The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced a proposed rule that would require more transparency around what ingredients are being put in food.
The proposal would close a food regulation loophole that allows companies to put certain chemicals in products without informing the FDA.
Food manufacturers would have to notify the agency when using ingredients that are generally recognized as safe, or GRAS, in their products, per CNN. This is a step forward in the movement toward healthier food reforms led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again movement.
Kennedy applauded this proposal as a major win in the Trump administration’s efforts to promote healthier diets and crack down on ultraprocessed foods.
“We don’t even know exactly how many chemicals are in the food that Americans eat every day,” Kennedy said on Monday when the proposal was unveiled, per CNN.
The rule is only a proposal right now, so it will be subject to industry and public comment over the coming months.
What you need to know about the new FDA proposal
Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas told reporters Monday morning that the plan “lays a blueprint designed to work effectively for FDA oversight, responsible industry, and consumer safety advocates alike.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, the proposed rule asks companies to inform the FDA when they introduce a new substance into food products and include information on why it is considered safe. It is meant to fix a loophole known as generally recognized as safe, or GRAS, that allowed manufacturers to declare ingredients as safe without seeking FDA approval or notifying the public.
Diamantas said the proposal would close a “decades-old information gap,” per The Wall Street Journal.
Officials also announced that they would make the information that companies provide about their new ingredients public.
There are food safety and nutrition experts who have welcomed the proposal as a long overdue change but others worry the FDA doesn’t have the resources to review all the submissions from companies, per The Washington Post.
Under the new proposal, the FDA will review each company’s submissions within 45 days to ensure all needed information is included and a substantive review will be done within 180 days.
The proposal does not prohibit companies from adding the substances to their products while the review process is ongoing and there is no requirement for the FDA to formally approve or review the chemical. Formal approval would require an act of Congress, per The Washington Post.
Another piece of the MAHA movement, a definition of ultraprocessed foods, is still going through review with multiple federal agencies. There are concerns that the definition could be too broad and accidentally classify too many foods as ultraprocessed, per CNN.
According to The Wall Street Journal, experts say it will be a slow process for this proposed rule to make a difference.