{"id":13029,"date":"2024-06-10T14:49:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T19:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=13029"},"modified":"2025-12-08T16:43:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T21:43:59","slug":"broken-gras-how-a-food-award-competition-revealed-a-secret-gras-ingredient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2024\/06\/10\/broken-gras-how-a-food-award-competition-revealed-a-secret-gras-ingredient\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken GRAS: How a food award competition revealed a secret GRAS ingredient"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>What happened<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/goodfoodfdn.org\/awards\/\">Good Food Foundation<\/a> recently announced its annual awards recognizing foods with both superior taste and responsible business practices, sparking controversy when a plant-based blue \u2018cheese\u2019 product was initially a finalist in the cheese category, then was disqualified and removed from the list of finalists. According to the foundation, the product was disqualified because one of the ingredients, kokum butter, had not been designated as GRAS (generally recognized as safe) by the Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Kokum butter is derived from the seeds of a kokum tree\u2019s fruit, primarily cultivated <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Garcinia_indica\">in India<\/a>. The substance is not found in any of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cfsanappsexternal.fda.gov\/scripts\/fdcc\/index.cfm?cat=FoodIngredientsPackaging&amp;type=basic&amp;search=\">FDA\u2019s lists<\/a> of ingredients either approved or reviewed for safety. Someone somewhere determined that the use of kokum butter in food is GRAS. However, who made that determination, when, and the basis for the decision are unknown. \u00a0For example, how much of it is safe to eat? Is it safe for anyone\u2014children, pregnant women, people with preexisting conditions? Could it cause allergic reactions or interfere with medication? Does it leave the body quickly? Does it mimic or interfere with hormones? We just don\u2019t know and neither does FDA.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s \u00a0a quick overview of the GRAS system, which we have written about extensively in our <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/page\/2\/?s=Broken+GRAS&amp;searchsubmit=Search&amp;source=direct+%28blogs.edf.org%29&amp;sub_source=%28blank%29&amp;custom_string16=blogs.edf.org%2Fhealth%2F&amp;custom_string17=blogs.edf.org%2Fhealth%2F&amp;custom_string18=blogs.edf.org%2Fhealth%2F&amp;custom_string19=blogs.edf.org&amp;custom_string20=%2Fhealth%2F\">Broken GRAS<\/a> blogs.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cGeneral recognition\u201d means that a safety assessment was performed and published, and the scientific community agrees that use in food is safe;<\/li>\n<li>GRAS substances are <strong>exempted<\/strong> from pre-market approval by FDA;<\/li>\n<li>FDA has interpreted the law as allowing manufacturers to independently determine the use of a substance is GRAS <strong>without<\/strong> informing the agency;<\/li>\n<li>FDA created a <strong>voluntary<\/strong> program for manufacturers to submit their chemical\u2019s safety determination in the form of a GRAS notice to the agency for review;<\/li>\n<li>Manufacturers can withdraw the request for review at any time and <strong>still claim their product is GRAS.<\/strong> See the decision tree below.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/\/GRAS-process.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-13030 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/\/GRAS-process.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"479\" height=\"618\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/GRAS-process.png 479w, https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/11\/files\/GRAS-process-233x300.png 233w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Our Take<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Back in 2022, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2022\/08\/10\/tara-flour-a-reminder-of-the-real-life-consequences-of-broken-gras\/\">tara flour<\/a>, another ingredient of unknown safety, caused more than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/90908456\/daily-harvest-food-startup-toxic-tara-flour-recall\">400<\/a> people to get sick. Like kokum butter, tara flour was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/food\/cfsan-constituent-updates\/fda-update-post-market-assessment-tara-flour\">not approved<\/a> or reviewed for safety by FDA.<\/p>\n<p>We applaud the Good Food Foundation for requiring that the ingredients used in foods competing for its awards be reviewed by FDA. It is a matter of protecting public health. We fully support, at minimum, company submissions of GRAS notifications and FDA reviews. Although we have been critical of FDA\u2019s outdated science in safety assessment of chemicals, these notifications provide at least some degree of visibility into the food supply that otherwise is not available to the agency in charge of protecting the public.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Next steps<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We will continue to engage with FDA to ensure the agency has the tools and resources to strengthen the oversight of companies making GRAS claims without disclosing their safety assessments. The ongoing reorganization of FDA and creation of the Human Food Program is a unique opportunity to fix the broken GRAS program so that all Americans can have confidence in the safety of the food they eat.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What happened The Good Food Foundation recently announced its annual awards recognizing foods with both superior taste and responsible business practices, sparking controversy when a plant-based blue \u2018cheese\u2019 product was initially a finalist in the cheese category, then was disqualified and removed from the list of finalists. According to the foundation, the product was disqualified &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153009,"featured_media":13033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114084,69,114082,1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[114046],"class_list":["post-13029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broken-gras","category-fda","category-food","category-general-interest"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13029"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13411,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13029\/revisions\/13411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13029"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}