The Food and Drug Administration announced a new rule Monday that would mandate food producers provide the agency with health and safety information about the ingredients they use in their products, a major shift from the current voluntary compliance system.The new proposed rule, if finalized, would update the Generally Recognized as Safe rules that have, since the 1950s, allowed food companies to self-verify that ingredients in their products are safe for human consumption.
New standards would require food companies to notify the FDA of new ingredients shortly after going to market and create a framework for the FDA to conduct post-market reviews of ingredient safety.FDA commissioner Kyle Diamantas told reporters ahead of the announcement that the move will “increase transparency and consumer confidence in the food supply.”“Shifting to a mandatory notification system closes a decades-old information gap, giving the FDA the comprehensive visibility needed to enhance postmarket safety and to do so more promptly and efficiently to assure the safety of the food supply,” Diamantas said.Trump administration officials also announced progress toward an official definition of ultraprocessed foods, which will likely create an avenue for stricter FDA regulations. It is not clear how the definition will change, but Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been highly critical of ultraprocessed foods, blaming them and their makers for the epidemics of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in the United States.“We cannot reverse America’s chronic disease epidemic without transforming our food system,” Kennedy said in a statement. “These historic actions bring greater transparency to what’s in our food and strong science to federal nutrition policy.”Food policy win for MAHA
