Food contains chemicals that can cause serious health risks, especially for young children. Some of these chemicals are intentionally added to food or packaging for flavoring, coloring, preservation, packaging, processing and storage of our food. Due to flaws in the law and weak law enforcement, many chemicals have been inadequately tested or even not tested at all, and some chemicals have never even undergone an independent safety review.

Another major issue is pollutants such as lead and arsenic. Although these substances are not intentionally added to our food, they can enter through processing and environmental sources.

Some companies are working hard to provide safer food for everyone. We call on business leaders to improve the safety of the food they sell and cooperate with relevant organizations to strengthen and modernize the regulatory system to ensure that hazardous chemicals are removed from the food supply.

Protect our food
Some companies will focus their efforts on where they can have the greatest impact: those chemicals that are harmful to children, and they can reduce these substances. Using this strategy, they prioritized four categories of chemicals: heavy metals (ie, lead, cadmium, and arsenic), phthalates, perchlorates, and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

They are not directly added to people's food, but can be entered through production (such as harvesting), processing or packaging. Although the best methods for handling these chemicals may vary, companies are working to determine the best practices for testing, managing, and reducing the levels of each chemical in food.
For certain chemicals, the best way to remove them from food is to stop using them. In these cases, this approach is challenging the current regulatory system.

Crushing system
Although the Food Additive Amendment (Food Additive Amendment) of 1958 gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (fda) supervision of chemicals directly added to food and contaminants that eventually enter food, But the agency lacks the tools and powers to perform its duties.

To ensure people's food safety, we must:

Ultimate confidentiality: A generally recognized security (GRAS) loophole allows companies to secretly determine the safety of chemical substances in food without review or public knowledge. Congress needs to establish a more streamlined, open process to make security decisions and encourage innovation.

Use modern science: When the chemical substances of the food before use are reviewed, the food supply will be safer. But the agency needs to use the most modern science to do its best work. It's impossible now.

Ensuring the safety of existing chemicals: Decades ago, the FDA approved thousands of chemicals, when society knew little about their impact on human health. Their safety needs to be reassessed. Congress needs to provide the FDA with tools so that the agency can obtain the information it needs to determine the priority and decision-making of 10,000 chemicals in food.

Consumers’ concerns about chemicals in food are increasing. Food manufacturers and grocers are beginning to respond, but regulatory reforms are urgently needed to ensure food safety.
https://www.echemi.com/