FDA Warns Bakery To Remove ‘Love’ From Ingredient List

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently warned a relatively small Massachusetts bakery to remove the word “Love” from its granola’s ingredient list.

The FDA sent a critical notice on Sept. 22 to Nashoba Brook Bakery due to products being “misbranded.”

“Your Nashoba Granola label lists ingredient ‘Love,’” the warning letter reads. “Ingredients required to be declared on the label or labeling of food must be listed by their common or usual name. ‘Love’ is not a common or usual name of an ingredient.”

The ostensible mislabeling of products was “not among the agency’s top concerns,” the FDA clarified, according to Bloomberg.

John Gates, CEO of Nashoba, said the FDA’s official perspective of the “Love” ingredient “felt so George Orwell,” a reference to the author of “1984,” a dystopian novel about an omnipresent and authoritarian government.

“I really like that we list ‘love’ in the granola,” Gates told Bloomberg. “People ask us what makes it so good. It’s kind of nice that this artisan bakery can say there’s love in it and it puts a smile on people’s face. Situations like that where the government is telling you you can’t list ‘love’ as an ingredient, because it might be deceptive, just feels so silly.” (RELATED: FDA Doesn’t Want You To Eat Cookie Dough, But Not Because Of Raw Eggs)

Nevertheless, despite disappointment, Gates said his company will comply with the FDA’s rules.