Trans fat and nutrition labeling in King County
On July 19, 2007, King County Board of Health adopted two new regulations affecting food establishments in King County:
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A trans fat regulation that requires all establishment with a food permit from Public Health – Seattle & King County to remove artificial trans fat from their cooking process, and
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A menu labeling regulation that would require chain restaurants to label calorie, saturated fat, sodium and carbohydrate information on menus and menu boards.
On March 12, 2008 the Board of Health adopted changes to the menu labeling regulation, renaming it nutrition labeling, limiting it to chain restaurants with 15 or more national locations and allowing different ways for restaurants to display the nutrition information as long as the information is available at the point of purchase.
The King County Board of Health and Public Health - Seattle & King County will continue to work with food establishments and the food industry in meeting the nutrition labeling and trans fat requirements. An education campaign will be launched in 2008 to help the public better understand and use the nutrition information to make healthy food choices.
Stakeholder Committees for trans fat and nutrition labeling: The regulations have been passed, and now Public Health - Seattle & King County must develop more specific guidelines. Public Health has worked with representatives from the food industry and food establishments to inform, review, provide comment and offer suggestions to the guidelines. Two committees were established, one for trans fat and one for nutrition labeling. The stakeholder committees began meeting regularly in October 2007. UPCOMING MEETINGS
- Trans Fat Stakeholder meeting
None scheduled
- Nutrition Labeling Stakeholder meeting
None scheduled
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If you have a comment or question about the regulations on trans fat or nutrition labeling, please use our online form.
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