That fast-food dish has how many calories? Now you’ll know

New federal rules begin this week

Consumers can no longer plead ignorance when ordering that deep-dish pizza or triple-patty burger.

That’s because, beginning this week, federal rules will require restaurant, grocery and convenience store chains to post calorie counts for all standard items on their menus.

Consumers should expect to see the labels on display boards, handout menus and digital kiosks at chains with 20 or more locations. The change will be most evident at midsize and regional restaurants and grocery stores, since most of the country’s largest chains began displaying calorie counts after Congress passed the menu-labeling law in 2010.

Labeling has proved controversial since then. While public health groups say calorie labels are needed to nudge consumers toward more healthful choices – especially in an era when people dine out often -some in the food industry have fought the rules on the grounds that they’re expensive and difficult to implement. Even as the regulations go live, critics are pushing a bill in Congress that would significantly weaken them. And last year, the Food and Drug Administration delayed the rules at the 11th hour over industry criticism, although the agency argues that mandatory calorie labeling actually benefits businesses. The Washington Post recently called up FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb to unpack that argument -- as well as the future of nutrition policy under President Donald Trump. This transcript has been trimmed for space and lightly edited.

Q: For starters, can you lay out the case in favor of menu labeling? Why are calorie counts on menu boards important to public health?

A: Well, for multiple reasons –but I’ll emphasize two.

The first is that I think providing basic information about the healthy attributes of food is important for consumers to make informed choices about their diet.

The other rationale is that menu labeling will inspire competition among restaurants to produce options that are more healthful. We want to create a level playing field so that consumers can make smart choices and easy comparisons from one restaurant item to the next. Then restaurants and other food producers have more of an incentive to reformulate food in ways that will have less calories.

Q: Some corners of the industry, as you know, still aren’t on board with that plan. The National Restaurant Association has backed menu labeling, but grocery and convenience stores have complained the regulations aren’t flexible enough, and the pizza industry has said the costs are still too high and fought for all kinds of concessions.

How would you respond to criticisms from those groups that the regulations unfairly burden businesses?

A: I think in the final guidance we try to accommodate the concerns of businesses in cases where they felt there were costs associated with the rule that could be reduced. We’re allowing restaurants a multitude of ways to display calorie information in a way that aligns more closely with their current business models and doesn’t require them to undertake costly renovations.

So for example, the pizza chains have a multitude of ways of complying, including putting an iPad in their store or just having a paper menu -which most of them have now. We’ve seen those menus from major pizza chains and they’re completely compliant.

From a business standpoint, I think the reason this regulation is pro-business is because it creates a level playing field for the disclosure of basic information. It allows restaurants to compete on the basis of providing more healthful, low-calorie options to consumers.

Q: Given all those benefits, why did FDA delay menu labeling in the first place? These rules were originally supposed to go into effect in 2017, but FDA extended the deadline at the last minute.

A: There were a number of concerns raised by industry that we thought were reasonable, and we thought that if we took a little extra time we would have the opportunity to try to address ways they could more efficiently comply with the law.

Q: What happens to a restaurant that doesn’t post calorie counts.

A: We’ll work with them. We’ll give them advice on how they can become compliant over the course of the first year. [Note: FDA is not enforcing penalties against noncompliant businesses until next year.] We will be doing inspections, and we’ll also be working with local partners and other third parties, such as the National Restaurant Association and other trade associations, to coordinate this. I think a good example of where we can work with these establishments is again with the pizza chains – some of them are worried that their existing menu boards are not fully compliant because there are so many different toppings, you can’t possibly configure a menu that accounts for all the different variations.