(The Center Square) – As the Trump administration takes action to “Make America Healthy Again” by requiring food companies to use natural products instead of petrochemical food coloring, Texas is also taking action.
The Office of the Texas Attorney General is investigating two major food companies for “illegal misrepresentations” of their food products as “healthy,” potentially in violation of Texas consumer protection laws.
AG Ken Paxton said Tuesday his office is investigating General Mills after similarly announcing an investigation of WK Kellogg Co. in April.
Paxton’s office began its investigation into Kellogg’s prior to the Trump administration’s Federal Drug Administration last month taking action to remove some petroleum-based dyes in U.S. food and medicine.
“For too long, our food system has relied on synthetic, petroleum-based dyes that offer no nutritional value and pose unnecessary health risks,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, following through on a decades-long commitment to reduce potentially toxic ingredients in U.S. food.
“We’re removing these dyes and approving safe, natural alternatives – to protect families and support healthier choices,” Kennedy said.
Kellogg’s advertises and sells cereals like Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes, and Rice Krispies, marketing them as “healthy” even though they “are filled with petroleum-based artificial food colorings that have been linked to hyperactivity, obesity, autoimmune disease, endocrine-related health problems, and cancer in those who consume them,” Paxton said.
In 2015, Kellogg’s vowed to remove dyes from its products by 2018. When it didn’t, protests erupted outside of its Michigan headquarters last year, ABC News reported. “In the U.S., Froot Loops ingredients include Red Dye No. 40, Yellow Dye No. 5, Yellow Dye No. 6 and Blue Dye No. 1,” ABC News notes.
“The quality and safety of our foods is our top priority,” a Kellogg’s spokesperson said in a statement at the time. “Our products – and the ingredients we use to make them – are compliant with all applicable relevant laws and regulations, and we remain committed to transparently labeling our ingredients so consumers can easily make choices about the food they purchase.”
Paxton disagrees. “Kellogg’s cereals specifically contain different types of blue, red, yellow, green, and orange artificial food colorings” even after Kellogg’s previously announced it would remove them and a BHT preservative, Paxton said.
“A critical part of fighting for our children’s future is putting an end to companies’ deceptive practices that are aimed at misleading parents and families about the health of food products,” Paxton said. “Artificial food colorings have been shown to have disastrous impacts on health, and in no world should foods that include these dyes be advertised as ‘healthy.’ There will be accountability for any company, including Kellogg’s, that unlawfully makes misrepresentations about its food and contributes to a broken health system that has made Americans less healthy.”
General Mills’ cereals, Trix and Lucky Charms, are also marketed “as a ‘good source’ of vitamins and minerals and as ‘healthy’” even though they contain petroleum-based food colorings, Paxton argues.
“Under my watch, big food companies should be on high alert that they will be held accountable if they put toxic ingredients in our food and engage in false marketing,” Paxton said. “I’m proud to stand with the Trump Administration and Secretary Kennedy in taking on petroleum-based synthetic dyes and will always fight to protect the health of the American people.”
In 2015, General Mills announced that it was removing artificial dyes from six of its cereals, “but a mere two years later, General Mills started reselling its cereals with artificial dyes,” Paxton said. General Mills added the artificial dyes back into its Trix cereal, for example, in 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported.
General Mills’ products also don’t include warning labels or any information about potential negative health effects to U.S. consumers, Paxton said. However, the company still sells “reformulated cereal without artificial dyes in other countries, and it should absolutely do the same for Texans and all Americans.”
The Texas Legislature is also taking MAHA action. The Texas Senate passed with bipartisan support a MAHA bill package, filed by Republican state Sens. Lois Kolkhorst, Bryan Hughes, and Mays Middleton, The Center Square reported.
Hughes’ bill, SB 314, nearly unanimously passed the Texas House on May 10. It prohibits food from being served to public school children if the food contains “an ingredient that is linked to severe human harm” and alternatives are available. The list of harmful ingredients includes “multiple synthetic food dyes and other harmful substances that are in the school lunches today.” If enacted, it will affect more than 3 million students and over 8,000 schools statewide, he said.
The House has yet to vote on Kolkhorst’s and Middleton’s bills.
