Some Positive News in Nutrition Legislation

< Full Episode

Transcript: Some Positive News in Nutrition Legislation

Season 11, Episode 5  | August 12, 2025

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Welcome to Life Time Talks. I’m Jamie Martin.

And I’m David Freeman.

And in this episode, we are talking about some positive news in nutrition legislation. We know that the quality of what we consume matters to our health and well-being. Yet, despite our best efforts to eat healthily, there are still many additives and synthetic ingredients in the US food supply that many other countries have banned due to health concerns.

In this episode, we’re excited to talk with a leader from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food and health watchdog group, about some of the recent legislation that is beginning to move in a positive direction for our health. And of note is that the CSPI has worked collaboratively with the Life Time Foundation, which we, as part of Life Time, we are published by. All right. David, you go ahead.

Yeah. We got our special guest. Thomas Galligan is CSPI’s principal scientist for food additives and supplements, is working to improve the regulation of food, chemicals, and dietary supplements, and get unsafe chemicals and ineffective supplements out of our food supply.

So before joining CSPI, he was a toxicologist at Environmental Working Group, where he led efforts to promote the use of safer chemicals in personal care products, foods, and other consumer goods, and to educate consumers about the chemicals in the products they consume every day. Prior to that, Thomas worked as a postdoctoral associate and instructor at Virginia Tech. He earned his PhD in biomedical sciences, with an emphasis on toxicology, endocrinology, and environmental health from the Medical University of South Carolina. Thomas also earned a BS in dairy science from Virginia Tech. Look at that resume. They’re well-equipped, huh?

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for that fabulous introduction. You flatter me.

[LAUGHS]

If we could get you to smile, that’s a win on our side.

Yeah. Exactly. Well, let’s kick off this conversation. I know there’s a lot happening when it comes to nutrition legislation and oversight, but we really want to level set from the start about just what the state of the state is when it comes to monitoring food safety in our current food supply in the US. Why is this such a focus for you and others at the Centers for Science in the Public Interest?

So we have known for a long time, really since CSPI was formed back in 1971, that foods can contribute to adverse health outcomes, can contribute to disease, and particular foods, particular ingredients in foods. And so from our founding, we have been working to improve the safety and the nutritional quality and the sustainability of the American food supply to support individuals and populations to lead healthier, happier, safer lives.

And so this has been a long standing campaign for CSPI. And the reason why my work focuses specifically on food chemicals is because the federal system that is in place and is intended to keep our food safe from unsafe chemicals is broken. The FDA’s process and approach to addressing food chemical safety problems is simply not working. And there are a variety of systems-level factors that drive that failure and lead consumers, ultimately, to be exposed to unsafe chemicals in their food.

So we are trying to fix that entire broken system and, in the meantime, recognizing that systems-level change is not an overnight process. We have been working for decades to educate consumers, to help them make more informed choices about the foods and the ingredients that they eat.

Yeah.

And Thomas, we’ve had plenty of conversations on this podcast as far as how there’s so much oversight when it comes to regulation and food safety, and it is that “safe until proven otherwise” approach seems super counterintuitive. So what prompted the EU and other countries to go another route? And why are they so far ahead in this regard?

Yeah. It really does seem that the FDA takes an approach where they assume something is safe in the absence of evidence. Conversely, when the EU — European Food Safety Authority looks at a food chemical, they apply what’s called the precautionary principle, which is basically you operate under the assumption that you have to demonstrate safety. Otherwise, it isn’t going to be safe. So it comes down to how you deal with uncertainty. And the FDA is seemingly, in many respects, far more permissive than the EU when it comes to regulating food chemicals.

And on top of that, since, I think, 2009, the EU has initiated an effort to systematically reassess the safety of chemicals that are already in the food supply. And the FDA lacks such a system, and they know this. And they’ve actually come out recently and said that they realize that their system for addressing the safety of chemicals already in our food is inadequate. And that is, in part, thanks to CSPI and our partners for pushing for years and years to try and get the FDA to fix this.

