kilocalories and my engineer one-track mind finds that annoying.
Why kilojoules? Aren’t people generally more in tune with calories? Or is that just a North America thing?
Paul: Yes. The rest of the world is metric.
@ Paul – Not just an American thing; in Britain packaging displays both kilojoules and calories.
DMM, calories ARE metric. The energy required to raise one gram of water presently at 4° centigrade by one degree centrigrade.
Looks pretty metric to me.