If you take a peek at any of the convenience store junk food across Europe and Central and South America, you’ll quickly notice a running theme: gigantic warning labels slathered all over the packaging, put there to deter people from eating unhealthy foods high in fat and sugar. This would typically be the kind of big-government anti-freedom health crusade U.S. Republicans love to hate, and yet Texas just passed a law requiring warning labels on food containing over 40 artificial dyes and additives. Many of these are already banned in places like the EU, UK, Canada, and Australia, nations Republicans once derided for being nanny states but now hope the United States will become *gasp* like them.
Good for them for coming around on these issues, but it is at least a little funny how Republicans seem to have made a sudden 180 on government interference on junk food when, for years, they derided every single Democrat-led attempt to, *ahem* make America healthy again. Michelle Obama getting endlessly ridiculed by Fox News talking heads for daring to try to make kids’ school lunches healthier comes to mind.
Suddenly, GOP statehouses are all about European-style health labels, because when it’s branded “Make America Healthy Again,” apparently it’s patriotic. The new law, signed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, mandates that starting in 2027, foods containing flagged additives will carry a label saying they’re “not recommended for human consumption” in other countries.
The move is part of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “MAHA” initiative that has swept across red states because they suddenly care about being everything they once ruthlessly mocked. Arkansas, West Virginia, and California (of course) have already passed similar laws. It’s catching on, and we might finally be catching up to similar public health campaigns that have been going on for years in other countries, but right-wing whining here in the United States held us back from joining in.
Here’s the weird part about Texas’s law: about a dozen of the targeted additives are actually allowed in those supposedly enlightened other countries. Others are already banned in the U.S., and still others are in a weird regulatory limbo.
Even more confusing, there are loopholes in federal law that might exempt additives like azodicarbonamide, a chemical mostly used in the United States in bread production to strengthen the dough’s texture, but is also used in the production of yoga mats. The world of food additives is funny like that.
These are mostly Republican politicians we’re talking about here, so a bizarre, inconsistent patchwork of laws that apply more to some than others is par for the course. But again, good for them for finally coming around, though it does feel at least a little bit opportunistic. The party will very likely revert back to its natural “git yer gov’ment hands off my high fructose corn syrup!” stance once Democrats are back in power at some point down the line.
It’s a strange turn for the traditionally anti-nanny state party, but it turns out even anti-regulation diehards can get behind a nanny state so long as it’s wrapped in nationalistic pride.
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