Healthcare Reform Appears to Demand Calorie Counts in Restaurants
The new law, which applies to any restaurant with 20 or more locations, directs the FDA to create a new national standard for menu labeling, superseding a growing number of states and cities who have started to pass such laws. The idea is to make sure that customers process the calorie information as they are ordering. Many restaurants currently may post nutritional information in a hallway, on a hamburger wrapper or on their website. The new law will make calories immediately available for most items.
''The nutrition information is right on the menu or menu board next to the name of the menu item, rather than in a pamphlet or in tiny print on a poster, so that consumers can see it when they are making ordering decisions,'' says Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee who wrote the provision.