The Weeds: Can the government trick you into losing weight?

You’ve probably heard about some big Obamacare programs, like the massive expansion of insurance or a mandate to buy coverage.

And there are other policy programs in the law that on their own would seem quite big. But because they were rolled into a 2,000-page law called Obamacare, they didn’t make a huge splash.

In this week’s episode of our podcast, The Weeds, we shine the spotlight on one of those policies: the requirement that all chain restaurants post calorie labels on their menus. The regulation has been the subject of a fierce lobbying battle, causing multiple delays and huge turmoil for the popcorn industry (really).

The goal of calorie labels is make nutritional information more available, thus reducing the amount of food Americans consume. But so far, the research on their effectiveness is relatively sparse, raising questions about whether the labels should exist in the first place.

Also on this week’s episode: Ezra Klein breaks down one of the biggest ideological differences between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Matt Yglesias schools us all with his deep knowledge of Nordic economies, and I get really excited about an NBER working paper. Like, really excited. Happy listening below — or subscribe to listen to us on iTunes here.