(NEXSTAR) – A new law in Texas could have a significant influence over how foods are presented — or even manufactured — in the rest of the country.
Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott signed into law hundreds of bills last week, including one concerning a requirement for food manufacturers to disclose the use of any of 44 food additives through a “prominent and reasonably visible” label on the packaging. These additives include artificial dyes, certain enzymes, molecularly altered oils, and additives banned in other countries, among other ingredients.
“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,” the label would read, according to the language of SB 25.
The bill had previously passed through the Texas legislature as part of a “Make Texas Healthy Again” initiative. But it may very well have implications far outside of Texas, if food manufacturers end up deciding to label or revamp their products for the market as a whole, according to Jennifer L. Falbe, an associate professor of Nutrition and Human Development at UC Davis.
“It is encouraging to see bipartisan support for food industry reform,” Falbe, who recently co-authored a study on the effectiveness of front-of-package labels, told Nexstar. “Policies in a large state like Texas can have ramifications for the rest of the country.”
Speaking with the Washington Post, Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group said there was “no question” that such a law would influence how food companies do business in the rest of the U.S.
“When a state as big as Texas requires a warning, that will have an impact on the entire marketplace,” he told the outlet.
Even still, it may take years to learn how the new law ends up influencing how food companies label or manufacture their products in Texas and beyond. According to the language of the bill, the warning labels would only apply to “a food product label developed or copyrighted on or after January 1, 2027.”
As noted by Stat, the entire requirement could also be moot if the federal government introduces its own legislation regarding food labeling before 2027.
There’s also another potential problem with the law: The language surrounding the additives may be inaccurate.
A review cited by the Associated Press found that almost a dozen of the 44 additives listed are in fact allowed in some of the foreign regions where the label required by the Texas law claims they’re not, while several are allowed in all of them. And others, like Red Dye No. 4, are already banned in the U.S.
“I don’t know how the list of chemicals was constructed,” Thomas Galligan, a scientist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told the Associated Press. “Warnings have to be accurate in order to be legal.”
Falbe says the warning also does little to deter food manufacturers from limiting sodium or sugar, even if they end up removing any offending additives from the ingredients list.
“To the extent that sugary and salty products also contain the additives in the Texas law, the warning could drive healthier choices in the near term. But they may also incentivize food companies to replace a limited set of additives to avoid labeling, without fundamentally improving the quality of foods and beverages,” says Falbe.
“For example, a sugary soda that has a coloring agent replaced with another is still a soda — it is still going to increase disease risk. Same with a sugary cereal or a salty soup.”
Falbe’s study, published this month, indicates that consumers would more accurately assess the nutrition profile of a given food if it had clearer front-of-package labeling highlighting the saturated fat, sodium and added sugar content. And that’s also what she believes the federal government should be pushing food manufacturers to include.
“Front-of-package warning labels indicating high amounts of added sugars, sodium, and saturated fat increase consumer knowledge, help people make healthier choices, and nudge the food industry to make healthier products,” Falbe said.