Does Anybody Still Think Hamburgers and Cigarettes are Good for Them?

I bought a packet of chewing gum yesterday (because that's the kind of dramatic, action packed life I lead). As my trembling fingers pawed away the plastic so that I could get at the slivers of sticky sweetness within I couldn't help noticing that a good portion of the packaging was taken up with nutritional information. Tell me, who exactly is interested in the nutritional content of chewing gum? By the time one plonks the packet on the counter I would venture to suggest that the nutritional arguments have already been fought. Frankly this habit of labelling anything one is even remotely likely to put into ones mouth with nutritional information is getting on my nerves. I'm pretty sure my toothpaste has nutritional information on it if I look hard enough.

There are some things where nutritional information is helpful and others where it is totally irrelevant. Fast food restaurants putting nutritional information on their food wrappers is just ridiculous. "This serving of deep fried fat and animal cutoffs contains 8oo% of your daily requirements of cholesterol building filth." I guess that makes me eight times as healthy as the person who decided to dine elsewhere. I ate at McDonalds yesterday (when will my crazy knockabout lifestyle end?) and the only thing that concerned me about the burger was the time it took to arrive. Twenty minutes for gods sake! I could feel my arteries unhardening. Anybody who walks into a fast food restaurant has already decided that nutrition can take care of itself. Don't get me started on the healthy options meals. McDonalds is the last place I would go to find healthy food. Actually its the last place I would go to find food. I go there when I'm short of time and I want to make my stomache shut up, or at least complain for a different reason. I am never going to eat a McDonalds salad; if I want salad I will go somewhere that serves salads not a burger joint reluctantly complying with the latest in idiotic food service regulations.

I grant you there are some places where nutritional labels are useful, on actual food for instance. It is not unknown for me to stand in the supermarket and carefully review the nutritional value of two similar foodstuffs before I finally decide in favour of the cheaper one. People with allergies probably find it helpful too. Other than that I really don't see the point. If we were to put nutritional information on everything we stick in our mouths then you would have to have labelling on cigarettes, pencils, pacifiers and toothpicks. Oh, and some people would need to get some very painful tattoos.

Our society seems to have gone nuts for labelling things. I will grant that there is some utility in labelling cigarette packets. It is entirely possible that some hermit who has been living in a cave for the last ninety years or so might decide to venture back into civilisation for long enough to buy a packet of cigarettes at the corner store. In such a case it would probably help inform his purchasing decision if he knew that said product was going to reduce both the quality and the extent of his few remaining years. Anybody born after about 1920 really doesn't have an excuse nor should they need labelling to inform them of the bleeding (or rather, wheezing) obvious.

Why do we do this? I suppose that since most of us act like idiots most of the time it is only fair that we be treated as such but lets keep it within the bounds of reason. Nutritional information on food; fine. Warning labels on cigarettes; somewhat unnecessary but I don't want that hermit's emphysema on my conscience so, also fine but apart from that lets give it a break. People are never going to grow up while they are treated like two year olds. Even stupid people don't deserve to be treated as if they are more stupid than they are. Unless the nutritional information on a pack of chewing gum is going to say something helpful like "may contain traces of cyanide" I really don't think I need to know.

Incidentally, the total nutritional content of that packet of gum? Two grams of sugar per stick. That's it, there was nothing else. My saliva has more nutritional value than that but don't tell anyone or I might be forced to put a label on it.