“It’s much tougher than the original,” said Marion Nestle, a professor in the department of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University . “I’m amazed. It never occurred to me that alcohol would make it in.” 
 
 The new rules will take effect a year from now, and seem likely to face legal and political challenges from some parts of the food industry, including grocery and convenience stores that sell prepared foods for takeout. 
 
 Menu labeling became law in 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act, and the F.D.A. issued a proposal for how it should be put into effect the following year. But the final rules were delayed for three years, in part because of fierce opposition from pizza and movie theater chains. 
 
 The release of the rules just weeks after the midterm elections prompted some advocates to suggest that politics might help explain the rules’ timing and toughness. The administration backed away from covering movie theaters in 2011, the year before the last presidential election, when the Obama administration was keen to avoid giving Republicans ammunition for the charge that it was too quick to impose unnecessary and costly regulations. 
 
 The rules apply to prepared foods sold in groceries and convenience stores that are intended to feed one person, such as a sandwich or a salad, but not to items like loaves of bread or a rotisserie chicken. 
 
 The rules were published in the Federal Register, a government journal, on Tuesday morning, and companies and advocates began poring over their details. 
 
 Trade associations like the National Automatic Merchandising Association, which represents vending machine operators, said they could not comment on the new rules without seeing them. The National Grocers Association said: “Grocery stores are not chain restaurants, which is why Congress did not initially include them in the law. We are disappointed that the F.D.A.'s final rules will capture grocery stores, and impose such a large and costly regulatory burden on our members.” 
 
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 Daren Bakst, a research fellow in agricultural policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation , said the rule amounted to “a shocking power grab that ignored the plain language of the law.” He said the F.D.A. interpreted the law too broadly, arguing that it was supposed to apply only to restaurants and similar establishments. 
 
 “If Congress wanted to cover any establishment that sells prepared foods, they would have said that,” he said. “No reasonable person is about to confuse a grocery store, convenience store or movie theater with a restaurant.” 
 
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 But Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa who helped create the labeling requirement in the law, said in a statement on Tuesday morning that the rule “closely mirrors congressional intent.” 
 
 He added: “This rule is consistent with our bipartisan agreement and will help to protect and strengthen access to healthy, nutritious foods for families around the country.” 
 
 Both the House and the Senate have bills pending that would ease the requirements of the new rules for some places selling meals, and their sponsors have vowed to fight on. “The Obama administration’s one-size-fits-all approach will hurt job growth and impose unnecessary costs for many businesses that are already providing nutritional information for the majority of foods they sell,” said Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri who is one of the sponsors of the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act. 
 
 New York became a kind of natural experiment when it began requiring chain restaurants to post calorie counts on menus in 2006. Many other cities, counties and states followed with their own rules, prompting the National Restaurant Association to throw its lot in with the consumer health advocates in an attempt to get a federal standard instead of contending with a patchwork. According to Ms. Wootan, about 18 states and cities have menu-labeling regulations in effect. 
 
 Advocates praised the rules as a strong public education tool, but whether menu labeling has any effect on obesity and health is still an open question. Some studies have shown no effect, while others found one. A 2008 study of 100 million cash register transactions at Starbucks found a 6 percent decrease in average calories purchased after calorie posting. 
 
 “You’ll need more time out there in the real world with this to see if it works,” said Kelly Brownell, a professor of public policy at Duke University . 
 
 Dawn Sweeney, the National Restaurant Association’s chief executive, said it had joined forces with more than 70 public health groups to “advocate for a federal nutrition standard so that anyone dining out can have clear, easy-to-use nutrition information at the point of ordering — information that is presented in the same way, no matter what part of the country.” 
 
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 A handful of restaurants, most prominently Panera, McDonald’s and Au Bon Pain, already list calorie counts on their menu boards nationally. But segments of the food industry have continued to fight the regulations. The big pizza chains, for example, wanted the right to determine a serving size of pizza themselves and to list calories by the slice — and they got it. 
 
