Omnivore - General Assembly: No, you don’t need to know how many calories you’re consuming

Restaurant owners don’t want you shooting their waiters, but they want to be in freedom to covertly poison you with trans fats. Just kidding! Sort of. This is from the Catoosa County News in Ringgold:

The national food fight over forcing restaurants to post nutritional information about their menu items might not make its way into Georgia.

County health departments and local governments would be prohibited from ordering eateries to display calorie counts and fat amounts under a bill awaiting Gov. Sonny Perdue’s signature or veto.

If House Bill 1303 is signed, restaurants will likely breathe a collective sigh of relief over not having to perform costly scientific analyses of their food or negotiate differing requirements in each of the counties they serve.

Restaurant owners make a good case that an analysis of every dish on their menus would be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming, especially with nightly specials. In fact, such ordinances have not fared well elsewhere:

A regulation the New York City Board of Health passed to dictate how restaurants with 15 or more locations nationwide post calorie counts is under a court injunction until April 15, Wolf said. A judge also struck down an earlier version of the New York rule. California and San Francisco have flirted with similar regulations.

But what about an ingredients breakdown? I really would like to know if a dish is made with trans fats or high-fructose corn syrup.