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Don't Eat Anything Your Great Grandmother Wouldn't Recognize (Watch out for GRAS)

As if we needed reminding, engineered foods are never as good for you as natural organic foods. A new report from federal investigators says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has failed to ensure the safety of thousands of additives manufacturers put in what we eat.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the congressional watchdog agency, singled out a longstanding exception to FDA rules that has concerned consumer and public health advocates for years. Substances "generally regarded as safe" by food companies' own scientific panels are immune from rigorous FDA analysis, meaning that manufacturers that want to include an additive in a product are often spared having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in safety tests and can save years in getting the product to market.

The GAO stated that:

• The FDA generally doesn't know about most of these determinations of "generally regarded as safe," or GRAS, because companies are not required to inform the agency.

• The FDA has not taken steps that could help ensure the safety of additives listed as GRAS.

• Food products may contain numerous ingredients, including GRAS substances, making it difficult, if not impossible, for public health authorities to attribute a food safety problem to a specific GRAS additive.

• The FDA does not systematically reconsider the safety of GRAS substances as new information or new methods for evaluating safety become available.

The GOA reported that it was almost impossible to link adverse effects to GRAS additives because their presence in food is rarely known to anyone beyond those responsible for it.

GRAS designations started in 1958, when Congress amended the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to say that the safety of an additive "does not need to be established with absolute certainty." Instead, the law said, a scientific panel selected by the manufacturer can rule that no harm will result from the intended use of an additive.
In reality, the only ones who know whether the additives are actually safe are the company and its own analysts, or the outside labs it hires.

Thousands of exemptions are granted by panels designated by food industry trade groups. The largest such organization, the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association, has bestowed GRAS on more than 2,600 additives since 1960.

So this means that a company can have an additive declared GRAS, and then import that additive from China and put it into their food product. Scary enough for you?

The easy solution is to eat natural organic foods – an apple doesn’t need a label or an additive.

Richard Wottrich