Texas Just Called Out Big Food

Texas just passed a law that changed the game for processed food. Starting in 2027, any food product sold in Texas that contains one of 44 banned or restricted additives will have to carry this label: 

“WARNING: This product contains an ingredient not recommended for human consumption by authorities in the EU, UK, Canada, or Australia.”

Included in those 44 ingredients is bleached flour, found in a LOT of processed foods. You might recognize some in this small sampling.

And titanium dioxide is another ingredient on the list added as a colorant to make things brighter and whiter. Classified as “possibly carcinogenic in humans,” it’s found in over 11,000 food products. Pretty much every processed food that is white. With no warning. No disclosure. Nothing.

Using state law is kind of a cunning way to get around soundly constructed edicts by the federal government that can be used as protection by industries like Big Food and Big Ag. You see, if the states can put together some clever rules that don’t clash with federal regulations, they can bring updated information to consumers and change things for the whole country. Texas did it by stating what other countries have determined about the safety of certain additives and tying it to product packaging and warning label requirements for their state. Food manufacturers don’t want to make different packaging and labeling for different states, so they just change it all to comply, and every state benefits. Or, they can do something else. Just remove the ingredient in question. What a concept.

As soon as food industry executives caught wind of what Texas was doing, they descended on Austin like a plague. The lobbying fury began. The money poured in by the millions. And then we hear it. Listen to state Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins: “What we don’t want to do is destroy anyone’s business and or create such a burden or financial cost that the cost of food will continue to rise.”

What a cowardly, mousey thing to say! Freshly printed script right from Big Food. If we have additives in our food that are causing chronic illness, especially those targeting children, I don’t care what we have to endure to pull us out of that infernal pit. That’s like saying we can’t afford to put out house fires. It costs too much money. Tell the fire department to scale down their response. Don’t you dare blame the expense of mopping up a mess on the guy doing the cleanup. If we don’t pay now, we’ll pay more later.

Texas didn’t just make a statement. They made a strategy. It seems everything IS bigger in Texas. And if Big Food didn’t hear that loud and clear? Don’t mess with Texas.