Food Politics by Marion Nestle reported today that Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed a bill authorizing warning labels on food products containing one or more of a long list of chemical additives. The list includes the color additives that the FDA has targeted, but also bleached and brominated flour, BHA and BHT, DATEM, Olestra, partially hydrogenated oil, and potassium bromate and iodate. The label reads:
WARNING: This product contains an ingredient that is not recommended for human consumption by the appropriate authority in Australia, Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom.
Food Politics added “what’s also stunning is how far this law goes beyond California’s law prohibiting red dye No. 3, and West Virginia’s law restricting seven dyes in schools.”
Obviously, Food companies cannot formulate products for individual states. To sell into Texas, companies with the 44 additives in their products will have to a) publish the warning label on their packaging b) get rid of these chemicals, c) lobby for a less restrictive federal law preempting state laws.
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