Starting next week, Californians may notice a change on the menu at their favorite restaurant chains. Fast food joints and other eateries will be posting nutritional information about their meals under a new state law. Capital Public Radio's Steve Shadley reports...
The law takes effect on Wednesday. It requires restaurant chains with 20 stores or more to post calorie, sodium, carbohydrate and saturated fat content of food they serve. They’ll have to make that information available in a customer brochure until next January. After that the information must also be posted on menus. Daniel Conway is with the California Restaurant Association. He says the law provides customers with information they’ll need to make healthy choices when ordering their food...
“I will point out that this information has been available at most chain restaurants for a number of years. What this does is it standardizes that process so that whenever you are at a chain restaurant in California you basically will know what you’re looking for and you’ll know where to look for it...”
Restaurants that fail to post the information could face fines up to 25-hundred dollars. County health inspectors will be enforcing the new law. California’s program is based on a similar menu law in New York City.