Kennedy Targets GRAS Loophole – Says Up To 10k Ingredients Are In The American Food Supply

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he intends to close a loophole within the FDA that has allowed thousands of ingredients to enter the food supply under the designation “Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). This designation was created in 1958 to prevent lengthy review for products that have a history of scientific consensus. 

“That loophole is hijacked by the industry, and it was used to add thousands upon thousands of new ingredients into our food supply,” Secretary Kennedy said. “In Europe, there are only 400 legal ingredients. This agency does not know how many ingredients there are in American food. The estimates are between 4,000 and 10,000. We have no idea what they are. There is no way for any American to know if a product is safe if it is ultra-processed.”

Secretary Kennedy has also linked the obesity epidemic to the rise in ultra-processed foods (UPF). In the United States, over 40% of adults are obese, with over 70% of adults either obese or overweight. In Europe, 16.5% are obese, with over 50% either overweight or obese. Many travelers have noticed that they lose weight when they travel from the US to Europe, even though they eat more food. Fox News and other outlets have reported on this phenomenon. Aside from extra walking, Europe has fewer ultra-processed foods in grocery stores and fewer fast food restaurants.

Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO) is one ingredient that had a GRAS designation before it was revoked in 1970 and was no longer considered safe for use in food in 2024. The United Kingdom banned BVO in 1970.

Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA) received GRAS designation in 1958 and was approved as a food additive in 1961. In November 2025, the European Union issued an opinion that calls for more regulation and oversight of BHA due to its endocrine-disrupting qualities. The US FDA announced last week that it has initiated a review of the additive as part of its effort to proactively review chemicals and food additives. The FDA flagged BHA as a top priority for review.

“BHA has remained in the food supply for decades despite being identified by the National Toxicology Program as ‘reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen’ based on animal studies,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “This reassessment marks the end of the ‘trust us’ era in food safety. If BHA cannot meet today’s gold-standard science for its current uses, we will remove it from the food supply and continue cleaning up food chemicals—starting where children face the greatest exposure.”

BHA can be found in many products in the US, including frozen meals, breakfast cereals, cookies, candy, ice cream, and meat products. The FDA notes that the ingredient has been used less in recent years, but it still remains present in several food products, including products marketed to children.

“We are taking decisive action to ensure that chemicals in our food supply are not causing harm,” said FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, M.D., M.P.H. “The scientific community has raised significant concerns about some chemicals currently in the food supply. Once we complete our assessment of BHA, we expect to conduct similar assessments for butylated hydroxytoluene, a synthetic preservative known as BHT, and azodicarbonamide — a chemical used in yoga mats and also used as a dough conditioner.”

 San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu filed a lawsuit against 10 UPF manufacturers in December, including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, General Mills, Nestle, and Kellogg. Chiu alleges that these companies purposely engineered the foods to be addictive while downplaying the risks associated with consuming these products.

The Consumer Brands Association, which represents these manufacturers and many of the largest food companies in the US, told CBS News that it is committed to providing a variety of nutritious, affordable foods to consumers. The CBA said, “America has one of the safest and most highly regulated food systems in the world.” The organization added that the GRAS designation allows companies to innovate to provide products that meet consumer demand and that the group is ready to work with HHS and FDA as they revise GRAS.

A 2023 study published in Nature used a machine-learning algorithm to categorize foods into four categories, with the fourth being UPF. The authors concluded that 70% of the country’s food supply is ultra-processed. The authors describe UPFs as “industrial formulations typically of five or more ingredients, including substances not commonly used in culinary preparations, such as additives whose purpose is to imitate sensory qualities of fresh food.”

In a 60 Minutes interview, Secretary Kennedy explained that high UPF consumption in the US is one of the primary drivers of the overweight population, where 70% are either overweight or obese. 

“It’s not because they got indolent or because we became lazy or because we suddenly developed giant appetites,” Secretary Kennedy said. “It’s because we’re being given food that is low in nutrition and high in calories, and it’s destroying our health. We’re seeing in our population people who are obscenely obese and at the same time malnourished.”

“There is no way for any American to know if a product is safe if it is ultra-processed,” Kennedy added.