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As part of the massive health care reform bill signed into law last year, restaurant chains with 20 or more locations are required to post calorie counts for their regular menu items, and that doesn't mean in a brochure of microscopic type stashed behind the register.
No, the Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for enforcing the law, issued preliminary guidance to the restaurant industry last year, making it plain that calorie counts would have to be posted, well, plainly: right up there on the menu board, next to each item, in a type size just as large.
It sounds easy enough, but apparently, it's not. As Nation's Restaurant News reports, the FDA has delayed issuing its final regulations, citing the "complexity" of the undertaking.
"This issue sounds very simple on the face of it, but when you start thinking about it, it becomes extremely complicated," one industry representative told NRN. "How do you label items that have different methods of preparation or variations?"
Ok, we're thinking about it, but still it doesn't seem like rocket science. If McDonald's can figure out how to get the McRib up on their menu board every once in a blue moon, is it that hard to slap the calorie count of a Big Mac up there as well?
Apparently, the FDA doesn't think so, because it says that it only expects a "short delay" before it issues its final set of rules.
And by the way, that Triple Whopper with bacon? 1190 calories.
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3-26-2011 @9:22AM Juggler314 said... I call huge BS. Every national chain that sells in NYC already has to do that, sure there are chains that don't have franchises here, but calling it "too complicated" has already been disproved. Shame on the FDA to caving under lobbyist pressure.
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3-25-2011 @9:04PM maus said... "This issue sounds very simple on the face of it, but when you start thinking about it, it becomes extremely complicated," one industry representative told NRN. "How do you label items that have different methods of preparation or variations?"
Label each based on the method of preparation, duh.
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3-27-2011 @2:32PM Don williams said... How about personal responsibility? Take 5 minutes and figure it out yourselves instead of having a government stick a gun in a business owner's face and make them take care of you?
Also, a federal judge has already ruled this abomination unconstitutional.
Stop encouraging government interference in our lives.
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3-27-2011 @5:26PM Aloisius said... Wait, personal responsibility? Uh. This is just a law to give people the knowledge necessary to take personal responsibly.
Unless you think calories are "obvious" and that you could estimate with any accuracy the menu items at any chain restaurant (quick, number of calories in a salad w/ chicken & vinegrette at Chipotle?), then surely you can't be against this law.
3-28-2011 @2:35AM James said... As Aloisius said, this measure is _all about_ encouraging personal responsibility. It's impossible to act responsibly when you don't have adequate information. How, tell me, are you going to "take five minutes and figure it out for yourself"!?! The notion that I could "Take five minutes and figure it out yourself" is gross ignorance! I'd need a small chemistry lab with me, passing knowledge of thermochemistry, and a lot more than five minutes. That's to say nothing of the fact that I'd need to _buy_ the item in question to measure its caloric content _before I decided if I wanted to consume it_.
THINK, PLEASE!
3-28-2011 @3:50AM hippieland.net said... Why is the Fed invoked with telling people how or what to eat? Its none of their business to tell me what to eat.
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3-28-2011 @4:28AM Illithian said... Personally, I think forcing large chains to post caloric content on their menus is a good thing. Most restaurants already have to do this, its just that with large scale branches, usually there isn't a tangible menu; its just the board with all the food on it. I don't like large government involvement as its usually inefficient and wasteful, but in this case, there is an obesity epidemic. Obviously this isn't purely the fault of fast food chains, but posting caloric content of food items will at least show people what they're really eating. It doesn't force anyone to stop eating anything, it just presents information.
Hopefully the delay won't be excessive.
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