FDA to Mandate Calorie Counts on Prepared Foods

Thanks to our nanny government, Americans will be faced with the unavoidable reality of a calorie count should they chose to purchase prepared food in restaurants and other venues.

The Food and Drug Administration will announce today the new calorie labeling rules for all establishments that sell prepared food. The calorie counts must be displayed “clearly and conspicuously” on the menus. Business have until November 2015 to comply with the new rules.

AP reports: “The regulations will also apply to convenience stores, bakeries, coffee shops, amusement parks and vending machines.” There’s no escaping it.

The idea is that consumers will pass on a delicious cheese steak and opt for a healthy sprout-filled salad, hold the dressing, if they were to know exactly how many calories are in their meal. Conversely, the government is hoping that restaurants will be conscientious, and make food with lower calorie counts. It sounds like the government is trying to turn the entire country into one of Michelle Obama’s lunch rooms full of starving students eating healthy, government-approved slop.

“Americans eat and drink about one-third of their calories away from home and people today expect clear information about the products they consume,” FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said. The effort is just one way Americans can combat obesity, she added.

If people really expected that, business would provide it to them voluntarily. Many establishments provide nutrition information on their websites as it is.

Grocery stores and convenience stories lobbied to get out the requirements, but to no avail.

It’s not just the consumer who will be punished by the government.

“Representatives for the supermarket industry have said it could cost them up to a billion dollars to put the labels in place – costs that would be passed on to consumers. They said the rules could cover thousands of items in each store, unlike restaurants, which typically have fewer items.”