Ensuring that food is safe and truthfully labeled is one of our fundamental responsibilities at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Consumers deserve accurate information about the food they eat and how it can affect their health and nutrition. That’s why Congress entrusted the FDA to serve as the nation’s expert on food safety and labeling and to craft predictable, uniform federal requirements on matters within our jurisdiction. Consistent with that authority, we work to provide the best advice possible to Americans about the foods they eat based on the most recent scientific information, taking into account the food’s benefits in addition to any potential health risks.
Part of our mission in this space means ensuring that food product labeling doesn’t contain false or misleading statements about safety or nutrition. This includes statements that food manufacturers make on their own initiative. But it also includes statements that may be compelled under state law.
That’s why when a court recently ruled that a California law – known as Proposition 65 – may require coffee sold in California to be labeled with a cancer warning because of the presence of a chemical called acrylamide. Under Proposition 65, California requires that certain products contain cancer warnings if they will expose consumers to chemicals that California health authorities have identified as causing cancer. But requiring a cancer warning on coffee, based on the presence of acrylamide, would be more likely to mislead consumers than to inform them.
Acrylamide can form in many foods during high-temperature cooking, such as frying, roasting and baking. Acrylamide in food forms from sugars and an amino acid that are naturally present in food. It doesn’t come from food packaging or the environment. In coffee, acrylamide forms during the roasting of coffee beans. Although acrylamide at high doses has been linked to cancer in animals, and coffee contains acrylamide, current science indicates that consuming coffee poses no significant risk of cancer. This finding was reflected in a comprehensive report by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.
FDA is committed to ensuring that information being presented on a food’s label is accurate and not misleading. Misleading labeling on food violates the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. No state law can require food to bear a warning that violates federal law.
The current dietary guidelines published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture state that moderate coffee consumption (three to five cups a day or up to 400 mg/day of caffeine) can be incorporated into healthy eating patterns.
