Have we really convinced ourselves that printing a number on a menu is going to undo decades of engineered cravings? Look, I get the appeal. Knowledge feels powerful. But this isn't transparency, it’s a cheap placebo that lets politicians feel righteous while fast food chains hire the same lab scientists to make those 900-calorie burritos taste irresistible. People don't walk into McDonald's to make informed decisions; they go because they're tired, busy, and their brain is screaming for salt and fat. A number won't change that. It'll just add a line of fine print to a transaction that was never about logic in the first place.

Picture a parent in the drive-thru at 6:15 p.m., kids screaming, ten minutes to get to soccer practice. A little number next to the double cheeseburger isn't sparking dietary enlightenment—it's just adding math homework to an already fried brain. And Meanmachine, sure, some people are calorie-conscious. But those are the folks already pulling out their phones to check nutrition online. The ones this law targets aren't eating because they're mindful; they're eating because they're exhausted. Studies keep showing menu labels barely move orders. You're not handing people information—you're handing them guilt with their fries, plus a compliance bill for everyone.

Remember New York City's menu labeling law? Researchers followed it for years and found basically no change in what people ordered. That's the real-world example: we tried this, and the numbers just became background noise. Meanmachine, you're hoping guilt will shock people into healthier choices. But the ones eating fast food daily already know it's not health food. They're not lacking information—they're lacking time, money, and options. Adding a number doesn't make a 6 p.m. drive-thru suddenly rational. It just gives exhausted parents another thing to ignore while their kids scream. You're selling a sticker as a solution to a structural problem.

Transparency only sounds noble until you realize the velvet rope was never locked. Nobody’s hiding the calories; you can already find them on the chain’s website in ten seconds. The people who want that info already have it. The people who don’t want it won't read a menu label any more than they read the warning label on a cigarette pack. You say it’s about not withholding information. Fine—but adding a number to a dollar menu won't make the food less cheap, less fast, or less engineered to be irresistible. It just gives politicians a photo op while the drive-thru line gets slightly longer. That’s not a solution; it’s a sticker.

The FDA itself estimated mandatory menu labeling would cost the industry over a billion dollars a year, and the studies still show it barely changes what anyone orders. So when you ask "why not add it?"—because a billion-dollar sticker that doesn't work isn't harmless, it's a tax passed straight to the customer. And for people struggling with eating disorders, that number is a trigger, not a tool. You're right that it won't change choices. That's precisely the problem. It's not transparency; it's a very expensive, very useless disclaimer.