So the EU essentially assumes that a chemical is not safe until you can prove otherwise. And a perfect example of this is how they dealt with titanium dioxide, which is a color additive that was recently banned in the EU. And it was banned because there’s evidence suggesting that titanium dioxide can accumulate in the body and potentially damage DNA. And it’s that “potentially —” it’s the fact that they couldn’t dismiss that possibility — that led the EU to ban titanium dioxide.

Conversely, the FDA says there’s no clear evidence that it is, in fact, doing that and, therefore, it’s safe. And so yet you have a perfect example of the different perspectives and how that influences regulation in the EU versus the US.

Right. Yep. That makes sense. And that really goes into just, I mean — I guess my question is around resourcing, I mean, from an FDA standpoint. Is part of that they just weren’t staffed up to do this, that the systems weren’t in place? I mean, as they’re admitting now, like, hey, we know that this is an issue. We need to do more in this area. I mean, a lot of conversations we’ve had, because we’ve talked a lot about supplements and different things have been around, there’s just not resourcing for this. It hasn’t been a priority. Could that be true, or what are your thoughts on that?

That is true. Yeah, the FDA has, for years, been asking Congress for additional resourcing for this type of work. And CSPI and our partners have also been asking Congress to appropriate those funds to the FDA, because it’s Congress’s job to give federal agencies the money to fulfill their mandates.

And there is no doubt that the FDA has a huge burden, has a huge job here. There are thousands of chemicals in our food supply. And assessing safety is not a simple task. You need experts. You need technical experts and a lot of people and a lot of resources to do this job effectively and efficiently. And the FDA has been starved of those resources, and that’s just compounded the problem.

Got it. OK. Well, let’s talk a little bit about some of the loopholes that do allow the food companies to introduce new substances. I know, for instance, there is GRAS, which I’m going to let you explain that. So we’ll talk through that. But how did that come to be? How does it work?

Right. So GRAS stands for Generally Recognized as Safe, G-R-A-S. And it arose from a 1958 law passed by Congress, where Congress decided that the existing approach to regulating food additives was not protecting people. There were some outbreaks in the ’50s that led to public outcry about how food chemicals were being regulated at that point, so they passed what’s called the Food Additive Amendment that granted new authority and created new processes for food additives to come to market through a rigorous premarket approval process.

That was the intent of Congress that if you, as a company, wanted to bring a new additive to market, you had to go and ask the FDA for approval, provide a bunch of information and safety data, and the FDA ultimately would decide whether or not that chemical was safe in our food. But when Congress passed that law, it included an exemption for substances that are considered generally recognized as safe. And the intent there was to make it so that things like flour, vegetable oil, baking soda, vinegar didn’t have to go through this rigorous premarket approval process, because they are generally recognized as safe.

But what has happened since 1958 is that with FDA’s express approval, industry has turned this exemption into a full blown loophole, where now the vast majority of new food chemicals come to market through this loophole. And what makes this especially concerning is that companies don’t even have to tell the FDA that they are doing this.

So what these companies can do and what they are doing is paying their own employees or external consultants to declare their new substance GRAS, to say this new substance is generally recognized as safe. And then that company is under no obligation to tell the FDA about that, and they can simply market that substance, put it in our food, with the FDA and the public being none the wiser. And this directly causes consumer harm.

Right. So at what point might a substance be flagged as unsafe for the FDA? I mean, what has to happen for something that was GRAS initially to then get flagged and then get looked at?

So great example of this is what happened with tara flour. This was a substance that was put on the market a couple of years ago in a product sold by the company Daily Harvest. Tara flour was never approved for use in food. There was no notice given to FDA that this substance is GRAS. So that means that someone along the supply chain line decided that tara flour is GRAS.

What happened, though, was that people began to eat this product that contained tara flour and hundreds of people got sick, and about 133 went to the hospital with severe adverse health outcomes. These are acute effects caused by this tara flour. And that then prompted the FDA to initiate what ended up being a two-year process that finally concluded, instead, tara flour is, in fact, not GRAS, not generally recognized as safe.

