Former Senator George McGovern is 86 years old and he’s still slugging away. In the video above, he is urging TTB to mandate calorie and carbohydrate-type serving facts on every beer, wine and spirits label, forthwith. He said:
It’s time for the federal government to issue a regulation that will be useful and … list complete information about the amount of alcohol and calories contained in the drinks we are consuming. … It looks like the government is trying to keep that a secret.
Mr. McGovern has been closely connected to this issue for more than thirty years. His daughter died of acute intoxication in 1994. This 2001 Congressional Research Service Report explains that Mr. McGovern has been pressing for wider nutrition labeling since the 1970s:
The most comprehensive bills for mandated nutrition labeling for most packaged foods and meat products were introduced in the late 1970s by Senator McGovern and Congressman Richmond. Most bills took a more limited approach to mandatory labeling; i.e., sodium labeling. These labeling bills received little attention, and none was enacted. In considering these bills, Congress faced the same dilemma as the agencies. The science was slowly evolving, but there was still inadequate evidence on the relationship of nutrients to chronic disease to require the nutrient content listing proposed to be displayed on packages, and to justify placing this regulatory burden on the food industry in order to provide consumers with additional information.
The consumer groups have been energetically pushing this agenda for many decades, and it’s hard to watch this clip and doubt their resolve to make this happen.
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