Distrusting the Food We Eat | By Catalina Scheider Galiñanes

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“Each day in America, you can trust the foods you eat and the medicines you take, thanks to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”1

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims to provide American citizens with security and safety regarding their food intake. After all, the FDA, formed in 1906 by the Pure Food and Drugs Act, was founded upon the Department of Agriculture’s 1860s mission to analyze the safety of chemicals in agricultural products.2 Food safety standards are a historical FDA priority. So how does the United States still lack a robust system for the post-market assessment of chemicals in food?

In September 2024, a paper, entitled “Evidence for widespread human exposure to food contact chemicals” published by the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology made waves in mainstream media. The study found that over 3,600 chemicals that migrate to food from food contact articles (FCAs) used to store, process, package, and serve food end up in the human body, where they can cause serious harm. The researchers concluded there was an “urgent need to ban the most hazardous chemicals shown to migrate from food packaging and other types of FCAs (food contact articles) into foods to protect human health.”3

The recent discovery regarding the American consumer’s high risk presents the FDA’s serious dereliction of duty. Adequate governmental action is a central part of our republic, and the state has a duty to ensure food safety. Recent FDA failures further reveal how the bloated bureaucracy of a disunified Executive ultimately undermines the public interest.

Increasingly widespread concern over food chemicals prompted the FDA to conduct a public meeting on the development of an enhanced systematic process for FDA’s Post-Market Assessment of Chemicals in Food.4 The meeting, which featured opening remarks from Jim Jones, Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods at the FDA, revealed that, in his words, “the agency has not established a systematic process…until now we have taken an ad hoc approach” to post-market chemical review.5 The current FDA process is self-described by the agency as “situational” and possesses a “lack of dedicated resources” regarding additives and ingredients.6

Despite having over 18,000 employees, the FDA has neglected to create an effective system for reviewing post-market chemicals within food. This ought to shock every American citizen, and it raises the greater question: What exactly has the FDA been doing?

This is extremely difficult to answer. The project towards analyzing chemicals in food is part of a larger focus on food chemical safety.7 This Human Foods Program exists within the Office of Food Chemical Safety, Dietary Supplements & Innovation,8 which is a part of the Closer to Zero Initiative.9 The Office is further broken down into pre- and post-market assessments and the dietary supplements program, as well as including staff focused on innovative foods and those working in operations. These subdivisions are a part of the larger FDA structure, in which there are thirteen headquarter level offices and nine centers, each with hundreds to thousands of employees.10

On October 1, 2024, the FDA underwent its largest reorganization effort in recent history.11 The American food supply has been suffering under the crisis of bureaucratic complexity, prompting the FDA to launch a newly unified Human Foods Program, which impacted over 8,000 employees and “touched almost every facet of the agency.” Responding to independent reviews, as well as the FDA’s handling of the infant formula shortage of 2022, the agency claims it is newly focused on “inspections, investigations and imports as its core mission.”

Despite the overwhelming number of already-existing offices, projects, programs, and initiatives, the Discussion Paper accompanying the September public meeting states that the first part of the solution is that a “team of FDA experts will rank individual chemicals” before gathering feedback and performing risk-assessments for each chemical.12 Yet, it is doubtful that a new team of the same experts is likely to solve the deeper issue of a bloated and ineffective bureaucracy. The structure of the federal government was designed in order to maximize responsibility, and yet the current administrative state evades accountability due to its size and complexity.

This lack of unity and transparency sharply contrasts with the original vision of an efficient executive branch, as highlighted by the Founders’ writings on executive power. In the Federalist papers, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, writing as Publius, collaborated to convince Americans, specifically the people of the state of New York, to ratify the Constitution. When considering the powers of the Executive branch, which were meant to rest upon the President of the United States, Hamilton remarks in Federalist 70, “A government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.”13 Ill execution can consist of poor policies, as well as irresponsibilities. A strict size-restraint on the Executive branch was meant to ensure energy and unity of action, as well as proper transparency and assignment of blame.

When faced with the suggestion of the dispersal of authority among a council of executive officers, Hamilton writes, “it often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures, ought really to fall.”14 The branch has grown dramatically, even in recent years, thus further threatening valuable characteristics emphasized by Hamilton: “decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch.”15

Over the ten fiscal years from 2007 to 2017, a study conducted by the United States Office of Personnel Management found a growth of nearly 215,000 employees between the Department of Defense Agencies, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department of Health and Human Services, under which the FDA falls.16

Hamilton, by unifying the power of the Executive branch into the President and a limited Cabinet, sought to achieve effective law enforcement and incentivize individual responsibility. Although the FDA has failed to execute precautions against chemicals in diet, it has 50 technical and scientific advisory committees and panels and is charged with enforcing over 200 laws.17 

The organization of administrative agencies have resulted in an inability to focus on the common good, and the United States is suffering under disastrous regulatory confusion. Madison’s warnings in Federalist #62 highlight the importance of criminalization: “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made of men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow.”18 As the FDA seeks to create a post-market review system, they must keep in mind their position as a part of the Executive branch, charged with enforcing legislation.