And at that point, it was prohibited. But it only occurred after people were harmed. This company was essentially treating the American public like test subjects, like test animals, and people were harmed. And so by having this GRAS loophole, you essentially make it so that the FDA is always behind the eight ball. They’re always playing catch up, and consumers are harmed in the meantime.

Got it.

Yeah. I mean, you said earlier, as far as the lack of resources within the FDA — so we now know that with being understaffed and then with additional cuts in staffing with the many federal agencies in recent months — what does that mean for food safety’s oversight now? And then is there any particular areas within your organization that’s keeping an eye out on this?

Yeah. What’s interesting is that we’re hearing a lot of rhetoric from HHS Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration and the Make America Healthy Again commission, or the folks that — the MAHA groups, about food and our food system and food chemicals, and how — they’re making these sweeping promises they’re going to fix what’s wrong with our food system.

And some of the problems that they’ve identified are problems that — they’ve talked about GRAS. They’ve talked about synthetic food dyes, for example. But at the same time that we’re hearing this rhetoric, we’re also seeing massive cuts to the HHS and FDA, where something — I think 89 staff members were cut from the Human Foods Program under the DOGE efforts. And some of those were staffers directly working on food chemical safety.

And again, like I said earlier, these are technically-intensive, time-intensive processes. You can’t assess the safety of a chemical quickly without people. And so you’re hearing that they’re going to fix the food system, but then they are making cuts to the agencies that would do exactly that.

Got it. OK. So keeping an eye on that, for sure. Definitely watching that. Let’s get into some positive news though. There has been some legislation and some pieces of legislation that have gone through that are starting to shift away from some of the convenience aspects. Like, hey, it’s a convenient thing. It’s probably low cost to make that food chemical or dye compared to what other things would cost. They want to focus more on the quality and something that is generally safe for us. So let’s start with talking about the announcement from the HHS and the FDA about phasing out food dyes. Tell us more about that and, if you can, some of the nuances with that, too, that we need to be aware of.

Sure. Well, this gets back to the rhetoric-versus-actions comparison. So we hear this big announcement coming out of HHS that they are going to take action on food dyes, and everyone is very excited about it. But when you drill down to it and actually listen to what is being described, all that they are doing is banning additives that are already abandoned by industry. So the colors citrus red 2 and orange B are already not in the food supply. They’ve already been abandoned by the food industry. So those are the ones that are getting banned.

The other ones that are still in our food supply, like red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, all that HHS and FDA is doing is asking companies to voluntarily stop using those food dyes, to voluntarily phase out the use of those dyes. Companies have historically made promises to stop using these dyes and broken those promises. So relying on voluntary action from industry really isn’t the right approach here. It’s not going to be the most effective approach in our opinion.

The FDA has the authority and the evidence it needs to take more decisive action to protect children from these food dyes, and it’s choosing not to. They could, and they simply are just talking about it and asking politely. And so you’re hearing strong rhetoric, but you’re seeing weak action.

What has the response been? I mean, obviously, it’s voluntary whether you do this or not, but what are companies saying to this? What are you hearing from companies? Are they going to do this? And if they’re being asked to do this, is there a timeline to voluntarily do this?

Sure. So the timeline that was given by HHS was by the end of 2026. That’s their goal. But if and how they will achieve that goal really remains to be seen. And I haven’t attempted to survey the full response from industry in a comprehensive way, but I’ve seen some companies say that they’re going to do that, that they’re going to stop using these dyes, in either all of their products or some of their products. And it’s that latter group, the ones that say some of their products, that is exactly getting at my concern, that by going the voluntary route, you’re not really addressing the problem.

And actually, what I would point to is getting back to the US-EU comparison, where since 2010, in the EU,
there’s been a requirement that foods that contain certain food dyes have a warning label on them to alert consumers to the effects that those dyes can have on children’s behavior. And what we have seen since 2010 is that some companies have entirely stopped using those dyes because they don’t want a warning label on their food. And so they reformulated their European product lines to use safer color additives, but they continue to use the harmful ones here.

