Today’s podcast and post on Eating in America is about the giant Food and Drug Administration loophole — even Secretary of Health RFK, Jr. is upset about it — that allows the food industry to put toxic food on our plates without oversight or even our knowledge.

The “Generally Recognized As Safe”, or “GRAS”, system allows food manufacturers to self-certify that a new food substance is safe and introduce it to the food system without notice to the FDA, our government’s agency responsible for safety, or to the public.

As I reviewed the long list of 1,300 or so GRAS-designated additives to our food supply about which the FDA has been notified, I was struck by the number of foreign sounding chemicals and substances: mycoprotein made from mold fungus, titanium dioxide like that found in white paint and sun block, oil made from algae to put into baby formula, to name a few. And there are likely hundreds or thousands more additives that food manufacturers have introduced without informing the FDA.

All these substances, including common ones that are safe and even helpful in small doses like salt and sugar, are the ingredients that go into ultraprocessed food. And if they were removed from the food supply, as former FDA Commissioner has petitioned? We would see very little ultra-processed food on our shelves!

So much of this food is new - it never existed before, say, Donald Trump was born. And, you know what? We got along great without it! We could get along great without it again.

Do we really need the harm and risk of harm these substances bring?

But we are sort of addicted to it - that’s what the ultraprocessed manufacturers are aiming for with their lab creations - so losing it would take some getting used to.

Look for “Life Without Ultraprocessed Food” as a topic soon on Eating in America.