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You may think that if you buy food in the US, any additives or preservatives in the food will be safe because the FDA has to regulate it. Well, you’re wrong.
A law that has been around for decades allows manufacturers to label any of these additives as “generally recognized as safe” or “GRAS”, without ANY testing by the FDA.
This originated from the fact that the FDA review process takes a long time (as it should), but if a company wanted to add something simple like salt it would get caught up in the lengthy review process. So the label “GRAS” was devised to allow speedier production of new food products without the hassle.
The problem is that, as with most exemption laws, companies take advantage. Additives, preservatives, and other flavorings are put into our foods under this law and the FDA doesn’t even know about it, let alone have a chance to test them. Some of the chemicals that are labeled as “GRAS” have actually been found to have harmful health effects in other studies, but the loophole in the law bypasses FDA oversight.
Are we really going to continue to allow companies to basically put whatever they want in our foods? We have no idea if these have short or long term health effects, and neither do they in a lot of cases!
Food manufacturers have a lot of money to put into this fight. This is where people are going to have to demand reform from the FDA. A perfect example is TRANS FAT. Artificial trans fats, known for their contribution to heart disease, has had a “GRAS” label for years.
All the publicity around its health concerns forced the FDA to consider blocking this status this year– so yes for now trans fat is “generally recognized as safe.”
Non-profit organizations like the Center for Public Integrity, who wrote the article below, are calling attention to this and demanding reform.
Check out this article and tell me if you feel like the FDA is watching out for you and your family!
