Yesterday the FDA released the calorie count draft guidelines to fast food restaurants. These are the guidelines explaining how chain restaurants (with 20 or more locations) will have to post their calorie count info. This gives us as consumers a bit of insight into how everything will look come spring of 2011.

There are a few places already following the guidelines. I recently saw at a  Jack In The Box, nutritional info was listed at their drive thru and there were actually several healthier options. But wooooaaaahhhhh, watch the sodium!  I think the guidelines will be great for when people are in a bind and just have to have something to eat. So, what will it look like?

The calorie count guidelines state that the calorie count must be displayed as big as either the menu item name or the price and be similar in appearance. Other nutritional info like fat and sodium must be available as well, but it doesn’t have to be posted. Items that are short term (60 days of less) don’t need nutritional info posted either. This was done to prevent the restaurants from having to do too much work.

My question is this… do you think having the calorie count info posted will prevent people from ordering the obscenely high calorie items? I am anxious to see how the calorie count guidelines affect our waistlines.