State Assembly Passes Bill Banning Schools Offering Foods with Certain Ingredients in Free or Reduced-Price Meals

Tuesday, January 20th, 2026 -- 10:01 AM

(Anya Van Wagtendonk, Wisconsin Public Radio) The state Assembly passed a bill Thursday that would ban schools from offering foods with certain ingredients in free or reduced-price meals.

According to Anya Van Wagtendonk with Wisconsin Public Radio, the measure is in line with diet advice being pushed by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has championed the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” movement.

The banned ingredients would be brominated vegetable oil, which acts as an emulsifier; potassium bromate and azodicarbonamide, both baking additives; propylparaben, a preservative; and red dye 3, a petroleum-derived food coloring.

Each of those ingredients is on a list of food additives that the Food and Drug Administration is actively reviewing. Under Kennedy’s leadership, the President’s administration has targeted processed foods and chemical additives as a leading cause of childhood disease, and dozens of states have begun proposing or passing legislation to limit food additives in schools.

Lawmakers also approved a bill that would establish English as the state’s official language. That bill would do away with state-provided English interpreter services, replacing them with AI or computer translation tools.

And it would require all governmental communications to be in English, with exceptions for health and safety, teaching, defending people in court, complying with federal law and the Constitution, or when using a common phrase from another language.

Rep. David Murphy, R-Hortonville, who authored the bill, said it would promote the English language while also offering cost-effective interpretation options for people at court. “It’s important to give a society cohesiveness with people that speak the same language,” he said, adding that the bill would save the court system money.

Opponents argued that translation technologies aren’t advanced enough to provide accurate and nuanced translation, and that people could be harmed in legal or medical settings by relying on imperfect software. 

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.