Change is afoot in the food industry.  In addition to other sweeping changes in healthcare services and employee wellness programs, the Obama administration’s health care act requires chain restaurants to list nutritional values on menus.

This addition can severely complicate eating out for those whose eating disorder includes obsessing about fat grams and calories.  But, for the majority of us, increased awareness of what’s in our food empowers us to make more conscious choices.

The food industry has been on alert since the publication of The End of Overeating by David Kessler in 2009.  The former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration exposed the dark side of major chain restaurant’s fat, sodium and sugar loading of menu items to increase customer appetites and their profits.

Now, they are being called out on their greedy ways and can’t keep customers in the dark any longer.

It’s about time.

I’m very aware that for a small portion of the population, this is not helpful.  And, ultimately, I advocate making food choices by listening to your body, not reading numbers on menus or scales.  But the growing number of people with chronic diseases indicates that, as a nation, we are  severely disconnected from our bodies, not tuning in to God given signals of poor nutritional choices.