Former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may seem like unlikely bedfellows — but not when you consider that they share a common enemy: ultra-processed foods. Both have openly declared war on these highly addictive, unhealthy products, which range from 4,000 to 10,000 ingredients, making them difficult to regulate.
Both believe that at the heart of the enormous health crisis (people in the U.S. get half of their calories from ultra-processed foods) is the 1958 law that allows food manufacturers to decide what’s safe for people to eat — the “Generally Recognized as Safe,” or GRAS, designation — a self-fulfilling prophecy that allows food makers to “innovate to meet consumer demand,” seen by critics as a surefire recipe for addiction backed by the Consumer Brands Association.
RFK Jr. says ultra-processed food manufacturers have hijacked the GRAS “loophole” to use questionable ingredients. This so-called self-regulation is the equivalent of a race car company deciding the proper speed limit for a public highway.
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There is increasing evidence that ultra-processed foods are linked to obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, dementia, heart disease and precancerous colon polyps. Kessler told me this past week that he would like to see these products studied further to better define their downstream “metabolic effects” on major organs. The results of these studies would provide further ammunition to fight these unhealthy products.
What do I mean by ultra-processed foods? These include cereals, snacks, sweetened beverages, cookies, frozen foods, sauces and hot dogs — also food products made with artificial flavors, colors, preservatives and chemicals designed to improve texture and shelf life. They are often high in added salt and hyper-concentrated sugars, including high-fructose corn syrup.
Artificial colors and exotically engineered flavors draw you in, and sugar addiction keeps you there. As Kessler outlined in his book, “Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine,” and as Secretary Kennedy knows well as a former opioid addict, ultra-processed foods can act on the brain in ways similar to certain drugs. A dependency can form because of the dopamine response triggered by these high-calorie foods and their interaction with opioid receptors.
This problem isn’t confined to the United States. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 1 billion people worldwide are obese, and ultra-processed foods are a big part of the problem.
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What is the answer? The first step is Kessler’s petition to the FDA to reconsider the health risks of “refined processed carbohydrates” and revoke their GRAS status. The effort is gaining traction as Kennedy considers taking action to close the GRAS loophole.
Kessler told me that if the petition gains traction, he will next ask for bipartisan hearings before Congress, where food manufacturers can attend and testify about their products under a legislative spotlight.
But what may help most of all is the spotlight Kennedy and the MAHA movement are placing on whole-food alternatives — food that look, smells and taste like food; food that comes from the ground and is grown, fished or hunted — not products engineered in a lab as part of a profit-driven manufacturing process.
Since food can be medicine, imagine how many billions of dollars could be saved in health care costs with a slimmer, more vital population that is less reliant on chemically engineered foods — and on a sick-care system to keep it alive.
