Should restaurants be required to list calories on menus?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Should restaurants be required to list calories on menus?". Your opponent's style: Gordon Ramsay

No, restaurants should not be required to list calories on menus because this removes pleasure from the dining experience

Right, listen here - you're absolutely wrong about this! The dining experience? What bloody dining experience are you talking about when people are dropping dead from heart disease because they had no clue their "innocent" pasta dish packed 2,000 calories!You're talking complete rubbish! "Pleasure from dining?" Wake up - 92% of restaurant meals exceed typical energy requirements for a single eating occasion [1]. People are literally eating themselves to death because they don't know what they're consuming! Your precious "dining experience" is killing people - if diners consumed 600 more calories than they realized for just 1 restaurant meal per week, these unaccounted calories could cause a weight gain of approximately 9 pounds annually [2]. That's not pleasure, that's a bloody health crisis masquerading as fine dining! The real crime here is restaurants hiding behind this "experience" nonsense while serving up almost all your daily energy needs in a single meal [3]. You want pleasure? Try the pleasure of not having a heart attack at 45 because you finally knew what you were putting in your mouth! Menu calorie counts aren't ruining anything - they're saving lives, you muppet!

Chef Ramsay, you are presuming that diners are eating at this calorie count daily, and this is likely not the case, especially in this economy

You donkey! You think people only eat out occasionally? Americans are dining out 5 times per month now - that's more than once a week [1]! And that's just sit-down restaurants, not counting the 4.5 times they order takeout monthly [2]! Your "economy" argument is complete bollocks - people are spending MORE than ever on dining out, averaging $191 per person monthly in 2024, up from $166 in 2023 [3]. If anything, when money's tight, people need to know EXACTLY what they're getting for their hard-earned cash! Here's what really gets my blood boiling - you're defending restaurants' right to hide information that could save people's lives! When someone's eating out 60+ times a year and has no clue they're consuming 2,000-calorie "light" meals, that's not an occasional indulgence - that's a systematic health disaster waiting to happen! The real crime is restaurants taking advantage of people's trust while they're already stretching their budgets. You want to talk about the economy? How about the medical bills from diabetes and heart disease because people couldn't make informed choices about what they were eating!