Restaurant menus: Reveal the calories

As Americans eat out more frequently, it's important for chain restaurants to provide customers with nutrition information in menus and on menu boards.

Editorial. Oct. 8, 2007.

In the fight against America's obesity epidemic, cities and states are taking a new tactic: Requiring chain restaurants to post nutrition information on their menus and menu boards.

At least 14 states and three cities have passed or are considering such measures. One of the most prominent efforts, New York City's, just lost a court challenge posed by the restaurant industry.

But U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Holwell's decision to throw out New York's regulation isn't the defeat it seems to be. It's quite the opposite.

Holwell's ruling focused narrowly on the way the city constructed its nutrition-posting rules. More important, the ruling endorses the underlying concept that such regulations are lawful. City officials are exploring their options, including rewriting the measure.

New York's regulation would have applied only to restaurants that already voluntarily publicly disclose nutrition facts in such places as on the Internet, on food wrappers or in brochures. These establishments would have been required to post the calorie counts of standardized offerings on their menu boards and in menus. Limiting the new rules to restaurants that already voluntarily post the information violates federal laws on nutrition labeling, Holwell concluded.

But he noted that most state or local regulations that impose a blanket mandatory duty to post nutrition information would not conflict with federal law. For example, a measure applying to 10 or more restaurants with the same name would be legal, Holwell stated.