Happy Friday, and welcome to Food Fix! A moms group I’m part of this week started sharing hacks and tips for feeding kids (and adults) when you’re short on food prep time. One big takeaway was that basically everyone is struggling with this. If you’re a parent of littles (or taking care of elders), send me your tips and/or recipes! I’ll share some of the ideas next week. helena@foodfix.co
Avoid FOMO: Friendly reminder that Food Fix is possible because of paid subscriptions. Upgrading to paid gets you two newsletters per week. On Tuesdays, we cover even more topics. Earlier this week, in Food Fix: A new presidential report on nutrition science, a readout from the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ roundtable on Capitol Hill, and a new GAO report on USDA feeding programs.
As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback. You can reply to this email to land in my inbox, or shoot me a note: helena@foodfix.co.
Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
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FDA looks to check up on food chemicals, but where’s the money?
The FDA this week held a five-hour public meeting on how it can better assess the safety of food chemicals that are already widely used in the food supply.
That the meeting happened at all was notable – I can’t remember the last time FDA held a meeting on this topic – but these days the agency is under a ton of pressure to beef up oversight of additives because states are increasingly seeking their own bans.
Last year, California banned four controversial food additives – a move that amounts to a de-facto national ban because it’s likely to force reformulation across the food industry. (It’s simply not logistically feasible to make special products just for California. Plus, lots of other states are now seeking their own bans, from Washington to Pennsylvania.) The California legislature recently took another bite at the apple and passed a bill to ban six artificial dyes from food served in public schools, the first such legislation to target school food. Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t yet signed this into law, but it sailed through both chambers with near unanimous bipartisan support, so it seems likely he will.
With these moves, California has, at least for the time being, essentially wrested control of food additive regulation from FDA. The state is setting policy that’s more restrictive than the feds – consumer advocates are cheering, while food industry leaders are fuming. California’s moves could force food makers to change their recipes, which costs money, but it also opens the door to much more uncertainty with a state-by-state patchwork of rules.
The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that this isn’t how this is supposed to work. In an ideal world, FDA stays on top of food additive regulation, the U.S. has consistent, nationwide policy, consumers have confidence in the system, and industry has safe harbor in knowing what products they can use. But that’s not where we are.
The long-simmering anger over FDA’s stance on food chemicals boils down to two main points: First, the so-called GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) “loophole,” which allows food chemicals to get to market without premarket approval and often without FDA even knowing. Notifying FDA of a GRAS self-determination is voluntary. Second, health advocates have long complained that FDA is far too slow to pull or ban a substance when safety concerns come up after something is already on the market.
Post-market assessment: The FDA meeting this week was narrowly focused on the second point here – the question of how the agency can do a better job at monitoring and, when needed, taking action against food chemicals that we’re already eating day in and day out.
There’s a long list of chemicals that have been linked to health issues that FDA has not taken swift action against, but the one that probably gets brought up the most is Red Dye No. 3. (I lost count of how many commenters cited this example during this week’s meeting). FDA has had data about large doses of Red 3 causing cancer in laboratory animals since the 1980s. In 1990, the agency banned Red 3 from cosmetics and suggested it would reevaluate its use in food. It’s now been 34 years, and the agency is only now getting around to doing this – and it took California banning it first.
What we have now is a largely reactive system, not a proactive one. When FDA does ban or pull something from the market, it’s often the result of an outside petition, lawsuit or state ban. After several decades of concern, FDA finally decided to ban brominated vegetable oil (BVO) following California’s decision to pull the plug last year. It similarly took decades of prodding and a lawsuit for the agency to ban artificial trans fats back in 2015. (FDA has posted a list of about two dozen chemicals currently under review, for anyone curious.)
The agency is now trying to retool how it handles post-market assessments. Last month, FDA posted a discussion draft laying out how this might work and asked for input from the public. The feedback has been mixed so far. Experts at the meeting this week disagreed about how solid FDA’s plan is, whether there is enough opportunity for public engagement, and so on. Consumer advocates want major changes, while key food industry leaders lauded the agency’s overall proposal.
“We believe the launch of a more modernized systematic process for postmarket assessments will bring needed visibility and awareness to existing processes and reviews undertaken by the FDA,” said Sarah Gallo, senior vice president of product policy and federal affairs at the Consumer Brands Association, who testified on behalf of food industry groups. “It will also continue to further the agency’s reputation as a leader on the global food safety stage.”
More money, fewer problems? My biggest takeaway from the gathering, however, was not the debate over how FDA plans to prioritize chemicals for review or engage stakeholders, but the fact that the agency repeatedly made clear it doesn’t have the resources to do many post-market assessments.
“We’re entering another fiscal year where our programmatic needs to meet our public health mandate are greater than our available resources,” said Jim Jones, deputy commissioner for human foods at FDA, during the meeting. “Simply put, prioritization and drive can only take us so far, and our current budget constraints will limit the number and speed of assessments.”
In a statement to Food Fix, Jones noted that FDA’s broader reorganization of its foods program, which officially takes effect next week, hasn’t come with more money, nor changed the law related to food chemicals: “While we have a strong commitment to doing more in this space, the reality is, our new Human Foods Program did not come with an increased budget, added authorities, or a change to the legal requirement for industry to conduct and share safety testing with the FDA.”
The FDA has been requesting more money from Congress to hire staff and bulk up its capacity on food chemicals, but so far hasn’t had much luck getting more money. (The agency did back in 2022 get $7 million for emerging chemical and toxicology issues, but this fell short of the nearly $20 million the agency had requested.)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a critic of FDA’s approach to food additives, has been pressing unsuccessfully for these funds for the past couple of years. The Illinois Democrat led a letter this spring to support giving FDA $30 million to review the safety of numerous chemicals of concern – an ask that was also backed by a coalition of strange bedfellows, including the Consumer Brands Association, Environmental Working Group, Breast Cancer Prevention Partners and others.
