or we will learn those studies were by the same caliber of people who did the food pyramid etc
'those scientists' were from Sweden responding to protests over the increasing costs of food due to famine. When looked at from the lens of maximizing calories per dollar, it makes a lot more sense.
I'd guess that there are more people use that information to select lower calorie food than people who make their menu selections based on the maximum number of calories per dollar, although I'd bet both those groups are a tiny fraction compared to the number of people who just order whatever they're in the mood for/tastes best to them and knowing how many calories are in that meal doesn't influence their behavior/choices at that moment but may still inform their choices later on