Health-conscious consumers — who frequent some fast food chain restaurants — will soon be aware of the calories that they’re consuming.

YUM! Brands — parent company to KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and Long John Silver’s — just announced plans to add calorie counts to their menu boards nationwide. Four thousand stores will post the calories on their menu boards now, according to USA Today, all stores will do so by Jan 1, 2011.

Fast-food critic Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest issued a release praising YUM! for doing so and saying,  “I never thought I’d say this, but I salute Colonel Sanders!”

This announcement follows the one yesterday in which  Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a bill requiring chain restaurants with 20 or more locations in California  (which includes more than 17,000 restaurants statewide) to add calorie counts to their menus and indoor menu boards by Jan 1, 2011.  Although other cities (New York, Seattle and San Francisco) passed  similar laws and others are pending (including Washington, Philadelphia and Chicago), California is the first to do so on a state-wide basis.