Happy Friday, and welcome to Food Fix. This week was so newsy I think I changed the topic for today’s newsletter four times.
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Alright, let’s get to it –
Helena
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Why FDA’s ‘healthy’ update likely wont make us healthier
The FDA on Thursday updated the federal regulation that defines what foods can be labeled as healthy.
This move had been a long time coming. FDA hadn’t updated the definition of healthy since it was first defined back in 1994 — the year “Friends” debuted on NBC, the year of the O.J. Simpson car chase, the year Kurt Cobain died (R.I.P.) Needless to say, the regulation was woefully outdated.
Interestingly, there wasn’t a whole lot of fuss about healthy being behind the times until about a decade ago. In 2015, nut bar-maker KIND got a warning letter from the FDA saying some of its bars couldn’t be called healthy because they contained too much saturated fat to comply with FDA’s rules (in part because of the nuts). This caused quite a stir in the media: Was the agency really still stuck in the 1990s, when we were (wrongly) told all fat was bad? Nuts can’t be labeled as healthy? Really? It all seemed kind of crazy. The warning letter drama eventually got sorted out, but the whole ordeal led to a petition from KIND (now owned by Mars) urging the FDA to update the rules around what foods can be labeled as healthy.
Now, almost exactly nine years later, the agency has finally done it. (The final rule kicks in Feb. 2028, so it’ll have been just over 12 years, but whose counting? I am. I am counting!)
Any way you shake it, this has taken a long time, and FDA officials are (understandably) excited to have the final rule out. It absolutely needed to be updated. The way it was, you couldn’t put the healthy label on salmon, avocados, olives, nuts or eggs.
Under the new rule, many of these foods can now be labeled as healthy. Plenty of others will qualify, too, such as products containing certain amounts of fruits, vegetables, proteins, fat-free and low-fat dairy, whole grains, lentils, etc., as long as they also meet limits for saturated fat, sodium and added sugars.
There’s a long list of foods that previously qualified as healthy that won’t in the future. A much stricter cap on added sugars, for example, will knock out many sweetened yogurts and fortified breakfast cereals. Fortified white bread without whole grains will also no longer qualify. (The agency posted some helpful infographics, if you’re curious.)
Reality check: Most health experts would agree that the update makes more sense than what we had before. What doesn’t make sense, however, is how the FDA is positioning the rule as a way to tackle diet-related diseases.
“It is vital that we focus on the key drivers to combat chronic disease, like healthy eating,” said FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, in a statement. “Now, people will be able to look for the ‘healthy’ claim to help them find foundational, nutritious foods for themselves and their families.”
“Food labeling can be a powerful tool for change,” said Jim Jones, FDA deputy commissioner for human foods. “Food labeling, like ‘healthy,’ may help foster a healthier food supply if manufacturers choose to reformulate their products to meet the new definition.”
The word “may” is doing a lot of work here. FDA acknowledges that the public health impact of this rule is predicted to be fairly minimal. To start, this isn’t a particularly popular term to use on food products — the healthy claim is currently only used on 5 percent of products on the market, per FDA. (Seriously, next time you’re at the grocery store, take a look around, it’s not easy to find the label. I think the lack of popularity is in part because most products didn’t meet even the outdated requirements, and there’s also plenty of euphemisms for healthy that are not regulated like “wholesome.”)
A drop in the ocean: The FDA in its final rule concludes the move will likely benefit public health, but the estimated benefits are tiny compared to the astronomical diet-related disease costs we’re facing.
The agency estimates the benefit of this policy change is roughly $686 million over 20 years, or $46 million annualized. For context, diet-related diseases cost us hundreds of billions of dollars per year. One estimate has the cost north of $1 trillion per year.
We’re still waiting on the regulatory impact analysis to be published, but FDA’s final rule gives us some sense of how the costs and benefits have been calculated. The agency estimates that a teeny tiny fraction of consumers — 0 to 0.4 percent of people that try to follow the government’s dietary guidelines — “would use the ‘healthy’ implied nutrient content claim to make meaningful, longlasting food purchasing decisions.”
