An effort is underway with legislation, The Labeling and Education Act—LEAN Act—recently introduced in the U.S. Senate (S. 558) and House of Representatives (HR 1398), to require chain restaurants with more than 20 locations to provide Americans with detailed nutrition information, such as calories and grams of carbohydrate, fat, sodium and more.

On Sept 30 California’s governor signed the first state-wide legislation to require chain restaurants with more than 20 locations to offer up key nutrition facts, such as calories, saturated fat, carbohydrate and sodium, at the point of purchase (right next to the price of the item on menus or menu boards). No longer will the availability of this information on websites, on posters or in brochures be sufficient. The legislation goes into effect July 2009 and takes full effect in 2011.