San Francisco (dpa) - Fast food restaurants in California will
have to list calorie counts on each menu item under a new law signed
by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, his spokesman confirmed Wednesday.
The new law applies to restaurants with 20 or more locations in
California, and encompasses more than 17,000 eateries. Beginning July
1, 2009, they will be required to provide brochures containing
nutritional information including number of calories and grams of
saturated fat. By January 2011, all menus and menu boards above front
counters will have to include the number of calories for each item.
Schwarzenegger, a former world champion body builder, said the
law would encourage people to make better nutritional choices and so
fight obesity.
"This epidemic leads to major problems - diabetes, heart diseases,
sleep disorders and depressions," said Schwarzenegger at a signing
ceremony Tuesday. "It is no surprise that obesity is the number two
killer in the United States right behind smoking."
California is the first US state to pass such a law, though the
city of New York introduced a similar measure last July. California
restaurant owners initially opposed the law, but came around after
colleagues in New York reported that it had minimal impact on sales.
"You haven't seen numbers go southward - the business is still
good," said Jot Condie of the California Restaurant Association. "Now
it could be that someone exchanged French fries for something else -
but if they exchanged it for something else, the bottom line is the
restaurants haven't seen a financial impact."
Copyright 2008 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH