{"id":6782,"date":"2025-05-29T17:14:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T23:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pirg.org\/newmexico\/?post_type=article&#038;p=6782"},"modified":"2026-06-24T15:02:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:02:53","slug":"why-are-potentially-dangerous-additives-in-americas-food","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/pirg.org\/newmexico\/articles\/why-are-potentially-dangerous-additives-in-americas-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are potentially dangerous additives in America\u2019s food?"},"featured_media":58790,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":false,"_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":""},"campaign_tax":[181],"display_option":[],"issue_tax":[],"person_tax":[],"region_tax":[],"state":[2],"topic_tax":[151,146,145],"class_list":["post-6782","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"details":{"helper_taxonomies":{"topics":[145,146,151],"collection":false,"press_type":false,"person_type":false,"resource_type":false,"event_type":false,"campaigns":181,"department":false,"level":false,"states":[2],"act_option":false,"display_option":false,"primary":{"topic":146}},"featured_image":58790,"caption_override":"","excerpt":"The current Food and Drug Administration\u2019s rules assume that foods are safe unless they\u2019re proven to harm people. That\u2019s the opposite of what it should be. \r\n","updated_on":null,"sidebar_action":[6706],"hide_hero_image":false,"sidebar_action_query_string":""},"helper_people_group":{"title":"Authors","entities":null},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_wysiwyg":{"content":"<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once upon a time, food was a lot simpler. Bread was made of wheat. Chicken was chicken. You didn't need a label to know what you were eating.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, you need a science degree to understand what's on the labels of many foods, especially so-called \"ultraprocessed foods,\" which -- sad to say -- is where most of us get most of our calories.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You might be wondering how these artificial additives ended up in our food in the first place. The answer comes down to a loophole in federal safety rules.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n<h3><b>The \u201cgenerally recognized as safe\u201d loophole\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the heart of the problem is a principle the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calls \u201cgenerally recognized as safe\u201d or GRAS. The basic idea is that the FDA\u00a0 deems it <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyu.edu\/about\/news-publications\/news\/2024\/august\/legal-loophole-unsafe-ingredients.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">unnecessary<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to test a new food additive as long as it is \u201cgenerally recognized as safe.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Originally, the rule was <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyu.edu\/about\/news-publications\/news\/2024\/august\/legal-loophole-unsafe-ingredients.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">intended<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to allow ingredients such as vinegar and common spices into food without testing. But as synthetic ingredients have become more common, GRAS now permits a huge range of new additives.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To make matters worse, the rules allow food manufacturers to declare an additive to be GRAS. They\u2019re not even required (though they are encouraged) to publish their research.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s a system that makes it remarkably easy to put a new chemical in the food of millions of Americans without any public determination if that chemical is safe or not.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n<h3><b>Dangerous additives\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the U.S., we\u2019ve already seen food additives turn out to be dangerous or potentially dangerous, despite having been used in food products for many years.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pirg.org\/edfund\/articles\/fda-finally-bans-red-no-3-food-dye-linked-to-cancer\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Red Dye No. 3<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was in use for decades, even though strong evidence suggested that it caused cancer.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, the FDA has made a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/news-events\/press-announcements\/hhs-fda-phase-out-petroleum-based-synthetic-dyes-nations-food-supply\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">deal with food producers to discontinue<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> other petroleum-based food dyes, citing the potential health risks.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of these products have been in use for <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/industry\/color-additives\/color-additives-history\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">almost a hundred years<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> already. Even if these additives are found to be dangerous and taken off the market, that won\u2019t help the thousands or millions of people who have already been permitted to consume them.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n<h3><b>Better safe than sorry\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How can we allow potentially dangerous chemicals to remain in our food for decades? Right now, it\u2019s easier to introduce food additives to the market than it is to remove them.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a matter of common sense, we should be cautious about what we put in our food, especially when those additives serve mere cosmetic purposes. We should be carefully examining every additive before permitting its use instead of panicking about whether the food already ingested by millions is unsafe.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When hundreds of new ingredients can go into our food, ordinary people aren\u2019t able to determine whether a food product is safe to eat. That\u2019s why we need our government to look out for consumers, and make sure that food additives are safe before they end up on supermarket shelves. <\/span>","":null}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_large_image","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_large_image":{"width":"wide","image":"","caption_override":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_wysiwyg":{"content":"","":null}}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.8 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why are potentially dangerous additives in America\u2019s food?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The current Food and Drug Administration\u2019s rules assume that foods are safe unless they\u2019re proven to harm people. 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