‘I’m not saying that we’re going to regulate ultra-processed food,’ the health secretary also said.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he will respond to a petition that could enable the limiting of corn syrup and more than a dozen other refined carbohydrates by rescinding an automatic safety status they currently have.
“We will act on David Kessler’s petition,” Kennedy said in an interview aired by CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Feb. 15.
Kessler, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said in a petition to the FDA—filed in August 2025—that regulators should stop including refined carbs such as corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup among ingredients classified as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS).
Companies can verify the safety of items listed under GRAS without government oversight. Kennedy directed the FDA in March 2025 to explore eliminating GRAS.
“Evidence over the last several decades since the GRAS evaluation of processed refined carbohydrates used in industrial processing demonstrates that ultra-processed foods that contain these ingredients put people at risk for increased caloric intake, weight gain, and metabolic abnormalities,” Kessler wrote in his petition.
“FDA’s past GRAS determinations are based on outdated data that did not properly assess the biological effects of these processed refined carbohydrates on blood insulin, blood lipid parameters, energy partitioning, inflammatory markers, brain reward signaling, or visceral adiposity.”
Ultra-processed foods come from at least one process, such as chemical modification of ingredients, and make up a majority of calories consumed by Americans.
Hundreds of comments have been filed on the petition, many of which support Kessler’s position.
Kennedy, whose department has banned several synthetic colors to try to make food healthier, told “60 Minutes” that Kessler’s petition raises questions “that FDA should’ve been asking a long, long time ago.”
He added later in the interview that he believed officials would prevail in taking on ultra-processed foods because President Donald Trump supports them.
“I’m not saying that we’re going to regulate ultra-processed food,” he also said. “Our job is to make sure that everybody understands what they’re getting, to have an informed public.”