So these food companies already know how to make foods without these food dyes, then they’re choosing not to. And so if the FDA really wants to motivate food companies to stop using these dyes, and they don’t want to ban them outright, they could require a warning label. And that would seemingly, if the pattern holds like it did in the EU, we would likely see some companies choose to voluntarily drop those dyes from their products to avoid a warning label. So it would provide a very strong motivation for companies.

That’s interesting.

Yeah. And then with that, in the same vein, I know there have been several states — we’ve got California, Arizona, Virginia, Utah, and West Virginia — that have banned certain additives within their foods. And can you break down what those additives are and what specifics of legislation have around them?

Yeah. So California was the first state to take action here. They passed and signed the California Food Safety Act into law in 2023. And that law banned four food additives and one — well, three food additives and one color additive, red 3, and then propylparaben, potassium bromate, and brominated vegetable oil. And these are all additives that have been banned or severely restricted elsewhere and have been linked to severe health harms. So California was the first state to ban any food additive in any food product. And in that case, those four additives are banned across the entire market.

The next year, California followed that up with the California School Food Safety Act, which banned the rest of the synthetic food dyes from school foods in the state. And then since then, a number of other states have followed suit and introduced laws that emulate either the first or second California law, some that go further. For example, West Virginia banned synthetic food dyes not only in schools — it starts with a school ban, but then it proceeds to a full market ban, whereas then Arizona, for example, also bans titanium dioxide in school foods.

And so we’re seeing some differences across the states. But what we’re broadly seeing is a massive paradigm shift where now states are really stepping up to fill the gaps that are being left by the FDA. And that’s really important, because until the FDA gets itself right and actually fixes the system, the states have become the necessary second line of defense.

That has to create some issues for companies creating foods, though. I can send certain versions of this food to Arizona, California, but not everywhere else. I mean, just the cost of that, I would assume — is that inspiring maybe other states to follow suit from what they’re doing? Or is this just a slow and steady process, I’m sure?

So it certainly is. So like I said, we’re seeing, I think, something like 20 or 30 states in the past year have introduced bills that address food chemicals in some capacity. And many of them do directly emulate the California bills or otherwise built from them.

And you’re right, that it does create what’s called a patchwork for these companies to have to navigate. And they don’t like that. It makes it harder for them to do business. And so what will likely happen is that companies will gradually shift their entire nationwide product lines to comply with the most restrictive standard, which in this case is being set by the states. And so in that way, states have a really important role to play in moving the entire US food system and market in the right direction.

That makes sense. OK. Another thing that happened. We talked about the GRAS loophole earlier. There are some pending bills in New York and Pennsylvania that would narrow the loophole that allows companies to bypass the FDA approval. And I know, just earlier this month, the New York State Senate advanced the Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act. So tell us a little bit about how they’re working to narrow that loophole.

Yeah. So this is a really exciting bill that — so whereas the bills in California and Virginia and Utah and elsewhere are taking on specific subsets of additives — which is important because that moves us in the right direction — the bill in New York, which was the first bill to attempt this, the bill in New York is actually attempting a systems-level change at the state level.

So what this bill would do is, if a company wants to market a chemical in food in New York, and it’s not an approved additive and it’s not subject to — it’s not part of a GRAS notice that was given to the FDA — so essentially, if it’s one of those secret GRAS chemicals, what they would have to do is provide a notice to the state and tell the state that they are marketing this substance and provide the state with the information that demonstrates that it’s safe. And then what the state would do is publish that information publicly.

So for the first time ever, there’d be a database of all the chemicals that are in food, and that would then allow the FDA, CSPI, academic researchers and others to really probe the safety of these secret GRAS substances for the very first time. So it would fundamentally shift the food system towards a more transparent system. And that is really important.

