Trump Seeks to Eliminate FDA Rule Requiring Calories to be Posted

After significant research and consideration, OUR government, working on behalf of OUR interests, decided in 2010 to begin working towards restaurants and grocery stores posting health information about the food they are offering.

The rule that the FDA originally proposed in 2011 and finalized in 2014 requires chains with 20 or more locations to list calories on all menus so they are visible when a consumer is ordering.  A federal mandate requiring calories be posted on menus was to take effect May 5. The Trump administration has postponed its implementation...

In the midst of the Trump administration’s anti-regulatory goals to do corporations' bidding, the rule was quickly swept aside as they seek ways to eliminate it entirely.  However, the move caused chaos in the food industry.

Trump’s Food and Drug Administration delayed the rule just four days before it was supposed to go into effect this month, jolting food purveyors from steakhouses to convenience stores who’d already been trying to comply. And even though the FDA touted the delay as a way to reduce costs and increase flexibility for businesses, the change did not come early enough to save these companies any money. Many had already spent millions of dollars printing and shipping new menus to thousands of locations across the country so they would be ready for the original May 5 deadline.

The National Restaurant Association has been in favor of these rules with the potential to improve the health of tens of millions of Americans and therefore drastically reduce healthcare costs for individuals, companies, and our government.

The restaurant industry itself — the second-largest employer in the country — actually lobbied alongside consumer advocates for the federal labeling mandate as a way to fix to the messy and expensive patchwork of state and local laws that had cropped up at the behest of health advocates across the country.

“This delay upends plans that have been in motion for years throughout the food industry,” said Cicely Simpson, executive vice president for government affairs at NRA. “We will continue to strongly advocate on behalf of what is best for small businesses and American consumers.”

Sources:
http://thehill.com/regulation/healthcare/331466-fda-delays-obamacare-calorie-rule
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/27/trump-restaurant-calorie-posting-rule-238873
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/02/526514189/fda-delays-calorie-labeling-rule-until-next-year