Label me not: a liberal argument against mandatory calorie labels.

Abstract

Mandatory calorie labelling policies (MCLs) are widely defended as neutral tools for promoting public health. This paper argues that they are neither neutral, in effect or justification, nor justified within a liberal framework. MCLs violate liberal neutrality by expressing and reinforcing a contested ideology of eating-one that prioritises restraint, quantification and self-surveillance-and their justifications rely on evaluative premises that reasonable citizens may reject. Even if neutrality is set aside, MCLs also fail more modest liberal standards. They do not reliably promote informed consent, cannot be justified as proportional paternalistic interventions and cause foreseeable harm, especially to people with eating disorders and those subjected to fat stigma. The expressive prominence of calorie counts, mandated by the state, signals an official view of how citizens ought to eat contrary to the pluralism liberalism requires. As an alternative, I propose a centralised, opt-in nutrition database that preserves transparency without ideological imposition. Unlike MCLs, this model empowers consumers without prescribing a particular conception of the dietary good. In liberal societies committed to pluralism, MCLs should be rejected.