How food companies decide what’s safe to add to your food
Rebooting the generally recognized as safe (GRAS) approach for food additive safety in the US.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Companies can say a food additive is safe without asking the government, if experts agree it’s safe based on old rules. The government’s old safety guide is outdated, and a food industry group is making its own new rules. Scientists say we should use newer, better ways to test safety.
Surprising Findings
The GRAS system allows companies to bypass FDA review entirely, relying only on expert consensus—not regulatory approval.
Most people assume the FDA approves every additive in food; this reveals a major loophole where no government review is required.
Practical Takeaways
Check ingredient labels and research unfamiliar additives using databases like EWG’s Skin Deep or Fooducate to see if they were self-declared GRAS.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Companies can say a food additive is safe without asking the government, if experts agree it’s safe based on old rules. The government’s old safety guide is outdated, and a food industry group is making its own new rules. Scientists say we should use newer, better ways to test safety.
Surprising Findings
The GRAS system allows companies to bypass FDA review entirely, relying only on expert consensus—not regulatory approval.
Most people assume the FDA approves every additive in food; this reveals a major loophole where no government review is required.
Practical Takeaways
Check ingredient labels and research unfamiliar additives using databases like EWG’s Skin Deep or Fooducate to see if they were self-declared GRAS.
Publication
Journal
ALTEX
Year
2018
Authors
T. Hartung
Related Content
Claims (6)
A group that represents food companies is creating its own rules for deciding if food ingredients are safe—without needing the FDA’s approval first.
The FDA lets food companies add certain ingredients to food without checking them first, as long as a group of trusted scientists agree those ingredients are safe based on how the safety info was gathered.
Companies can say their food ingredients are safe all by themselves—no need to ask the government for permission—just by deciding they’re harmless based on their own research or common use.
The rules the FDA uses to check if food additives are safe were written about 20 years ago, and now they’re working on updating them because science and technology have moved forward since then.
We can make our food safer by using newer, smarter science tests to check if additives in our food are harmful, instead of relying on old methods that might miss subtle dangers.