 Determining the rules on calorie counts for pizza was apparently one of the thorniest issues the F.D.A. faced. Advocates worried that if pizza restaurants were allowed to provide calories per slice, they would divide pizzas into more slices, and pizza companies stewed over how they could calculate calories for a food that is often customized by consumers. 
 
 Vending machine owners lobbied to be excluded from the regulations, as did the convenience and grocery store associations. The F.D.A. is giving vending machine owners an extra year to comply with the labeling regulations. The agency is requiring that vending machine operators provide calorie counts on stickers or placards near the specific food being sold or the selection button for it. 
 
 The world’s largest convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, found itself in the middle of two competing trade groups. It belongs to the National Restaurant Association, which praised the new rules, and to the National Association of Convenience Stores, which has promised to challenge them. 
 
 The company, which has worked hard over the last several years to make more foods offering better nutrition available to its customers, decided to side with its restaurant brethren. “While these regulations will add a lot of complexity at our stores, we believe our customers want to know the information menu-labeling provides, and we will comply,” 7-Eleven said in a statement on Tuesday. ||||| Getty POLITICO Pro Margaritas, grocers caught up in FDA menu rule 
 
 Restaurant chains will soon have to post calories for every dish of chicken Alfredo, every cheeseburger combo, every margarita and most every other item on the menu thanks to new rules from the FDA expected Tuesday. 
 
 The two long-delayed and far-reaching regulations will cover foods served at chain restaurants, grocery stores, vending machines and even movie theaters. 
 
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 But this piece of President Barack Obama’s legacy on food policy won’t take effect without a fight. 
 
 Big chain restaurants are on board: They pushed for a national standard to override a patchwork of state and local menu labeling rules. McDonald’s adopted its own nationwide labeling in 2012. But grocery store and convenience store chains, the likes of Whole Foods, Sheetz and 7-Eleven, are expected to put up a fight about slapping calories next to their kale salad, nachos and Big Gulps. Movie theaters and the alcohol industry are also expected to fiercely protest being included in the mandate. 
 
 A year from now, the calorie counts will have to be posted on menus right next to food items, including at the drive-thru, and businesses will have to provide more complete nutrition information upon request. The rules apply to chains if they have more than 20 locations. 
 
 “This is a landmark public health policy,” said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at Center for Science and the Public Interest. She’s pushed for menu labeling for more than a decade. “The Republicans should be all for this. This is not nanny state run amok — this is ensuring that people have the information to make their own choices.” 
 
 Industry groups are not weighing in until they see the full text of the rule, which is expected to be posted before 9 a.m. EST. 
 
 The “final rule appears to go beyond what Congress intended,” said Rob Rosado, director of government relations for the Food Marketing Institute, which represents large national grocery chains like Walmart and Kroger. Rosado said FMI was denied early access to details of the rule. 
 
 Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the duo credited for inserting the menu labeling language into the Affordable Care Act, had urged the administration to go big with the rule. Both lawmakers lauded the Food and Drug Administration for covering such a broad swath of establishments and for putting movie theaters and alcohol into the rule — a bold move as neither were in the original proposal. 
 
 Getting alcohol in the rule was a big win for health advocates, as booze is the fifth-largest source of calories for adults. A Squeezarita at Don Pablo’s, for example, has 359 calories, which would be listed next to it on the menu. 
 
 “The overwhelming majority of the comments [the agency received] were very supportive of including alcohol on public health grounds,” said FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, on a call with reporters Monday. 
 
 Grocery and convenience store chains that want nothing to do with labeling have allies in Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Angus King (I-Maine) and Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.). They introduced a bill last year aimed at keeping the regulations narrowly focused on chain restaurants, with a special provision to let pizza chains post calories online instead of on their menu boards. 
 
 Blunt, a member of the Senate GOP leadership, remains opposed to menu labeling and “will continue to fight against it,” an aide recently told POLITICO. 
 
 The White House fully expects the rules to spark backlash on Capitol Hill, but the administration is betting that food companies will only go so far to publicly stand against calorie disclosures that it believes American consumers want — especially as they consume one-third of their calories outside of the home. 
 
