This argument borders on the absurd. Government/voters have regulated commerce since the inception of the United States. You benefit from plenty of regulation mandating additional information. A decade ago, airlines weren't required to include additional fees in their advertised prices. Now they are. I find it bizarre that requiring companies engaged in interstate commerce to provide information germane to the business transaction to be babying consumers.

If we as HN commenters praise a reduction of 1 second of latency for an RPC call to a microservice, surely reducing the latency for consumers standing in line by 5 minutes is laudable! Especially because of the low burden by fast food owners!

If you want to discuss some other encroachment of liberty by the government, feel free. But this proposal in isolation is reasonable.

If you don't think this is going to have an effect, the cost of this is that calories are going to be presented on a menu which customers can choose to look at or not. I am genuinely bemused as to why anyone would find this offensive.

Do you think alcoholic drinks should be labelled with the percentage of alcohol contained? Should food be labelled with the ingredients? Should you be allowed to know if your food contains nuts? And so on.

Alcoholic drinks aren't universally labeled, and even when they are the value is dubious. You can see a proof number on liquor bottles but that tells you nothing about its effects on your physiology. You still have to educate yourself.

You can argue a compelling interest for labeling food allergens, because they can kill people almost immediately. Calories can't.