Pg 316 "American agribusiness produces 3,900 calories per person per day, but Americans can only eat 1,800 to 2,000 of them. Where does all the excess food go? The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; also known as food stamps), run by the USDA, is designed to "provide improved levels of nutrition among low-income households."
Pg. 319 "The FDA is supposed to guarantee the safety of our food supply. It's in their charter--the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) of 1938. But when it comes to food, the charter only provides screening for acute toxicity--things that will make you keel over and die, like melamine in milk, botulism in vichyssoise, E. coli in apple cider, salmonella in eggs, and Listeria in spinach. The FDA has done most of that pretty well, save for the occasional hamburger recall. But nowhere does the FDCA mention chronic toxicity, where one exposure isn't toxic but rather cumulative exposure will kill you. This loophole lets the food industry get away with all sorts of slow murder."
Pg. 324 "Perhaps the worst FDA subterfuge is the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) list. GRAS was developed as part of a congressional act in 1958 to streamline various food additives without specific FDA oversight. The government defines GRAS [U.S.C. 321(s)] as 'generally recognized, among experts qualified by scientific training and experience to evaluate its safety, as having been adequately shown through scientific procedures to be safe under the conditions of its intended use.' The important operative phrase here is 'intended use.' Intended use means a dose is assumed, including a maximum dose. As Paracelsus said in 1537, 'the dose determines the poison.' Nothing is safe at infinite dosage. Were the quantities of substances currently in processed food ever intended back in 1958?"
Pg. 325 "Before 1997, a food company had to petition the FDA to get a substance on the GRAS list. Now it's privatized and there's no centralized list. All that's required is a meeting of scientists (paid by the company--talk about conflicts of interest) to sit in a room and declare a substance is GRAS. They don't even have to tell the FDA they did it. We know that at least three thousand items on the GRAS list have never undergone review; and it's estimated that for at least one thousand, the FDA wasn't even notified. Worse yet, the FDA doesn't systematically reconsider the safety of GRAS substances as new information becomes available."
Pg. 327 "While it's very easy to get substances onto the GRAS list, it's very difficult to remove them. However, two items have been removed: nitrates and trans-fats."
Pg. 319 "The FDA is supposed to guarantee the safety of our food supply. It's in their charter--the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) of 1938. But when it comes to food, the charter only provides screening for acute toxicity--things that will make you keel over and die, like melamine in milk, botulism in vichyssoise, E. coli in apple cider, salmonella in eggs, and Listeria in spinach. The FDA has done most of that pretty well, save for the occasional hamburger recall. But nowhere does the FDCA mention chronic toxicity, where one exposure isn't toxic but rather cumulative exposure will kill you. This loophole lets the food industry get away with all sorts of slow murder."
Pg. 324 "Perhaps the worst FDA subterfuge is the Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) list. GRAS was developed as part of a congressional act in 1958 to streamline various food additives without specific FDA oversight. The government defines GRAS [U.S.C. 321(s)] as 'generally recognized, among experts qualified by scientific training and experience to evaluate its safety, as having been adequately shown through scientific procedures to be safe under the conditions of its intended use.' The important operative phrase here is 'intended use.' Intended use means a dose is assumed, including a maximum dose. As Paracelsus said in 1537, 'the dose determines the poison.' Nothing is safe at infinite dosage. Were the quantities of substances currently in processed food ever intended back in 1958?"
Pg. 325 "Before 1997, a food company had to petition the FDA to get a substance on the GRAS list. Now it's privatized and there's no centralized list. All that's required is a meeting of scientists (paid by the company--talk about conflicts of interest) to sit in a room and declare a substance is GRAS. They don't even have to tell the FDA they did it. We know that at least three thousand items on the GRAS list have never undergone review; and it's estimated that for at least one thousand, the FDA wasn't even notified. Worse yet, the FDA doesn't systematically reconsider the safety of GRAS substances as new information becomes available."
Pg. 327 "While it's very easy to get substances onto the GRAS list, it's very difficult to remove them. However, two items have been removed: nitrates and trans-fats."