NEW YORK — Calorie counts are popping up on some restaurant menus and for prepared foods at supermarkets, whether you want to see them or not.

A federal regulation requiring food sellers to post the nutrition numbers by Friday was postponed again this week until 2018, after years of delays amid opposition from pizza chains, convenience stores and grocers. But many chains had been scrambling to comply, and say they don’t plan to alter course right now.

“We were running hard toward the Friday deadline,” Keith Dailey, a spokesman for Kroger, said in an email.

Kroger Co., which operates chains including Ralph’s and Fry’s, said it plans to be “mostly” compliant by this week. Albertsons, which owns Safeway and Vons, also said shoppers will find calorie counts for prepared foods such as cut fruit, salads and muffins. The company’s Jewel-Osco chain is also sticking with plans to do so, the Chicago Tribune reported this week.

At Whole Foods in New York this week, calorie counts were posted on most hot food and salad bar items, and the chain said it’s still committed to this week’s deadline.

An Indian chicken dish at its hot food bar was listed at 130 calories for a 3-ounce serving, and a rice dish was listed at 120 calories per 4-ounce serving. The signs didn’t indicate what those serving sizes look like. In the prepared food section, a Mediterranean turkey meatball had 730 calories and a regular meatball in red sauce had 520.

The National Restaurant Association supports the standard because it wants to avoid dealing with a patchwork of local laws.


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