The RFK, Jr. press conference two weeks ago was billed as a “celebration…of landmark actions…The event will highlight…Trump…accomplishments…and announce two major new food policy actions.”
This press event billed as announcing major food policy wins contained nothing impressive. One announcement was for a very partial measure to address the Generally Recognized As Safe loophole, and the other item was a non-announcement saying, in effect, that the much anticipated definition of ultra-processed food is still being kept a secret.
Big Food has a big foot in the door of the White House
As I have reported, Big Food has been working hard in Washington to minimize the damage that could come from the regulation of highly- and ultra-processed food, or HUPF. HUPF started out as a top issue of RFK, Jr.’s Make America Health Again agenda, with the initial MAHA Assessment report in May of 2025 mentioning ultra-processed more than 40 times. However, the MAHA Strategy Report, released the following September, mentioned ultra-processed only once, saying it needed to be defined in order to be researched. The squashing of discussion of HUPF was a result of pressure from the HUPF manufacturers. Now, almost a year after the MAHA Strategy Report, CEOs and industry associations have been lobbying the administration to delay the release of the definition that has been presented to the White House.
The disappearing HUPF definition
In fact, it seems as if RFK, Jr. was planning to release the definition two weeks ago, but, presumably, last minute pressure from the food industry caused him to announce only that the proposed definition was still being reviewed.
The proposed Generally Recognized As Safe loophole rule: Please don’t call this a win.
It looks like another loss for consumers, in favor of industry. However, compared to the non-news with the HUPF definition, slightly more progress was announced by Kennedy on the Generally Recognized As Safe loophole that has allowed an estimated one thousand substances to be introduced into the food supply without notice to the FDA. One thousand is the non-profit NRDC’s rough estimate, but the real number may be much higher. No one knows.
Further, the manufacturers are self-certifying these substances as safe for consumption, and the FDA and the public do not know how reliable that self-certification is.
If a new FDA rule is activated, manufacturers will still be able to self-certify safety and introduce the substances into the food supply. They will have to notify the FDA of both new and previously introduced substances.
It’s not clear when or whether the food or additive will need to be pulled from the market if the FDA takes objection to the manufacturer-funded safety certification. It is clear from decades of FDA underfunding and inaction and Trump’s recent deep cuts in FDA personnel, that, when inundated with hundreds, perhaps thousands of notifications of new and previously added substances, the FDA will have a very difficult, perhaps almost impossible, time working through the backlog of substances to pick the most worrisome to review. No new funding has been promised in conjunction with Kennedy’s announcement.
A database of food substances/chemicals/additives will be public
At least the newly revealed food substances will be added to a public database where scrutiny from outside scientists could potentially shed light on the riskiest additives that the public is consuming or the most questionable safety self-certifications.
The gaping GRAS loophole
So, in reality, the GRAS loophole is not closing. As Melanie Banesh of EWG, the Environmental Working Group, has put it, mandatory notification is a “first step” in GRAS reform, which also needs the creation of scientific standards and review by the FDA before chemicals are introduced to our food, along with review of the substances that have already been introduced under GRAS. As Benesh puts it: “Americans deserve a system where food safety decisions are made by independent experts at the FDA – not by the companies that profit from selling these chemicals.”
Will Big Food or consumers benefit from the delayed HUPF definition?
And as for the further delayed HUPF definition, when it is released, I would not be surprised if it is designed to be more helpful to the HUPF manufacturers than to those who would regulate or study HUPF.
Every food substance created in the last two hundred years is HUPF
In reality, every food, food-like substance, or additive created since the mid-1800s – the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution – is highly-or ultra-processed, or HUPF. It is only with the technology of the last two hundred years that we have been able to create new foods, and they are, by virtue of that technology, at least highly- if not ultra-processed. If it didn’t need technology and it was good to eat, it had already been introduced as a food hundreds of years ago.
This HUPF definition even applies to ingredients like refined sugar and flour, which have been around since before the Industrial Revolution but only became a problem when industrial technology made them cheap, plentiful, and consumed in unhealthy quantities!
A broad definition of HUPF is not sufficient for policy making. HUPF is too complex.
The way HUPF has been defined in the last twenty years, initially by Carlos Monteiro or in my own definition, is too broad as a category to make policy and conduct new, helpful research. HUPF comes in many subcategories based on its ingredients, and these subcategories may be related to very different health outcomes such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, gut biome disruption, respiratory disease, and decreased mental health, for examples.
All types of HUPF are not created equal, and I predict the coming industry-influenced definition from the American government will play upon this complexity to delay research and regulation. It may be up to the states, national governments elsewhere, and the academic community to provide meaningful progress on regulation of different types of HUPF.
For my own, time- and technology-based definition of HUPF, see Refining a Highly-Refined Food Definition.
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