The Patriot Post® · FDA Strengthening Food Transparency Requirements

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unveiled a proposal to tighten food regulation policy on Monday. The proposed rule states that food companies must notify the FDA if they use a new chemical or other new substance in the food they intend to sell to the public. The companies also must explain to the FDA why this substance is considered safe and should be allowed.

This new proposal is a coup for the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement and shores up an old loophole from the 1950s. GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) was a label placed on foods at the beginning of the FDA’s oversight of mass-produced food. It included ingredients like vinegar, sugar, and flour. However, companies have exploited this honor system for years by adding different chemicals to the GRAS list without the FDA’s knowledge — many of which are used in ultra-processed foods.

Unfortunately, the effort by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. isn’t as robust as he and his cohort were hoping. Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas confessed that while the proposal improves consumer transparency, it doesn’t block ingredients from being used altogether. The latter would take an act of Congress, which companies prefer. The Washington Post paraphrased an anonymous interviewee who “said the industry has been concerned that it would take time for the FDA to comb through companies’ information on potential new substances, adding they believe changes should be done through legislation and come with more funding for the agency.”

Kennedy also recognizes that this measure may bring transparency, but it cannot change food industry practices in any real way. He has asked Congress to grant him more resources and the authority to make the food supply better for Americans.

The measure would give consumers more knowledge about GRAS ingredients hiding under blanket labels like “artificial sweeteners” or “natural flavor.” It calls into question whether Congress should grant the FDA more veto power over ingredients.

During oral arguments about the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia famously posed a hypothetical: “Everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food; therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli.” There is a fine line between tightening GRAS measures and forcing Americans to become healthy.

The intentions for this sort of authority are good, but what happens when an ill-intentioned person sits in the control seat? What parameters should limit or balance the authority that would potentially be ceded to the FDA if Congress does comply?

At the same time, there is something deeply wrong with the food supply. Our food is not nourishing us as well as it did before the 1980s. Ultra-processed foods, combined with a more sedentary lifestyle in which we sit at our computers or stare at our phones, have conspired to supersize the American people. Our best solution is to either do the hard but worthwhile work of a lifestyle change and slowly lose the weight, or get a GLP-1 and face the side effects.

As it stands, the new FDA proposal demanding transparency and justification for GRAS ingredients is a step in the right direction. Is it going to change people’s food choices? Probably not. Should the FDA have the power of Congress to veto food ingredients? The jury is still out.

Either way, this is a positive step for the MAHA movement and may help Americans improve their lifestyle.