The fact that processed foods contain added ingredients that aren't necessarily food isn't secret knowledge. A simple read-through of just about any processed food label will tip you off to this fact with its listing of impossible-to-pronounce chemicals.

    Many of these additives have questionable safety profiles, or none at all, since only a small percentage has ever been properly tested. This situation has become the norm courtesy of a regulatory system that favors industry profitability over public health and safety. This too is a well-known fact by many.

    What may come as a complete shock, however, is that companies are allowed to add chemicals to their food without disclosing what they are to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or having to prove their safety before putting them into use.

    All they have to do is have their expert evaluate it on their terms. There is no independent third party objective evaluation. This is reprehensibly irresponsible on the part of governmental agencies that are assigned the task of looking out for our health. According to EcoWatch:1

        "As long as a company designates a chemical as being 'generally recognized as safe,' or GRAS in regulatory parlance, according to FDA's interpretation of the law, it has no responsibility to inform the agency. FDA doesn't know about the safety of an estimated 1,000 chemicals because they aren't disclosed."