Tag: food

Safe to Eat? States vs. Feds in the Food Dye Debate

by Candace Yamanishi*

There is a shifting sentiment against the use of synthetic food dyes in the US food supply. As citizen-led advocacy groups have been raising their voices about the health concerns of artificial food dyes, several states have introduced or passed legislation banning or limiting the use of certain synthetic food dyes in food products. These efforts reflect the growing concerns over links between artificial dyes (such as Red No. 3, Yellow No. 5, and others) and potential effects on children’s learning and attention, as well as possible risk of carcinogenic effects. These state-wide initiatives have now captured the attention of the federal government and the larger food industry as a whole. Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains nationwide regulatory authority over food additives, a crucial question emerges: can state bans and restrictions on FDA approved food dyes stand, or will they be preempted by federal law?

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Regional spotlight: Food Equity in Pennsylvania

The following is a guest post by Mallory Hersh* about her work in food equity.

During the pandemic, I had more free time than expected, and began to cook to accommodate my father’s recently-diagnosed food allergies. A few successful dinners later, I was whipping up healthy treats and baked goods in my spare time and delivering them around the neighborhood. 

But as I became more involved in conversations about food–how to source organic ingredients; the best forums for recipe swaps–I became increasingly aware that not everyone had the same access that I did to the foods that I took for granted. In the U.S., more than 34 million people, including 9 million children, experience food insecurity, often lacking consistent access to nutritious meals. Looking to help make a difference, I got involved with my high school’s service club, specifically aiming to spend my time with local community fridges and food pantries. I was selected to be the liaison between my school and Weaver’s Way Community Fridge, a community fridge that was connected to a local grocery store in Ambler, Pennsylvania.

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To Eat or Not to Eat: For Consumers in a City Without a Food Allergen Ordinance, The Choice Could Be Life or Death

by Melissa Deng*

For many of us without food allergies, we don’t think twice about choosing to dine at a restaurant or order take-out––often, the biggest concern is picking which restaurant you feel like eating at, what to order, and comparing costs.  But for individuals with food allergies, the choice between dining in and ordering out can mean life or death.  Even so, cities you might think are more “food allergy-friendly” like Los Angeles, which has a colloquial reputation for having a vibrant food scene, may not have an ordinance specifically governing food allergen training in restaurants––even while more than fifty percent of adults with food allergies and over forty percent of children with food allergies in the United States have experienced a severe food allergic reaction (of note is that emergency treatment for anaphylaxis resulting from a food allergic reaction increased by 377 percent between 2007 and 2016). 

What gives?  For starters, the restaurant industry is of course profit-driven, and restaurant associations have a significant impact on lobbying for or against legislation.  From an economic perspective, restaurant management might be wary of the increased costs an ordinance specifically mandating food allergen training would impose, compounded by the fact that the restaurant industry generally experiences high turnover (reportedly, there was a 28% average turnover rate for restaurants in LA last year).  From a legal perspective, restaurants might not want to face increased liability: with an ordinance that mandates training, plaintiffs can more easily make a prima facie case of negligence by showing that the restaurant’s conduct deviated from an established standard of care.  And from a psychological perspective, restaurant staff might have misconceptions about their role in preventing food allergic reactions (for example, believing that the onus falls solely on customers to order a dish that doesn’t have food allergens) and might not realize the potentially fatal consequences, such as anaphylaxis resulting from a food allergic reaction.   What this means is that consumers with food allergies are unfairly subjected to a burdensome and dangerous dining experience where each restaurant chooses which food allergen procedures to follow and to what degree. 

It is precisely this issue that drove us at the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy, in collaboration with a professor and clinical immunologist at UCLA, to begin collecting both hospital-based and anecdotal evidence on instances of food-related anaphylaxis in the city, and pursuing the task of proposing a food allergy ordinance in the City of Los Angeles that will mandate a separate food allergen training for all restaurant employees in the city.  In the beginning stages of the project, we sought to answer two underlying questions: how do restaurants communicate allergen information to their consumers; and are they effectively training their personnel in allergen disclosure for menu labeling or food handling?

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In Search of Greener GRAS: How Regulatory Policy has Created the American Diet and How to Fix it

by Trey Catanzaro*

If you ask most Americans what food additives they may “generally recognize as safe,” it is highly unlikely that they would answer “propyl paraben” or “beta hydroxy acid.” Rather, they may say vinegar, olive oil, or black pepper. In fact, when asked about what “generally recognized as safe” means, a national poll found that 77 percent of respondents thought that standard meant the FDA has evaluated the product and determined it to be safe. However, under current FDA regulations, a company may self-determine whether its product is “generally recognized as safe” under FDA guidelines, and then bring it to market without even notifying the FDA as to its existence. In other words, there are currently thousands of chemicals in everyday food that the FDA has no clue even exist. As succinctly stated by the former Deputy Commissioner for Food at the FDA, “[w]e simply do not have the information to vouch for the safety of many of these chemicals.”

