Restaurants Leery of Rules on Health Claims : Regulation: FDA proposal seen as potential problem for individual eateries, less so for chains. Confusion on requirements exists.

The federal government’s proposal that restaurants be required to back up any health or nutritional claims they make on their menus could be a financial drain on Amelia’s, a long-established Newport Beach eatery.

“It’s going to be a big hassle for restaurants if we have to change menus,” Mark Gardner, Amelia’s assistant manager, said Thursday. “We’ll have to spend a lot of money.”

But for chain operations such as Souplantation and El Pollo Loco, a change in the rules would hardly be noticed. Those companies have already documented that their courses meet Food and Drug Administration standards.

Amelia’s, too, says its courses meet FDA standards. It even has a separate menu for the health conscious that defines what is meant by such phrases as low-calorie , low-salt , low-fat and low-cholesterol meals.

But documenting those claims through third-party analysis and reports would be another matter. Many restaurants may well take the easy way out.

“Independent restaurants aren’t really going to check out the calories in a dish, they’re just going to remove the claim from their menus,” said Stanley R. Kyker, executive vice president of the California Restaurant Assn.

Restaurants are facing an FDA regulation that would make them adhere to food-labeling rules established last fall. The agency, which announced the proposal Wednesday, will collect comments for the next 60 days and then decide whether to adopt it, modify it or scrap it.

Many restaurant operators contacted Thursday were not clear on the details of the FDA proposal. Restaurant Enterprises Group in Irvine, for example, has lawyers poring over the rule to determine its effect.

“It will be a burden, but we’re not sure yet exactly how,” said Barry Krantz, the company’s chief operating officer. The company isn’t certain, for instance, if it would have to include ingredients in a mix bought from a vendor. Bills of fare could get so overloaded with details about what goes into each dish, corporate officers joked wryly, that their customers might not be able to lift the menus.

Restaurant Enterprises operates 360 Coco’s, Carrows and Bob’s eateries, all of which regularly offer health-conscious and nutritional meals. It also operates individual restaurants such as Chanteclair in Irvine, which doesn’t usually advertise such meals.

“But we might have a diet special at Chanteclair, for example, and it might use some term that this law would require us to explain or amplify,” Krantz said. “The word lite or light now requires elaboration.”

Industry groups, which thought that they had beaten back the agency’s effort a year ago, will be urging the FDA to withdraw the proposal or make major changes in it, Kyker said.

Groups such as the American Heart Assn. praise the agency’s effort, saying it will protect the health of consumers. They think restaurants should meet uniform standards. As it is now, said dietitian Barbara Dietsch, a Heart Assn. volunteer, what one restaurant bills as a low-calorie meal could be a fat feast if prepared differently at another eatery.

Most restaurants would not be affected by the proposed rule, however, because they don’t make health or nutritional claims on their menus now, said Cindy Iftner, nutrition consultant for UC Irvine’s Heart Disease Prevention Center.

Those such as Skinny Haven that do make claims and want to continue with a health-conscious menu may be hiring nutritionists, dietitians and recipe analysts like Heart Smart in Scottsdale, Ariz., to provide the needed support for their health claims.

Heart Smart, for instance, already has certified Souplantation’s muffin recipe as low-fat and has provided proof that other low-fat, low-calorie, low-salt and low-cholesterol recipes are just what they claim to be.

“I think restaurants really want an independent body to do this,” said William Meckinger, marketing vice president for the San Diego chain of 30 Souplantation outlets.

The proposed rule could force the company to change its signs and would likely require it to have detailed nutritional information available for customers. But the company already provides such a brochure upon request, Meckinger said.

Jane Lowder, president of a restaurant consulting company in Rancho Palos Verdes, said: “If restaurants have to redo their menus to support their claims, that means a lot of cost.

“What they may do is not make any claims on the menu and just ask customers how they would like their fish, for example, cooked: fried, poached or char-broiled. They could get the same idea of healthy cooking across like that.”

At the Jade Palace in Santa Ana, manager Irene Lam said the restaurant’s menu already alerts customers that they can have their rice steamed and can eliminate monosodium glutamate from their meals. Even if more is required, she said, the menu could be adjusted easily.