MAHA Republicans Are Imposing New Food Labeling Mandates

Burdensome food labeling mandates were once the province of Democrats, who pushed for calorie count requirements on restaurant menus and insisted packaged food must feature warnings about genetically modified ingredients and trans fats. Now it’s Republicans leading the charge—with equally foolish results.

In Louisiana, restaurants will have to disclose when they feature products cooked with seed oils. The requirement—included in Senate Bill 14, authored by state Sen. Patrick McMath (R–Covington) and signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry in June—is set to take effect in 2028.

Seed oils have become a major target of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, whose figurehead is Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Seed oils are one of the driving causes of the obesity epidemic,” according to Kennedy, who has accused fast-food restaurants that use seed oils of poisoning Americans.

But among nutrition experts, opinions about seed oils and health are much more mixed, with plenty suggesting they’re fine in moderation, are better than alternatives, or are unwisely treated as a unit despite the fact that different seed oils have different properties and effects on health.

There’s also mixed evidence on the effects of common food dyes and additives—another target of the Louisiana law. Not only does it prohibit certain food dyes and additives in school lunches, it requires any food product sold in Louisiana to display special warnings if it contains any one of 44 ingredients, including bleached flour, several common food dyes, and sugar substitutes such as aspartame and acesulfame potassium.

Foods containing such ingredients must be labeled with a Q.R. code linked “to a web page that is under the control of the manufacturer,” per S.B. 14. That page must carry a disclaimer that directs people to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) page on food chemical safety. (Currently, that page contains a long and wonky diatribe on the FDA policies regarding food additives.)

Louisiana’s law is similar to a measure signed by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in June. Senate Bill 25
mandates that manufacturers put warning labels on food containing any one of 44 ingredients, including any partially hydrogenated oil and a number of common food dyes. The warning must state that “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 Texas law is scheduled to take effect in 2027.

“During the current legislative year, at least 30 states considered bills limiting the use of certain additives and dyes in food products,” according to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Of those, 26 bills “would prohibit certain additives in any food in the state, 45 bills would ban food additives or dyes in foods served or sold at schools or limit ultra-processed foods in schools, and nine bills would require warning labels or notification of certain additives in food products or establish legislative commissions to make assessments and recommendations about food additives.”

More information for consumers isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And science may yet come down firmly on the side of those who consider grapeseed oil and Red Dye No. 3 to be poison. But as long as such ingredients are allowed in food products and manufacturers aren’t deceiving consumers about what’s in their products,
we should leave decisions about how to disclose their presence or absence up to food companies. If there’s significant demand for products without these ingredients, the market will surely provide, just as it has with gluten-free products, sugar-free products, and so on.

As it stands, there’s little indication that consumers in Louisiana, Texas, or elsewhere are demanding warnings about sunflower seed oil and bleached flour en masse. These efforts are driven by politicians and niche MAHA influencers who continue to turn “conservative” messaging and policy priorities upside down.

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