“Because nutrition science has evolved over time, updating the definition of the implied nutrient content claim ‘healthy’ to more closely align with nutrition science underpinning the Dietary Guidelines, 2020-2025 will better inform consumers who are selecting those products to choose a more healthful diet, which may result in lower incidence of diet-related chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes,” again “may” is doing a little too much heavy lifting here.
The rule continues: “Quantifiable benefits of the rule are the estimated reduction over time in all-cause mortality stemming from consumers that rely upon the ‘healthy’ implied nutrient content claim selecting and consuming more healthful foods.”
When the estimated costs to industry are factored into the equation, the net benefit is estimated to be $283 million, or $19 million annualized, per FDA’s calculations. The costs are also tricky to quantify because some food companies may reformulate products, while others that use the word healthy as part of their brand may have to fully re-brand if they don’t want to reformulate. (ConAgra’s “Healthy Choice” is one to watch here. The brand is currently leaning into being “GLP-1 friendly.”)
Mixed reactions: The FDA’s final rule garnered praise from health groups, even as they urged the agency to do more to tackle chronic diseases. Eva Greenthal, a senior policy scientist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a statement: “We applaud the FDA’s work to set guardrails that will prevent companies from making misleading marketing claims using the word ‘healthy.’”
“But the need for food labeling reform is far from over,” Greenthal said. “We expect the ‘healthy’ rule will have a limited impact because it only applies to those few products bearing the voluntary ‘healthy’ claim. The most important step that the Biden Administration can take to leverage food labels for public health is to publish the FDA’s proposed rule on mandatory front-of-package nutrition labeling.” (FDA is working on this — a proposed rule recently went to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, and Jones told reporters Thursday the agency is “working really hard” to get this out before the end of the Biden administration.)
Some industry groups dismissed the FDA’s update as far too strict, noting that even fewer products would now qualify to be able to use the claim. Roberta Wagner, a former FDA official and current senior vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs at the International Dairy Foods Association, which represents major dairy processors, said the agency “missed an important opportunity to help shoppers at all income levels choose healthier food options for their families. Instead, the rule is so narrow that few foods, including many nutrient dense dairy products, will be able to bear the claim.” (The new cap on added sugars is tough for a lot of yogurts and flavored milks to meet.)
The bottom line: While this new rule may help a small slice of Americans choose healthier options at the grocery store, it’s at best a tiny step toward tackling our diet-related disease crisis. The FDA is also working to come up with a government-approved “healthy” icon that food makers could use in the future, but with a new administration coming in, I really wonder if that will ever happen. It will certainly be interesting to see how the agency’s view on nutrition interventions might change under Marty Makary — President-elect Donald Trump‘s pick for FDA commissioner — I unpacked Makary’s views on food earlier this month.
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What I’m reading
Ag aid remains in limbo as government shutdown looms (Farm Policy News). “The Hill’s Emily Brooks, Al Weaver and Mychael Schnell reported late Thursday evening that ‘Congress is racing toward a shutdown at the end of the day Friday, and Republicans appear no closer to finding a path forward that will keep the lights on and appease President-elect Trump. The latest setback roiled the House on Thursday evening, when Democrats and a band of Republicans rejected a bill that paired a three-month government funding extension, $110 billion in disaster and farm aid and other measures with a two-year suspension of the debt limit — the latter of which was a last-minute demand by Trump. That plan B was cobbled together after GOP lawmakers, Trump and Elon Musk torpedoed the first deal Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) negotiated with Democrats, with the influential Republicans criticizing the policy add-ons included — like a health care policy deal and cost of living raise for members of Congress — that ballooned the legislation to over 1,500 pages.’”
