(The Center Square) – A bill that would prevent a group of five food ingredients from being included in the food Wisconsin schools offer to students through the state-funded free- or reduced-price meals plan passed an Assembly committee and is advancing in both ends of the Legislature.

Those cancer-causing additives include brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylpraben, azodicarbonamide and Red Dye 3. Red Dye 3 has already been banned from being included in food and drugs federally by Jan. 15, 2027.

Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, said that the European Union bans these ingredients already and there is also a federal push to ban the ingredients.

“I don’t always agree with the things happening in other countries but I think that, when it comes to food choices, it is very night and day and that they are on the right path and I wish there was more in here, but I think we just have to start somewhere,” Cabral-Guevara said.

Cabral-Guevara said that, in Europe, the ingredients lists on many foods look very different than in the United States and gave the examples of Pringles and bread, saying she had never had bread like that before.

Cabral-Guevara said that combatting childhood diabetes and obesity by looking at additives included in food in the U.S. is important.

Rep. Clint Moses, R-Menominee, said he also would have liked to see a more extensive list of ingredients banned in Assembly Bill 226 but is using this bill as a starting point on ingredients and additives known to be dangerous.

He said that titanium dioxide, used for whitening foods such as cheese, was initially included in the bill and later removed.

“I do view this as a starting point,” Moses said.

Moses said that the incidence of diabetes is 2.5 times higher than it was even a decade ago.

“It’s amazing to me the stuff that we allow in our food supplies,” Moses said.