More than mere inconvenience, the FDA’s failures represent a subversion of the common good. With the expansion of the federal administrative state, individual states have turned over their traditional police powers. The American public is left without guidance regarding health, safety, and morals, traditionally understood as governmental priorities. As health crises worsen, governmental incompetence erodes public trust.

As famously presented in Aristotle’s politics, the ideal regime, with no name, or known simply as polity, consists of popular rule for the common interest. The American founders, with their careful restraints and meticulously designed offices, attempted to create a balanced republic, which both responded to democratic demands and protected “the people against themselves.”19

Chemicals in food and the proper role of the government are being discussed in the popular political arena, and citizens are searching for alternatives to the status quo.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently announced his support of candidate Donald Trump, vowed in a viral X post and video that, “Enough is enough. President Trump and I are going to stop the mass poisoning of American children.”20 

In the clip, he tells the story of Tartrazine, or Yellow Dye #5, which is included in everyday foods such as Doritos, Cheez-its, and Gatorade. He explains that it is produced from “the sludge that is left over when you turn coal into coke for blast furnaces.” After displaying the harmful effects of these food chemical additives, RFK tells his audience, “Together, we are going to make America healthy again.”

As federal regulators struggle to  provide clear guidance, creative entrepreneurs face the issue in the private sector. The YUKA app, featured by podcaster Shawn Ryan on the popular “Joe Rogan Experience,” is a prime example of citizens taking governmental obligations towards safety into their own hands.21 The mobile phone app, which boasts over 61 million downloads, claims to “deciphers product labels and analyzes the health impact of food products and cosmetics.”22 

At the show’s start, Ryan explains, “You basically scan anything, food related…it’ll tell you all the chemicals and what the chemicals do to you.” Rogan exclaims, “That’s what people need!” He went on to promote RFK’s past experience in “protecting people against corporations that are poisoning them.” 

Regardless of the FDA’s complicated organizational structure, or how it ought to be rectified, it is clear that the situation surrounding health and food safety in the United States is dire. In 2023, every single state in the Union had an obesity rate of over 20%.23 Food allergies are on the rise, with 48% of American adults with allergies reporting a new, recent allergy they did not have as children.24 Fertility rates are at a record low, with only 55 births per 1,000 women.25 American life expectancy has faced dramatic declines, and is lagging at 77.5 years, compared to comparable nations’ 82.2 average.26 

Americans are not just dying earlier–they are also suffering mental challenges at higher rates. In 2016, almost 1 in 4 (23%) American adults reported a mental health diagnosis, compared to fewer than 10% in Germany, France, or the Netherlands.27 Ties between food consumption and mental health are obvious and overwhelming; one study co-authored by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that those in the top fifth of ultra processed food consumption had a 50% higher risk of developing depression than those in the bottom 20%.28

Mental health issues highlight the growth of psychiatric treatment in the United States. The 12% increase in mental health prescriptions from 2019 to 2022 far outpaces overall prescription growth of less than 1%.29 Shockingly, over 338 million antidepressant prescriptions were written in 2016, enough for one for every man, woman, and child in the nation.30 Yet, they have skyrocketed further–growing by 35% in 2022.31 Mental health is declining both rapidly and uniformly, or citizens are being widely overmedicated–both may be true. 

This is a systemic crisis. The typical American ingests toxic chemicals and is encouraged to turn to medication for physical and mental health issues. The normalization and proliferation of such treatments ignore that the common American diet and reliance on medication are actively harming the bodies and minds of millions, particularly children. Children raised on food dyes, dopamine enhancers, and screens may never know clarity, alertness, or their natural creativity and personalities.

America is facing a crisis of both physical and mental health, which appears to cut across all geographic, socioeconomic, or racial borders. There must be something in the water–or, actually, in the food supply. Prioritizing a safe and nutritious food supply is a necessary first step towards protecting future generations of Americans. 

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  2. “FDA History.” FDA, 29 Mar. 2021, https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history. ↩︎
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  12. Discussion Paper Development of an Enhanced Systematic Process for the FDA’s Post-Market Assessment of Chemicals in Food. FDA, Aug. 2024, https://www.fda.gov/media/180942/download ↩︎
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  29. Garzella, Cecilia. “Mental Health Crisis Fuels the Post-Pandemic Rise in Medication Use.” USA TODAY, 3 Mar. 2024, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2024/02/29/mental-health-related-prescriptions-rise-post-covid/72310337007/.  ↩︎
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