Yeah. Sounds huge. And I mean, New York leading the way on that, that’s big.

Yeah.

It’s big. So I live in Texas, and there are a few bills that are — they’re aiming to eliminate additives and improve nutrition standards in the schools. I remember my kids coming home saying, we’re not going to have this or that anymore. They’re removing it. So, I mean, can you speak a little bit to the efforts that’s going on there?

Yeah. Like you said, I think there are several bills that are pending in Texas. And many of them, the ones that I’ve looked at, build from that California motif, where it’s attempting to ban specific chemicals in school foods. And I can’t remember exactly all the different chemicals. I think the subset is different.
And I think, for example, it takes aim at — one of the ones I looked at takes aim at high-fructose corn syrup. And the concern there is really the fact that it’s an added sugar. And so maybe the better approach is to deal with added sugar as a whole, for example. And so the Texas bills do seem a little bit different than what we’ve seen, say, in California and Utah and Virginia.

Got it. OK. So another bill that’s the first of its kind in the US is the California state legislation to remove — I don’t know, air quote this — “particularly harmful, ultra-processed foods” from school meals by 2032. Why is this seen as groundbreaking, this bill?

Right. So some of the bills that we’ve seen that address food chemicals have pitched themselves and framed themselves as addressing ultra-processed foods. But most of those bills that we’ve seen have used a very narrow definition of ultra-processed food, where they’re defining ultra-processed food based on the presence of a handful of additives, like these synthetic food dyes.

What the California bill does is that it adopts the more widely used definition of ultra-processed food. And there’s growing research — the body of research is rapidly growing — indicating that consumption of ultra-processed food is linked to some chronic health outcomes, some chronic diseases, like cancer and cardiovascular disease. And we know, for example, that sweetened beverages and processed meats are particularly harmful, and those are ultra-processed foods.

And so what the California bill does is define ultra-processed food in a way that’s more consistent with the research definition. And then it directs the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to define a subset of ultra-processed foods that are particularly harmful. And once OEHA has done that, those particularly harmful ultra-processed foods would then be phased out of schools. And so it’s a way to more comprehensively deal with nutrition and food chemical safety problems in California school foods.

Got it.

Yeah. Tom, so when determining what qualifies as far as what’s particularly harmful, I would imagine we have so much studies that are showing and data that shows — like you said, from the EU. So when it’s now the learning curve, as far as what we’re doing here in the States and all these different efforts with these different bills — and then it was proposed by 2032 as far as with California, and so on, and so forth — where do you see the direction over the next four or five years? Do you think we get closer to those standards? And I know it’s a hard question to answer, but what are your thoughts?

Yeah. Well, what I really like about this California bill is that it is going to ground all the decision-making in rigorous scientific evaluation. And I say that because the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, or OEHA, already has a very strong track record of conducting these types of analyses. It’s thanks to OEHA that we can say definitively that synthetic food dyes cause or exacerbate neurobehavioral problems in some children, because, in 2021, they conducted the systematic review that led to that conclusion.

And so OEHA is a recognized and effective authority on food chemical safety. And so by directing OEHA and the scientists there to define the subset of ultra-processed foods that are particularly harmful, we ensure that all the subsequent action that’s taken is actually going to protect public health. And so I am really optimistic about this particular approach. And I really hope that we see other similar approaches taken in other states or at the federal level, where we are addressing ultra-processed foods in a scientifically rigorous way.

Yep. You’ve mentioned in, as we’ve talked about, several of these bills the connection with school food and children in particular. And I know, at Life Time, we have the Life Time Foundation, which one of our missions within that is to improve the quality of school foods for kids, to remove the harmful seven, and those pieces. Talk a little bit about just the state of the state when it comes to school lunch programs, if you have any context on that.

And we know that it’s problematic. But we know that what we feed our kids matters. It helps them function well in school and do better and all these pieces. I mean, I think them starting with kids is great, starting with school lunches, but where does it go from there? And why is that important for CSPI?

