Washington closes a 1958 food-additive loophole, and still cannot define ultra-processed

The US Food and Drug Administration proposed a rule on Monday that would force food companies to tell it about every new ingredient they put on the market [1]. It closes a gap that has been open since 1958. It also, once again, dodges the thing the administration promised: a definition of “ultra-processed food” [1].

What the rule does

The gap is called GRAS, short for Generally Recognized As Safe. Since 1958 a company has been able to decide for itself that an ingredient is safe and start selling it, without telling the government or showing anyone its evidence [2]. The exemption was written for things like salt and paprika. It became the main road into the American food supply: by one Environmental Working Group study, nearly 99 percent of food chemicals introduced since 2000 arrived this way [2].

“If finalized, this rule would formally transition the GRAS framework from a voluntary program to a mandatory notification system,” acting FDA commissioner Kyle Diamantas said [1]. It would cover ingredients already on shelves as well as new ones [1].

Consumer groups called it a start and not much more. There is still no independent safety review before an ingredient reaches a shelf, and no plan for re-examining the substances already in the food supply [2]. Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition at New York University, was blunter: “You have to be kidding. That’s all?” [1]. Her structural objection is that the company still writes the science. “The company is still responsible for the science and will still be hiring its own experts to say the additive is safe,” she said [1].

Lawyers are not certain the agency can even do this. A 2021 court ruling said the FDA could run a voluntary system; a mandatory one is a different question [1].

The definition that keeps slipping

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, promised a federal definition of ultra-processed food “by April” [1]. In April, Diamantas said a definition “is really hard” [1]. A proposed one went to the White House budget office for final review last week, with no publication date [2].

The delay is not only politics. There is no scientific consensus on what counts as ultra-processed, and it has been hard to establish which health effects follow from processing itself [1]. Britain has the same hole. Its Food Standards Agency last published consumer guidance on ultra-processed foods in February 2025. A letter in the Guardian this week argued the agency should update it and say whether government action is needed [8].

The outbreak underneath it all

The rule landed in the middle of one of the largest foodborne illness episodes in US history. Confirmed cyclospora cases, traced to iceberg lettuce, have passed 13,000 [3]. Reuters reported two deaths from that outbreak, which was tracked back to lettuce Taylor Farms imported from Mexico [5].

A separate salmonella outbreak forced Taylor Farms, a seven-billion-dollar supplier, to recall its jalapeno products [7][5]. Affected items were sold in 26 states [3]. And on 12 August the FDA raised an egg recall to Class I, its highest risk grade, meaning the product could cause “serious adverse health consequences or death” [3]. Midwest Poultry Services had pulled roughly 19 million eggs from Texas farms in July [4]. At least 98 people in 17 states have been sickened and 26 hospitalised; no deaths [3][4].

The FDA says the lettuce is off the market and told Americans to keep eating salad [6]. Its own investigation is still open [6]. Reuters set that against the agency’s capacity. FDA employment is down 22 percent this year against 2024, and foreign food-facility inspections fell nearly 13 percent in fiscal 2025 [5]. The US imported 16.1 billion dollars of fresh produce from Mexico in 2025 alone [5].

Europe’s harvest is the week’s other story

Heat and drought have wrecked the European maize crop. The European Commission has already cut its 2026/27 forecast to 51.9 million tonnes, the lowest since 2007. Some analysts now expect under 50 million for the first time since the 1990s [9]. France’s agriculture ministry sees its own maize crop down 35 percent to 9 million tonnes. Two analyst firms think it will roughly halve, to under 7 million - the smallest French harvest since 1976 [9]. “Agronomically speaking, the situation in the EU is very bad,” said Expana’s Gabriel Antonio [9].

Austria, a water-rich country, expects a grain harvest 19 percent smaller and is seeing emergency slaughter as Alpine pastures dry out and cattle come down early [10]. In England, nearly three-quarters of the country is in drought after a fifth heatwave [11]. Grass growth is about half what it should be and milk production is down about 1 percent. The cereal harvest may be the worst since detailed records began [11]. It arrived early too - the earliest UK cereal harvest in at least 20 years [12].

The damage shows up in the food itself. Cauliflowers are coming out yellow instead of white, cucumbers misshapen, broccoli undersized, and Britain is importing more vegetables than usual to fill the gap [12]. Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced 65 million pounds for drought-hit farmers, most of it added to the sustainable farming incentive [13]. Another 15 million pounds goes towards on-farm reservoirs - money campaigners note was reallocated from existing budgets [13]. In the US, orchard growers lost apple, peach and plum crops to spring freezes that hit trees which had bloomed three weeks early [24].

What is loading next

El Nino, the Pacific warming that reshuffles weather worldwide, is running early and looks set to be the strongest in nearly 80 years of records [14]. Panama has had no major storm since early May and Ethiopia’s highlands are in one of their driest summer stretches in four decades [14]. India had its fifth-driest June since records began in 1901 [14]. Whether human warming is making these events stronger is still debated among scientists [14].

For Latin America it cuts both ways. More rain usually helps crops in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and southern Brazil - but the Panama Canal is already cutting how deep ships can sit, which squeezes cargo [15].

The Black Sea is the other pressure. Ukraine supplies half the world’s sunflower oil, 16 percent of traded corn and 12 percent of traded wheat [16]. Russian forces have struck at least 50 Ukrainian cargo ships since June, killing more than 30 civilians, and commercial shipping has largely stopped [16]. Ukraine expects a 60-million-tonne harvest but only 38 to 40 million tonnes of exports, a 12 percent cut to earlier forecasts [16].

Prices, plants and policy

None of it has reached the till yet. US consumer prices rose 3.4 percent in the year to July, and grocery prices actually fell - lettuce alone dropped more than 16 percent as shoppers avoided it [17]. UK food inflation slowed to 1.7 percent in June, a near two-year low, against February warnings of 10 percent by Christmas [18]. Supermarket price wars, shopper resistance and suppliers locking in costs early absorbed the shock [18].

American corn looks fine. USDA’s 12 August report put Iowa on 216 bushels an acre, up from 210 [20]. Beef does not: Tyson will close beef plants in Illinois and Utah and sell one in Washington, as a 75-year low in cattle supply keeps squeezing processors [19].

In Congress, the 2026 Farm Bill failed to clear the Senate Agriculture Committee, deadlocked over shifting food-aid costs to states [21]. That shift has already cost more than 4 million people access to food aid [21]. A full reauthorisation is now three years overdue [21]. One bipartisan amendment did pass: mandatory country-of-origin labelling on meat [21].

And the machinery upstream keeps narrowing. USDA figures show two companies control more than 70 percent of US corn and soybean seed sales, and the top four cottonseed firms nearly 94 percent [22]. In May the Justice Department told a court that seed patents are obstructing competition and research [22].

Furthest from the headlines, in Somalia, funding for acute malnutrition has fallen more than 80 percent this year. One in four children screened in south-western displacement camps is severely malnourished, and donor money has dropped to roughly 300 million dollars from 2.2 billion in 2022 [23].