Conrad, erstwhile Hong Kong blogger, once against a plan to introduce food labelling in Hong Kong. His basic premise was such labelling imposes an unnecessary cost on food producers and the onus should be on those who want the information to find it themselves. I disagreed with him, saying the benefits outweigh the costs.

I was reminded of this by two articles over the weekend.

Firstly Saturday's SCMP reports the HK Government expects to save up to HK$10 billion over 20 years in medical and other spending thanks to food labelling. The flipside is up to 10% of packaged food products will be forced out of the market due to the costs of including nutritutional information on their labels (which demonstrates the thin margins food producers have). Now of course these are rosy numbers given it was a Government sponsored reoprt. But the program is to be phased in over several years and includes a generous Government assistance program. The first stage demands all foods with nutritional claims to spell out the calories and data on protein, carbs, total fats, saturated fats and sodium. That's a sensible first step which should be welcomed by those products that genuinely believe their own marketing. The second phase will expand the labelling to all food. The study estimated food costs will at most rise by 1%. Most amazingly the Hong Kong Food Trade Association had no position on the issue. What do they do all day?

Food labelling is a case where Government mandated regulation is justifiable. The small additional costs in adding the labels are far outweighed by the benefits to public health. If Conrad doesn't want to read the labels, that's fine. A similar case is the warning messages added to cigarette packets. I doubt their effectiveness but no-one objects to having "Smoking causes cancer" plastered over their packs. The same applies to food.

This segues nicely with the next article. The SCMP yesterday reported an anti-pollution group is trying to speed up the banning of smoking in restaurants and bars in Hong Kong. I have a serious problem with blanket smoking bans. I'll start by saying I am not a smoker and hate them. But I respect that many do smoke and do so as informed choice (those warning labels and all). Now the market is a clever thing. Many restaurants have both smoking and non-smoking areas, catering to both types. One bar in Hong Kong has even banned smoking completely. In other words the market has already found a sensible middle ground on smoking. Non-smokers object to second-hand smoke, so bars and restaurants cater to their needs. Those that want to light up can do so without fear of annoying others.

Smoking banners wonder about the effects on staff. There are several answers. Firstly staff in bars and restaurants know the will be exposed to smoke - they make a judgement if they are willing to put up with it. They are free to say no. As far as creating a "safe" work environment, anyone who's been in a pub after most of the patrons have had a few pints know alcohol can be far more dangerous. So can working in coal mines, flying planes, working in the military or any number of other dangerous jobs. They are part of the working conditions. The end result: smoking bans are wrong. If you want to ban smoking completely, that's a different issue (why not going after boxing while you're at it). But so long as Governments allow legal smoking these restrictions are unjustifiable.

So what's the difference between the two? The food labelling scheme provides clear benefits for little cost. The smoking ban provides few benefits for prohibitive cost. Morally giving consumers greater information improves their ability to choose. But the onus always needs to be on those who wish to restrict freedoms.

Eat and smoke away.