House Guts Restaurant Disclosure Requirement

This past February, in the cynically misleadingly titled "Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act" - a bill that obfuscates disclosure - the US House of Representatives essentially gutted the the requirement that restaurants, supermarkets, convenience stores and movie theaters disclose the calorie content of the items on their menus.

The requirement was imposed as part of the Affordable Care Act and set to go into effect on May 5, 2017. Inexplicably, the Food and Drug Administration delayed the implementation by one year, to May 5, 2018 on the day before the rule was to take effect. This seems particularly illogical given that by May 4th, everyone was prepared to implement it.

But not to be outperformed in hypocrisy by the agency tasked with safeguarding our food, the House bill delayed implementation indefinitely. And just to be sure we were not mislead by being given accurate information about what we are eating, the bill permits serving sizes to be set at any size desired and not disclosed.

So that 100 calorie muffin you just ordered is going to set you back 500 calories if you eat the entire thing. Because the restaurant decided a "serving" was 1/5 of a muffin. Seems like common sense to me!

This monstrosity of a bill could still die if the Senate does not pass it. If you were ever thinking of contacting your Senators to express an opinion, this would be a really good time to do it.

"Common Sense Disclosure" my ass.