Senate Republicans launch “Make America Healthy Again” caucus (Politico). “The Senate has not yet voted on whether to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the government’s health agencies, but Republicans in the chamber are already gearing up to push Kennedy’s agenda on Capitol Hill,” reports Daniel Payne. “Five GOP senators said Thursday they’d created a caucus to promote the ideals of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement. Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) are the founding members. The caucus’ stated purpose is to implement legislation in line with Kennedy’s agenda, as well as work with state and local governments to do the same.”
A rift in Trump world over how to make America healthier (New York Times). “For Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the activist whom President-elect Donald J. Trump will nominate to serve as the secretary of health and human services, the solution to obesity in America — now at 40 percent of adults — is straightforward: ‘The first line of response should be lifestyle,’ he told Jim Cramer]in a Dec. 12 interview on CNBC,” writes Gina Kolata. “Elon Musk, the technology billionaire who advises the president-elect, sees things differently: ‘Nothing would do more to improve the health, lifespan and quality of life for Americans than making GLP inhibitors super low cost to the public,’ he wrote on X, referring to the new class of drugs that cause weight loss, including Ozempic. ‘Nothing else is even close.’ And there, with the contrasting views of two men in Mr. Trump’s ear, lie two sides of an issue that is plaguing health and nutrition researchers. Is it even possible to change lifestyles and the food environment enough to solve America’s obesity problem? And, if not, do we really want to solve it by putting millions of people on powerful drugs? What is the right balance between the two approaches?”
Bird flu update: California declares emergency and U.S. sees 1st severe human case (NPR). “California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency in response to the ongoing spread of bird flu among dairy cattle,” reports Will Stone. “The declaration is a sign of growing concern over the situation in California, which has become the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak in cattle. More than 300 dairy herds have tested positive in California in the last 30 days alone. The governor said that cases detected in dairy cows on farms in Southern California showed that expanded monitoring and a more coordinated statewide response is needed in response to the outbreak.”
First of two major reports on alcohol finds moderate drinking tied to lower mortality (STAT). “A major report on alcohol’s health effects — which will inform the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans — found moderate drinkers had lower all-cause mortality, and a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, than those who never drank,” reports Isabella Cueto. “The findings are sure to cause a stir, especially once a separate panel of experts releases its own alcohol report in coming weeks. For years, researchers and public health officials have been taking a harder stance on alcohol as evidence has emerged of its associations with various diseases, including certain cancers and liver disease. Recommendations will be made by the main dietary guidelines committee next year, using NASEM’s review and another, from a separate panel in the Department of Health and Human Services. That report has not been released yet but is expected by next month.”
Health advocates sue FDA to remove phthalates from food (Earthjustice). “A group of health advocates represented by Earthjustice sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to force the agency to reevaluate its decades-old authorizations for the use of certain phthalates in food packaging and food production materials. Phthalates are a group of hormone-disrupting chemicals that leach into food from these food-contact materials. The FDA’s authorizations are based on safety assessments that are at least 40 years old, and the agency has refused advocates’ calls to update them. After years of inaction, the advocates sued the FDA in 2021, forcing the agency to respond. In 2022, the FDA denied the petition. Despite the advocates’ appeal to reconsider, the FDA upheld its decision in October 2024, allowing phthalate contamination of our food to continue.”
Sorry, but this is the future of food (New York Times). “‘Industrial agriculture’ is a phrase used to signify ‘bad,’ evoking toxic chemicals, monoculture crops, confined animals, the death of the small family farm and all kinds of images people don’t like to associate with their food,” writes Michael Grunwald. “Agriculture in general does have real environmental downsides. It’s the leading driver of water pollution and shortages, deforestation and biodiversity loss. But industrial agriculture in particular has one real upside: It produces enormous amounts of food on relatively modest amounts of land. And that will be agriculture’s most vital job in the coming decades. The world will need even more enormous amounts of food by 2050, about 50 percent more calories to adequately feed nearly 10 billion people. The inconvenient truth is that factory farms are the best hope for producing the food we will need without obliterating what’s left of our natural treasures and vaporizing their carbon into the atmosphere.”
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