(While we’re here, several sources this week lamented to me that they wish the “Make America America Healthy Again” crew that’s been so critical of FDA’s lax oversight of food chemicals would get in the game and try to bolster the agency’s budget, but so far that doesn’t appear to be happening. Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did post a video (that now has more than 5 million views) on X this week blaming Democrats for allowing “poisons” to make it to market. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who is reportedly a possible pick for Agriculture Secretary if Donald Trump wins in November, also yesterday pledged his allegiance to #MAHA.)
Shifting staff: To deal with limited resources, FDA has moved a handful of staff to help with this work. As I noted earlier this year, this pales in comparison to what FDA had previously requested in the budget: The president’s budget sought 40 additional employees for this work.
The government appropriations process has become so dysfunctional that no one is holding their breath on an influx of resources over at FDA anytime soon. Congress just approved another short-term spending bill with flat funding to keep the government afloat until December, again kicking the can down the road.
The funding picture is bleak, and it’s not cheap to re-review all these food chemicals. Jones earlier this year predicted it could be north of $1 million per substance to do a post-market assessment.
Back of the envelope: It’s never a good idea for a reporter to do math, but if it ends up that a post-market assessment does cost north of $1 million, that $30 million that Congress isn’t coughing up doesn’t seem like it would be sufficient. Consumer advocates, state lawmakers, and legions of other critics want the agency to review dozens, if not hundreds, of food chemicals across the food supply.
This leaves FDA – and all of us – in a conundrum. The agency can’t really do what everyone expects unless it gets more resources, but it’s extremely difficult to get more resources in the current political environment. And so the cycle continues.
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What I’m reading
Boar’s Head plants nationwide now part of law enforcement investigation, USDA says (CBS News). “Boar’s Head processing plants nationwide are now part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture disclosed Thursday, in the wake of a deadly outbreak blamed on some of the company’s now-recalled deli meats,” reports Alexander Tin. “FSIS disclosed the existence of the probe in a letter on Thursday, when it denied a CBS News request for records on Boar’s Head’s other plants in Michigan, Arkansas and Indiana. Since the records are being ‘compiled for law enforcement purposes,’ public records officials for FSIS said releasing them ‘could hinder the government’s ability to further control and shape the investigation.’”
Prospects brighten for farm bill (The Hagstrom Report/National Journal). “Since Congress returned from the August break, farm groups have lobbied hard for completion of a new farm bill this calendar year rather than an extension of the 2018 law,” writes Jerry Hagstrom. “The most hopeful signal that a bill might be passed this year has come from Senate Agriculture Chair Debbie Stabenow. She said that a recent USDA report that showed higher food insecurity, particularly in Arkansas — home state of Senate Agriculture ranking member John Boozman — had changed the dynamics surrounding SNAP. Concerns that farmers need aid quickly may reinforce her position that increasing crop insurance is a higher priority than traditional crop-subsidy programs.”
Trump’s former CDC chief calls RFK Jr. ‘right man for the job’ on chronic diseases (The Hill). “The Trump administration’s former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the “right man for the job” to lead a commission on chronic childhood disease,” Nathaniel Weixel writes. “Robert Redfield said he wants former President Trump to follow through on his promise to establish a panel of top experts working with Kennedy to investigate the increase of chronic health problems and childhood diseases. He mentioned processed foods leading to a rise in obesity, as well as pesticides causing neurodevelopmental issues such as ADHD.”
RFK Jr. wants more scrutiny of chemicals, but Trump’s EPA did the opposite (NBC News). “When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Donald Trump, he suggested that Trump’s health policy could include revisiting standards for chemicals and pesticides,” writes Aria Bendix. “But two former and two current staffers at the Environmental Protection Agency told NBC News that stance contrasts starkly with how the agency operated under Trump. During the Trump administration, they said, the EPA — the government’s lead regulator of toxic substances — was keen to approve new chemicals and remove regulations on existing ones despite evidence of potential harms. Such accounts align with three reports released last week by the EPA’s Office of Inspector General, which determined that some EPA scientists were retaliated against during the Trump administration for expressing ‘differing scientific opinions.’”
Are Americans ready for smaller restaurant portions? (The New York Times). “Nutritionists and policymakers haven’t had much success fighting portion creep, which has been linked to health problems associated with obesity,” writes Kim Severson. “But today, a combo plate of economics, demographics and climate science may accomplish what years of official hand-wringing could not: loosening the grip that super-size restaurant portions have on the national diet. More than 75 percent of customers say they want smaller portions for less money, according to the 2024 National Restaurant Association report on the industry.”
The end of the cheap burger (Bloomberg).“Ever since the McDonald brothers first launched their vision of fast burgers at 15 cents a pop in 1948, inexpensive beef has become an American touchstone, but in the second quarter of 2024, the average price of a fast-food restaurant burger was $8.41, up 16% from five years ago,” writes Deena Shanker. “The average retail price per pound for ground beef in US cities in August was $5.58 per pound, a record high reflecting the US cattle herd’s historically low numbers.”
FDA issues recall notices over 2 brands of pet food due to salmonella and listeria risk (Today). “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is urging pet owners not to give their dogs and cats certain food products from two different brands: Answers Pet Food and Darwin’s Natural Pet Products,” reports Meghan Holohan. “Both the brands were found to have produced pet food that was contaminated with the bacteria salmonella and listeria, which can cause illness in pets that can then infect their owners. No illnesses have been confirmed.”
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