Want to know what's really in your food? The Trump administration is trying to help

Americans have a right to know what is in their food.

That shouldn’t be controversial. You should be able to walk into a grocery store, read a label, and be confident that the ingredients listed on the food you are buying have been subject to transparent, science-based oversight and are safe for consumption. The Trump administration has now taken an important step toward doing exactly that.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a rule requiring food manufacturers to notify the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) whenever they determine that an added substance is Generally Recognized as Safe, or "GRAS." When Congress passed the Food Additives Amendment in 1958, the idea was simple: ingredients with a documented history of safe use or those that qualified experts had agreed were safe should not face the same pre-market approval process as brand-new food additives. Everyday substances like salt, vinegar, black pepper, and baking powder fall into this category.

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Unfortunately, our regulatory system has fallen short of that basic standard. And over time, the exception became the rule.

Under the current system, manufacturers can self-determine whether a new additive is GRAS and introduce it to the U.S. food supply without notifying the FDA or the public. The manufacturer is still responsible for maintaining evidence to support its own determination, but the FDA may have no advance notice when a new substance enters the supply chain.

And that is the problem. The FDA cannot effectively oversee substances and ensure our health if it does not know they are entering the food supply, and Americans cannot make fully informed choices when our system lacks transparency. That’s a loophole.

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One that has allowed large food manufacturers to flood the domestic food market with new substances without FDA review or even FDA notification.

We’ve raised this issue before at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI). Last year, we laid out this problem in an issue brief, "Make America Healthy Again by Ensuring Safe Foods," calling for greater transparency and accountability in the GRAS process.

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The proposed rule would require the FDA to maintain a public list of GRAS notices, giving researchers, regulators, and consumers visibility into ingredients entering the marketplace. For substances already on the market, the Trump administration is proposing a streamlined process to ensure the public has transparency about what is in their food.

This is exactly how you modernize our food system and close loopholes: increase transparency and give responsible manufacturers a path to compliance. We’ve already seen why reform is necessary. Consider tara flour, a food additive that entered the food supply without the manufacturer submitting a GRAS notice to the FDA. After hundreds of illnesses and hospitalizations were later associated with the substance, the FDA conducted its own review and found that tara flour did not meet the standard for GRAS.

We should learn from that experience.

But this shouldn’t be confused with the choice between consumer safety and a thriving food industry. Manufacturers that promote transparency in the products they sell benefit from consumer confidence. Companies that invest in safety and transparency should not be put at a disadvantage by a system that lets competitors introduce substances into the food supply without regulatory oversight. Americans should not have to wait for people to get sick before regulators identify the substances and ingredients entering our food system. This is not about government dictating every decision made at the dinner table, but about ensuring consumers have access to transparent, reliable information on what they’re eating.

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President Trump and Secretary Kennedy are getting that right, taking a step toward restoring accountability in a flawed system that has drifted far from its original purpose. Regulators gain insight into what is reaching the food supply, manufacturers don’t circumvent transparent rules, and families have all the facts they need to make their own choices.

If a substance is safe enough to put on Americans’ plates, requiring manufacturers to tell the FDA should not be controversial.

Americans have a right to know what is in their food.

Taylor Hood is an Analyst of Healthy America Policy at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI).