Mandatory calorie counts splash down in California

September 30 2008 marked a new era of transparency into the foods we eat.

Two months after passing legislation that prohibits restaurants from preparing foods with trans fats, on Tuesday, September 30 2008, California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that enforces the posting of calorie information on menus and indoor menu boards throughout California.

Today, services like Calorie Count(TM) provide web access to nutritional information; some establishments like chicken restaurant chain Koo Koo Roo are using nutritional transparency as a selling point. Soon these figures will simply be required by law in some states.

As of July 1 2009, chains with more than 20 locations must provide Californians brochures that list calorie and nutritional information. By January 1, 2011, they’re obliged to list calorie information on their menus and indoor menu boards.

This new regulation could be very expensive and time consuming, especially when the infrastructure is not always there to reliably measure what’s in foods. What is more, calories are only one metric, and not always the most significant one. Nevertheless, transparency in prepared foods seems to be here for good.

As expensive and as daunting as this legislation may seem, restaurant chains have seen the writing on the wall for some time.  New York City enacted similar legislation in July. (See the poster art for New York City’s ad campaign, illustrating two sandwiches with very different calorie counts).

Obesity is at epidemic proportions in the US. This fact, coupled with new political and business attention given to the lot tracking of source foodstuffs (both for public safety and liability protection) is ushering in a new era in transparency in the foods that we eat. How ready is the food industry as a whole? It remains to be seen.