Change: It has started for food

I had written a few weeks ago that the United States is going to change. Robert Kennedy, taking over the role of Secretary Health, would facilitate change.

It has started.

In a new ruling, the government has stopped a loophole that allowed manufacturers to self-report the safety of a new ingredient. Allow me to explain.

Imagine I am making a new sauce. Illustratively, as a manufacturer, I would only add an ingredient if it lowered cost, preserved the product or improved taste.

Ingredients add to my cost.

Naturally, with any new ingredient, especially with food, safety issues come alongside.

Safety is a pandora’s box. Safe for who? Under what circumstances?

If someone really had to evaluate the safety of a new ingredient, millions would have to be spent to understand safety. Since this is a sauce, anyone can consume it.

Compare this to a drug, where you would test for specific conditions since it would be given only under prescription.

So the law permitted manufacturers to self-report the safety after testing internally. If I am testing internally, essentially I am testing to ensure no one will die after consuming my sauce.

I am not testing, for example, for an eczema or rashes as an outcome of consuming the sauce. It would be prohibitive to test for all such conditions. This has now been changed.

Manufacturers can no longer self-report.

How all of this will play out is still open. What process will they follow? How safe will it make the food that you consume? Will it really improve health metrics?

In the interim, what should you do?

Eat home cooked food as often as you can, no matter what anyone says. Cook with fresh ingredients as much as possible. Avoid products that come with ingredients you cannot identify.

You are not a laboratory animal on which companies should test whether products work or not.

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