An Arrogant Cert

[darkstar965]

I had several pretty strong reactions to this piece in yesterday's NY Times about an entrepreneur with a new "healthy" certification for food-service establishments. Most of all though, the arrogance of it amazes me given the implication that this approach and this cert are The Answer. I was glad to see Daniel Bouloud and Eric Ripert quoted and less sure. And, of course, the creator's musing about his hoped-for McDonalds payday tells you most of what you'd need to know. Can just imagine what culinary leaders like the Armstrongs, Frank Ruta or even Spike Gjerde would say about this.

Sigh, imho, there are no singular, silver bullet, easy answers. Some generally good and largely accepted principles. The best is to be informed and recognize that we're all different with different dna, different needs, different challenges and different solutions.

[KMango]

The increasingly calorie-conscious and sustainability-minded me likes the certification idea, however....

This needs to be a mobile app, tailorable to various attributes (fat, calories, sodium, whatever is the priority for the user). That way, people who care could have the info at their fingertips, rather than (a.) blasting the rest of the diners with symbols or signals they find useless and (b.) burdening businesses with print and other production costs.

Certs and rigourous independent third party testing are good. Assuming everyone wants to consume such info is not.

Tweak the model to be an app, maybe an ongoing subscription choice, I'll listen to you.

Paste it on every menu and take away my right to avoid such data, I'll punch you.