This Food Safety Bill Will Hold Food Companies Accountable for Harmful Additives

New York wants its residents to know exactly what’s in their food — especially the ones their children eat in school. And it’s introducing major legislation to make that happen. 

In January, Sen. Brian Kavanagh (D-District 27) and Assemblymember Dr. Anna Kelles (D-District 125) introduced the New York Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act, a bill that — if passed — could “amend the agriculture and markets law and the education law, in relation to prohibiting certain food additives and food color additives.” 

While other states have prohibited certain additives, including California, which banned red dye No. 3, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil, and Propylparaben in 2023, this bill comes with the unique “disclosure” attribute. Here’s what you need to know about the bill and what it means for the future of food safety and awareness. 

What you really need to know about food additives in the United States

First, a little refresher on what “food additives” are. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) explained that food additives are “any substance the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to result, directly or indirectly, in its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristic of any food.” 

As Food & Wine previously explained, food additives are “ingredients intentionally added to products for a specific purpose,” which could be improving a food’s taste, texture, color, shelf life, or even nutritional value. Food additives include ascorbic acid (aka vitamin C), which helps keep foods fresh, and iodine, which was added to salt in the 1920s to help combat iodine deficiency in the general population. 

However, perhaps the most significant risk of food additives is that many are not regulated as thoroughly as you might expect. This is due to a loophole in the FDA known as the Generally Recognized as Safe, or GRAS, designation, which permits companies to self-declare new ingredients as “safe” without requiring additional oversight from FDA officials. 

Food & Wine also pointed to a 2013 report by the Pew Charitable Trust, which stated that the loophole was intended for common food ingredients, but manufacturers quickly began using the exception to get their products to market “without agency review on the grounds that the additive used is ‘generally recognized as safe.’” As a result,  “companies have determined that an estimated 1,000 chemicals are generally recognized as safe and have used them without notifying the agency.” 

“One-hundred percent of the people that review them have financial conflicts of interest,” Jennifer L. Pomeranz, an associate professor of public health policy and management at NYU, shared during a panel discussion about the bill. “So it’s scary to think about them just adding it to our food supply with no knowledge by us or the FDA.”

Because of the loophole, the FDA reviews fewer than 1% of new chemicals entering the food supply. In early March, Robert F. Kennedy, the newly appointed head of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced that he’s directing “the acting FDA commissioner to take steps to explore potential rulemaking to revise its Substances Generally Recognized as Safe Final Rule and related guidance to eliminate the self-affirmed GRAS pathway.” 

However, some lawmakers, particularly in New York, are unwilling to delay action since these food additives may be particularly troubling for children. These additives consist of synthetic dyes and preservatives that have been associated with behavioral issues, including hyperactivity and potential long-term health consequences.

How does this bill particularly help children in the state of New York? 

“There’s a lot of good evidence that stepping in and making sure that our children are eating healthy foods without some of these chemicals really will benefit their health,” Kavanagh said at the event. That evidence includes a 2021 review by California state scientists that looked at 27 different human studies and found that certain food dyes caused “microscopic changes” in children’s brains and interfered with chemical signaling, which can lead to neurobehavioral issues.

There is, however, a more significant issue in this, according to Marion Nestle, the founder of Food Politics and a Paulette Goddard professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health, Emerita at NYU. And that is the fact that food science in children is incredibly complex. 

“It’s complicated, and these are impossible studies to do. You can’t take two sets of kids, divide half of them, give them food dyes, and watch what happens, and then the other half get a placebo,” Nestle said, explaining they’d be deemed “unethical” studies. 

That means we simply don’t have enough data on any of these health outcomes. However, Nestle added, the question then becomes, “Do you leave it in the food supply and wait until it gets everybody into a lot of trouble and then get rid of it? Or do you do what the Europeans do, which is to apply what they call the ‘precautionary principle,’ so if there are any questions about its safety, let’s not use it?”

A great example of this in practice is food coloring.

“There is psychological literature on what makes foods attractive, and that literature shows that the single most important factor in a child’s choice of a food is the color,” Nestle said. “So there’s a reason why all of those kids’ cereals look like they’re neon because kids like those colors and think that that’s what they’re supposed to be eating.”

However, as Nestle noted, when General Mills attempted to replace artificial dyes in its Trix cereal with natural alternatives in 2015, sales plummeted. Consumers rejected the duller, natural colors, prompting the company to quietly reintroduce artificial dyes. 

Nestle added that this is precisely why industry-wide regulations are necessary, so individual companies won’t hesitate to implement these changes alone and risk losing market share. Instead, everyone will have to follow suit, establishing a new standard for what our — and our children’s — food looks like. 

Why is it important to address these issues at the city and state level?

With federal agencies like the FDA underfunded and slow to act on food safety concerns, state intervention is increasingly critical. 

“When we’re at a federal deregulation time like we are now … there’s never been a better time for the states and cities to take action,” Pomeranz said. “Although it’s actually always been a great time for states and cities to take action because they can do things that can protect us. And given New York and places like California have such large economies, the food industry isn’t going to create products just for our state. They’re going to actually protect all Americans.” 

How does this new act hold food and chemical companies accountable?

The Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act directly targets this issue by mandating transparency. If a company wants to sell a food product in New York containing a GRAS-approved additive that has not undergone independent FDA review, it must disclose this information to the state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets. Companies must also submit the scientific basis for their safety claims and make this information publicly available.

“I think the most impactful thing is the disclosure,” Kavanagh shared, explaining that while scientific inquiry serves as the guidepost, it is essential that transparency, disclosure, and the “ability of disinterested parties to review the results of that science” ensure that information “will be made public for all to see.” 

Will this bill financially impact schools?

Cost is a significant concern about food regulation, especially for public school meals. This bill, however, is expected to have a minimal financial impact on schools. 

Kavanagh noted that the bill “will have limited financial effect on anybody.” While it is “true that sometimes foods that are healthier cost a bit more,” the bulk of the cost is in the transportation and labor required to deliver and serve the food. So, according to Kavanagh, serving healthier foods should “have very marginal effects.” 

There’s even data that points to the fact that serving healthier school meals could actually benefit the economy. A 2021 joint report by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Center for Good Food Purchasing found that the American government’s $18.7 billion investment in free and reduced lunches resulted in a nearly $40 billion return, “providing at least $21 billion in net benefit,” which includes improved public health and greater economic equity by assisting low-income families in accessing nutritious meals, easing financial strain, and fostering economic stability. 

As the report states, if you want even more gains, just make those meals healthier. “We analyze investments to maximize student participation, improve dietary composition, and optimize food purchasing policies, which together would produce an additional $10 billion worth of net-positive health, equity, environmental, and economic impacts.” 

So, what can you do right now?

For starters, you can voice your support for the bill, which currently sits with the Senate Agriculture Committee. Then, you could try swapping out ultra-processed foods yourself to see how big of an impact it could make. 

“I think the best advice is actually to choose less processed food,” Pomeranz said. “We can’t avoid it all, and it’s also much cheaper. But if you’re choosing between potato chips that are made out of potatoes, vegetable oil, and salt and then crinkles, which have 18 ingredients, it’s an obvious choice.”