Most chemical additives enter the American food supply due to an exception in FDA pre-market review for ingredients that are generally recognized as safe (GRAS). In legislation drafted in 1958 to address the rising issue of additives in food, Congress specifically exempted certain ingredients which were “generally recognized . . . to be safe under the conditions of [their] intended use” from the definition of additives. Therefore, anything determined to be GRAS would not be subject to pre-market review and approval by the FDA. At the time of passing the amendment, the reasoning for the GRAS exemption was so that ingredients that had long been used in foods without apparent harmful effects, such as salt, sugar and other familiar substances, would not have to undergo extensive testing to be used in food products. However, the GRAS exemption continued to expand, eventually permitting companies to self-determine whether their ingredient was GRAS, and giving them the choice of whether or not to notify the FDA of their GRAS determination.

Under the present iteration of the rule, companies’ GRAS determinations are filled with a litany of conflicts of interest. Rather than relying on peer-reviewed data, companies often convene panels of experts to make a GRAS determination. These panels are frequently made up of the same small group of individuals who have made a career out of GRAS panel participation. To put this in perspective, a comprehensive study looked at convened GRAS determination panels from the year 2015 to 2020, and, out of the 732 panel positions available, there were a mere 7 individuals who filled 339 (46%) of these positions. Their determinations of safety are often never sent to the FDA for review. Further, even if a GRAS determination is sent to the FDA for notification, which is not required, and valid concerns are raised about the safety of the product, this does not always preclude the product from coming to market. Companies have the ability to voluntarily withdraw their petitions should they foresee unfavorable results from the FDA’s review. Therefore, after receiving health concerns from the FDA based on its review of a GRAS notification, the company may then withdraw its notification and continue to market the product. The FDA will then issue a letter of withdrawal without acknowledging the safety concerns raised during the review.

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The Urgent Need to Update the Regulation of GM Crops

by Alice Carli*

Humans have been altering plants for upwards of 10,000 years through a wide variety of techniques for genetic modification. In the 20th century, scientists developed transgenic genetic engineering, which combines DNA from two or more sources to achieve a desired trait. This discovery fundamentally altered our ability to manipulate crops and opened a Pandora’s box of commercial possibilities and political conflicts. More recently, the advent of CRISPR and other precision gene editing technologies has resurfaced tensions around the role of genetically modified (“GM”) crops in our agricultural and food systems.

Despite these longstanding tensions, the U.S. has the world’s largest production of GM crops by acreage, and it is estimated that over 75% of processed foods on our supermarket shelves contain genetically engineered ingredients.

At the same time, the country faces systemic sustainability challenges exacerbated by climate change and intensive monoculture farming. These include flooding, soil degradation, air and water pollution, and biodiversity collapse. Significant and holistic changes to U.S. agriculture are needed to tackle these problems.

If regulated effectively, GM crops have the potential to make U.S. agriculture more sustainable and climate resilient. When designed with climate-smart features, these crops can significantly enhance nutrient or photosynthesis efficiency, provide flood, drought, and disease resistance, and even improve soil carbon sequestration.

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Food, community, and belonging: Our Seat at the Table

by Marin Milken*

[This is one in a series of occasional posts by Los Angeles high school students working with and studying food systems.]

Inspired by the meals I made for my family and friends during the pandemic, I founded Our Seat at the Table to engage with questions of food, community and belonging. Though there are various food-related initiatives that Our Seat will continue to tackle through its programming, I wanted our first endeavor to help with the widespread national issue of food insecurity. Food insecurity, in simplest terms, is when people neither have enough to eat, nor know where their next meal is coming from. The latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report indicates that in comparison to 2019, the number of people worldwide affected by hunger has risen by over 122 million. In the United States, food insecurity is addressed through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, which aim supplement low-income families’ groceries, so that they can access the food that they need to be food secure. But key findings in a recent report from the Robert Wood Johnson foundation highlight and demonstrate that SNAP benefits don’t cover the cost of moderately priced meals in 78% of US counties. With this statistic in mind, it’s unlikely that SNAP benefits are able to cover the costs of healthier options, such as organic produce. Programs such as SNAP – and its inability to adequately address the food needs for so many in this country – highlight a large systemic gap between those who are food insecure and food secure, despite SNAP being touted as a successful safety net for those who are food insecure.

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