A bill requiring food labels to warn Texans which ingredients are banned in other countries is poised to be signed by Gov. Greg Abbott this summer. Authored by Republican Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, the bipartisan Senate Bill 25 (“Make Texans Healthy Again”) teaches nutrition in schools and protects physical education and recess.
It also mandates warning labels for more than 40 harmful additives (including bleached flour and red dyes 3, 4 and 40). But it does not ban any food, according to Sen. Kolkhorst. SB 25 is not just a bill, but a call to action, she stated, during a recent Senate meeting. “We are taking action for our children, our grandchildren and every Texan, so that we can live longer, have more productive lives,” she said.
“Type I Diabetes has already doubled in the past 40 years in the adult population. Early onset of cancers, that means cancers of people below the age of 50, increased a staggering 79% from 1990 to 2019,” continued Sen. Kolkhorst.
According to the National Law Review, the bill, introduced in February 2025, could have national implications primarily due to its emphasis on health and nutrition standards. It noted, SB 25 places a warning label on the product that reads:
“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 Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, presented two monumental books, “How To Eat To Live,” where He gives Divine Guidance on what foods to eat and stay away from. He also warns about the dangers of additional additives and chemicals being added to foods.
“The scientists of this world (the White race) failing to gain the confidence of the people ran a race of commercialization between each other. This commercialization on foods has put forbidden, divinely forbidden, and poison foods on the market for human consumption.
Now these poison foods have created another commercial field (drugs) to temporarily reduce the effect of the poison foods eaten by the people, that they purchase from the food markets,” the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad writes in “How To Eat To Live,” Book 2 in the chapter, “Natural Food.”
“Therefore the health and span of good happy lives without drugs of the whole White race and the Black people who are under the rule of the White race are being destroyed by the artificial and poison foods put on sale in the market (which is backed by the government and communities to be eaten by the human beings for the sake of that ‘commercialized dollar’),” the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad continued.
Brianna X Phillips, who has a doctorate degree in biomedical science with special training in embryology and cell signaling, finds the proposed legislation helpful, saying it unlocks another level of transparency. But why not the removal of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from the list of prohibited ingredients, she questioned.
“There’s a lot of dangers with high fructose corn syrup, so it kind of made me wonder, who are the people that are in these committees that decide what’s prohibited and what’s not prohibited? Are they politicians? Are they economists?
Are they farmers, nutritionists, doctors, scientists, researchers? I just was curious about that, because it really begged the question of whose interest this list is in,” she told The Final Call.
Research indicates that high fructose corn (HFCS) syrup is a major threat to multiple health consequences, such as insulin resistance, obesity, liver disorders, and diabetes.
According to Dr. Phillips, it is a sweetener made from fructose and glucose and is often preferred by manufacturers because it is cheap and highly shelf stable. HFCS 55 is 55% fructose and 45% glucose—two types of sugars obtained from breaking down starches, she explained. But the glucose is treated with enzymes to break it down into fructose.
“And the reason why that’s so dangerous is specifically because of how the body metabolizes fructose. All the cells in the body can metabolize glucose and use it for energy very easily.
However, only the liver primarily can metabolize and make use of fructose, and what happens is that sometimes the liver gets so overworked with trying to metabolize fructose into glucose that it will actually store the fructose as fat, and that can actually contribute to obesity,” she stated.
The red dyes, said Dr. Phillips, can be linked to behavioral issues in children and even endocrine disruptors with the hormones.
According to The Daily Intake, a blog which provides legal and regulatory updates for the food and supplement industry, the bill notably removed high fructose corn syrup from the list of prohibited ingredients following opposition from numerous food companies after it was introduced.
Leading opponents of SB 25, including more than 60 members of the food industry such as Walmart, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Frito-Lay and General Mills, wrote a joint letter to the Texas Legislature asking for removal of the warning label section of the bill and its companion House Bill 25 (introduced in February by Rep. Lacey Hull).
The coalition consists of the Texas Retailers Association, the Consumer Brands Association, the Food Ingredient Safety Coalition, the Texas Beverage Association, and a group of Chambers of Commerce.
The proposed labeling would destabilize local and regional economies at a time when businesses are already fighting to keep prices down, maintain inventory and avoid layoffs, they argued.
The Final Call has reached out to the offices of Sen. Kolkhorst and Rep. Lacey for interviews, but has received no responses as of press time.
“What I would say is, just like the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan teaches us, we have to be food scientists. We have to be mindful that whatever’s in our cabinet, whatever’s in our kitchen, is it hurting us or helping us, so we have to be mindful,” stated Dr. Phillips.
“And the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that simple foods are the best. So, we shouldn’t have a lot of things with all these strange ingredients that our body doesn’t really know how to process. Just going off of that, we have to constantly be evaluating the things that we consume, even if it’s things that we buy regularly, because things are constantly changing,” she added.
There are healthy alternatives, like turmeric to substitute for Yellow 5, or carrots and tomatoes to introduce red, and other natural coloring from fruits and vegetables, she offered.
“Everything that we use should be basic. It should be simple. It should be things that we recognize. And I will say to also just try to be accountable, because the climate that we’re in is changing.
A lot of things are getting modified. That food is growing faster, it’s growing in larger quantities. It’s pest resistant. But ultimately, we don’t want to be casualties in a war of greed,” she said.
Supporters of SB 25, like the Episcopal Health Foundation, see health benefits, as indicated by the Dallas Express. “The amount of money and time we’re spending treating diabetes as opposed to preventing it is huge, especially in Texas,” said Brian Sasser, the foundation’s chief communications officer, according to The Texas Tribune.
“In a world that pretends the brain is not part of the body, this bill will put tools in the hands of children, parents and teachers to begin truly addressing emotional health and well-being,” stated Andy Keller of the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, added the Dallas Express.
“I’m glad that they’re doing something. Something’s better than nothing,” stated Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min Muhammad, manager of Muhammad Farms in Georgia and a member of the Nation of Islam Research Group.
He emphasized the importance of self-sufficiency in health, advocating land ownership and natural food production and criticized the federal government for not banning high fructose corn syrup, despite its harmful effects.
“They’re cutting back on some of the illegal dyes and all that type of stuff, but then when it hits to the major points, they back off. In other words, they talked about the high fructose corn syrup, and then they backed off of that, and they talked about putting just a warning label on,” he said.
—Charlene Muhammad, National Correspondent