Right. Well, it is so important. The school nutrition programs are foundational for many children. It can be the main source of food and nutrition for many children across the country. And so it’s a very important foundation to ensure that those foods are nutritious and that they are safe.

And it’s for that reason that CSPI has been working with the Life Time Foundation and many other really important collaborators, spanning other nonprofits to school food professionals, on what we call the Ingredient Guide for Better School Food Purchasing. And this is a resource that’s been out for many, many years, that predates all of these recent bills at the state level, that has tried to provide — that does provide, I will say, does provide direct guidance to school food professionals to help them purchase and provide safer foods to children. And it does that by basically explaining a handful of additives that these people should avoid, some that they should watch, and describes why.

And so CSPI has been really — we’ve been really happy to collaborate with you with Life Time Foundation on this, because it’s such an essential component of the national food and nutrition policy landscape. School foods are really, again, foundational.

All right. And as you said, so many kids — I mean, you think about how many kids are in school — this is sometimes the primary meal they’re getting in the day. This is where they’re getting their nutrition. And if what we’re giving them is not the healthiest — and I know you and I both have kids in schools. We sometimes hear about the school lunches that they’re getting, and it can be challenging to know. We want better for them. And how do we help to advocate for that? So thank you for the work you’re doing with us.
Of course. And I mean, let’s not forget that when we’re talking about the food dye specifically, just as an example, these food dyes cause or worsen behavioral problems in some children. What that means is that kids who eat these food dyes sometimes experience hyperactivity, inattentiveness, and restlessness. So when a child is being exposed to these dyes in a school food, what essentially is happening is that the school is providing a food that will directly make it harder for that child to succeed in school. And so it’s fundamentally necessary not just for this child’s nutrition, but for their academic success as well, that these foods be safe and nutritious.

All right, Tom. So we went through a lot. We want to make sure that all of our listeners can obviously tap into any and everything from today, but is there anything that we might have not touched on that you want to make sure that they have?

Yeah. So I would like to point everyone who’s listening to CSPI’s website and particularly Chemical Cuisine. That’s our database of food additive safety ratings, where you can see exactly which additives we suggest you avoid, which ones we think are safe, and everything that falls in between. And again, that’s really intended to help you make a more informed choice about what you’re putting in your body or in your children’s body while we wait for the FDA to fix the broken system.

Yeah. And really, it’s about — I mean, I love that there are resources out there like that, that help us be empowered to make that choice for ourselves, to do the label reading, to look at the ingredients list. I mean, the more we know, the more informed choice we can make in whatever that next purchase is.

We got a mic drop moment time now.

All right.

You ready for it?

Sure.

[CHUCKLES]

Well, I mean, just with all the work that you’re doing in this space, do you have any success stories that you’ve seen as far as when a shift in the nutrition regimen has shifted, I mean, utilizing a lot of the resources here, within kids or adults?

Yeah. Well, CSPI has been behind some of the biggest wins in food and nutrition in the last several decades. So every time you turn over a food package and see the nutrition facts panel, we led the charge on that. We helped get trans fats banned. And recently, we petitioned the FDA to ban red 3. And so we have really racked up some wins. And we have been in this fight for a long time and will continue to be in this fight. And we are ready to continue to fight until our food system is perfect.

Yeah. I remember, one of the first articles I fact-checked for Experience Life back in the day — so it’s the magazine that I’m now the editor-in-chief of — was an article about the forthcoming trans fat ban that was happening. And I remember thinking — that was back in 2005, but it was happening in 2007 or something — I’m like, oh, that’s something to really look forward to. Now, that just is commonplace. That’s become the norm. And hopefully, more of these things will become the norm over time. So thank you for the good work you’re doing. Thank you —

We appreciate you.

—for joining us today. We’ll be sure to link to those resources that you mentioned, so that people can learn more, download the guides, and go from there. So thank you, Thomas, so much.

Thank you, Thomas.

Thank you so much for having me. It was great.

[MUSIC PLAYING]