 Health advocates are thrilled because the final regulations are as strong, if not stronger, than the rules that have taken effect in New York City, California, Philadelphia and elsewhere. In some cases, menu labeling has led companies to reformulate their products to contain fewer calories so they appear healthier on menu boards — it’s exactly what nutrition proponents hope will happen nationwide. 
 
 The menu labeling rule is expected to cost the food industry some $315 million to implement — about $1,000 per establishment — and about $44 million per year after that, FDA’s original cost-benefit analysis shows. 
 
 A separate rule mandating calorie counts be posted for products in vending machines — if a company owns more than 20 machines — is expected to apply to the vast majority of vending outlets in the United States, costing the industry about $24 million annually. That comes out to less than $10 per machine each year, according to FDA. Vending companies covered under the regulations have two years to comply. 
 
 The agency could not tally the economic benefit of the two rules, citing a lack of data on what impact calorie counts might have on consumer purchases, but if less than 1 percent of obese Americans shaved 100 calories per week off their diet, the costs of each rule could break even with the economic benefit, FDA’s analysis says. 
 
 Food fight 
 
 It’s been more than three years since FDA issued its proposed rules in April 2011 — a long delay that most blamed on politics and intense lobbying from retail giants and the pizza industry. 
 
 But implementing the obscure Affordable Care Act provision also proved more difficult than the agency had anticipated, FDA’s Hamburg said Monday. 
 
 “It was much more complicated than we had initially thought it would be in terms of really defining restaurant-type establishments,” she said. 
 
 Defining what types of establishments should be covered has been at the heart of a bitter, years-long fight between the restaurant industry, which pushed for a broad rule, and basically everyone else. The National Grocers Association, which represents independent grocers, the American Pizza Community, FMI and others formed a coalition to try to keep the supermarkets out and give more flexibility to pizza chains that didn’t want to post the calories for a whole pizza on menu boards. 
 
 FDA ended up working in more flexibility to the rule, allowing pizza companies to post calories per slice as long as they also list how many slices per pie. It’s not clear whether the move will ameliorate the industry’s concerns. The agency also narrowed what types of foods would need to be labeled in grocery stores, carving out exemptions for loaves of bread and sliced deli meat, but still covering hot food bars and other prepared foods. 
 
 Still, it’s a safe bet that the grocery industry will push for regulatory relief from Congress. 
 
 “There’s bipartisan interest in addressing these issues,” Rosado said before the final rules were issued. “What we’ve been proposing is not radical.” 
 
 Restaurants argue that since supermarkets increasingly compete with their sector by offering various prepared foods, they should have to post calories the same way.
– Whether you're headed to Chili's or the movies, you'll soon be seeing a lot more calorie counts posted. The FDA is today announcing what a nutrition expert calls "one of the most important public health nutrition policies ever to be passed nationally," the New York Times reports: Starting in a year, food-serving establishments with at least 20 locations will have to label their menus with calorie information. The Times characterizes the rules as "far broader than expected": Even movie popcorn, vending machine snacks, and restaurant beer will be included. The goal is to cut down on the US obesity problem, though studies have offered mixed results as to whether that effect will actually take hold. ObamaCare required such labeling; the FDA's 2011 proposal exempted movie theaters and didn't include booze. These final rules are meeting with mixed reaction. "I'm amazed. It never occurred to me that alcohol would make it in," says a nutritionist. (Alcoholic drinks listed in a menu or on a menu board are those affected.) But a conservative policy researcher calls it "a shocking power grab that ignored the plain language of the law," which he says was only meant for businesses like restaurants. Indeed, grocery and convenience store chains like Whole Foods and 7-Eleven, which must follow the rules for single-serving prepared meals, are likely to fight the move, Politico reports. Lawmakers who introduced legislation last year to limit the rule to chain restaurants are also expected to put up a fight. But the Obama administration believes companies won't want to make a show of opposing health rules that—at least according to officials' thinking—the public supports.