The National Restaurant Association saw it as a "devil we know" over a bunch of pending state regulations that were "devils we don’t know," so Obamacare–the recent health care reform package–includes a provision for chain restaurants to post calorie counts and nutritional information for their menu items.

Now, as with other federal laws and regulations, states generally feel free to write more stringent rules that supersede national counterparts, so it remains to be seen if this happens with chain restaurant regulations and the known devil gets supplanted by an unknown version.

The new law tasks the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with drawing up implementing regulations (which could take months or even a year or more given the track record on federal regulations). Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, restaurant owners can meet many other federal notification requirements by purchasing and posting Personnel Concepts’ Space Saver-3 All-On-One Foodservice Safety Poster.