The US recently announced new requirements for foods to be labeled as “healthy.” Americans increasingly realize that not everything labeled edible is good for them; in principle, the change is much needed. The problem is that the FDA’s definition of what is healthy, based on many of its past policies, undermines rather than improves health.
Regulating Food
Americans do not want the government to mandate what they eat (especially bug burgers and synthetic meats), but federal agencies, including the EPA, USDA, and FDA, have an important function in policing food (and medicines) for safety, including regulating chemicals in the farming and food processing systems. These agencies have now established a visible track record of failure. While improved labeling requirements are overdue, the current push conceals many health risks that industry “stakeholders” do not want dragged into the light of public awareness.
Under the new labeling requirements, products marked “healthy” must contain a specific amount from at least one of the groups or subgroups included in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans: fruits, vegetables, “protein food,” dairy, and grains. This first FDA rule-change in 30 years also limits saturated fats, sodium, and sugars (a first) – an important if anemic start considering Americans’ health crisis. Yet, these rules do not go far enough to effectively inform citizens.
The FDA’s track record here is largely ineffectual. Alarms of excess salt in US dining were widespread beginning at least in 2013: The FDA responded a decade later with “recommendations” aiming to cut average salt intake by 12%, down to 3,000 mg a day – a target still above the 2,300 mg of sodium recommended at the time to combat the nation’s epidemic of high blood pressure.
Americans do not want the government to mandate what they eat (especially bug burgers and synthetic meats), but federal agencies, including the EPA, USDA, and FDA, have an important function in policing food (and medicines) for safety, including regulating chemicals in the farming and food processing systems. These agencies have now established a visible track record of failure. While improved labeling requirements are overdue, the current push conceals many health risks that industry “stakeholders” do not want dragged into the light of public awareness.
Under the new labeling requirements, products marked “healthy” must contain a specific amount from at least one of the groups or subgroups included in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans: fruits, vegetables, “protein food,” dairy, and grains. This first FDA rule-change in 30 years also limits saturated fats, sodium, and sugars (a first) – an important if anemic start considering Americans’ health crisis. Yet, these rules do not go far enough to effectively inform citizens.
The FDA’s track record here is largely ineffectual. Alarms of excess salt in US dining were widespread beginning at least in 2013: The FDA responded a decade later with “recommendations” aiming to cut average salt intake by 12%, down to 3,000 mg a day – a target still above the 2,300 mg of sodium recommended at the time to combat the nation’s epidemic of high blood pressure.
Forgetting What Is Truly Healthy?
Alzheimer’s disease and dementia occur disproportionately higher in the Deep South, where African Americans are twice as likely to develop these conditions, linked to “factors such as high rates of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and vascular disease in the region.” These conditions are more traceable to food choices rather than white supremacy. Phthalates and toxic additives are particularly harmful because they “disrupt normal hormone functions and lead to health issues, including heart disease and reproductive problems.” One recent study found that as many as 100,000 premature deaths in the United States each year are attributable to phthalate exposure.
The new FDA guidelines are silent on these top-tier food risks, especially in take-out foods. Meanwhile, more than 60% of grocery store products contain chemical colorings, preservatives, or sweeteners – the new rules do not warn consumers about these adulterations to products otherwise qualifying as “healthy.”
Consider the “healthy” category of fruits and vegetables. The nonprofit Environmental Working Group promulgates annual lists of the safest (Clean Fifteen) and dirtiest (Dirty Dozen) US produce items using data from the USDA and other federal agencies regarding pesticide residues. These help consumers decide which FDA-”healthy” produce to avoid unless organic, and which fruits and vegetables to be less concerned about.
Strawberries topped the 2024 EWG Dirty Dozen yet again, based on 2015-2016 data showing that 99% of 1,174 tested batches contained at least one pesticide residue, and 30% contained residues of ten or more pesticides. The worst sample contained 23 different chemicals; 82 different chemical residues were found in varying amounts in the samples. Number two on the 2024 list was spinach: The USDA’s most recent (2016) tests showed a sharp increase in pesticide residues on conventionally grown spinach since previous tests in 2008 and 2009, detecting an average of seven pesticides in 642 samples, with up to 19 different pesticides in one sample. Permethrin, a neurotoxic insecticide that can overwhelm the nervous system and cause tremors and seizures at high doses, was found in 76% of the tested samples.
New FDA Rules Are DOA
The FDA, like new USDA dietary guidelines, offers less information for consumers about these chemical exposures than it did regarding salt “recommendations” in 2023 and does not appear to collect and distribute the USDA data compiled by the nonprofit EWG. Is it any wonder Americans are increasingly distrustful of the FDA? These are regulatory agencies that seem to routinely pander to industry “stakeholders” at the expense of human health. The agency will label water “healthy” under the new rules – but bottled water, too, varies in toxin residues. Plastic water bottles and food packaging are tainting Americans’ arteries, brains, and reproductive systems with a brave new world of chemical plasticizers.
Joe Biden has launched a war on carbon dioxide that opens the chemical spigot full bore for endocrine- disrupting, toxic forever chemicals that accumulate in human bodies. “Renewables” manufacturing is a chemical field day, from lithium mining to silicon production to wind turbine disposal to heat pump manufacturing. This chemical soup impacts the air, water, and soils, while “plant-based” food alternatives paraded as healthier and climate saving undermine both health and climate – GMO monoculture crops depend on glyphosate and pesticide applications, which the FDA and EPA continue to approve in Americans’ food supplies while tax dollars are invested to proselytize against cows.
FDA’s new rules will take effect in February 2025, but manufacturers have until February 2028 to comply while the shell game of pesticide hide-and-seek is perpetuated with regulatory assistance. In contrast, the alliance between Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to make America healthy again is gaining steam even among liberal consumers who know enough about their food to agree with Kennedy that harmful chemical pesticides should be prioritized. MAHA even aspires to make truly healthier foods more accessible and affordable.
The FDA can up its game under Kennedy-Trump leadership and serve the American people in the future rather than obscure toxic chemical exposures in food that should be the number one enemy of all Americans regardless of party, race, or creed. Chemically contaminated foods, especially for vulnerable growing children, must not be labeled “healthy” if outcomes are to be effectively improved.
John Klar is a lawyer and farmer; writer and off-grid hermit. This article was first published HERE
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