Food & Nutrition

2025 DGAC Publishes New and Updated Protocols

The 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) published new and updated draft protocols that were discussed during their fifth public meeting held in May 2024. Several new and updated food pattern modeling protocols and systematic review protocols were released, including a new protocol to address if nutrient goals can be met when carbohydrate-containing foods and beverages are reduced in the Healthy U.S.-Style Dietary Pattern. The Data Analysis team also published a new data analysis plan that describes the data analysis process, strategy, and analyses used to support the Committee in answering prioritized scientific questions. The public is encouraged to submit comments on the protocols within the next month. The Committee’s sixth and final public meeting is scheduled for September 25-26, 2024. 

USDA and Reinvestment Fund Launch Program to Increase Food Access

USDA and Reinvestment Fund announced the launch of the new program, the Food Access and Retail Expansion Fund (FARE Fund), to increase access to healthy foods in communities that are underserved by grocery stores and other food retailers. The agency and the Reinvestment Fund, under USDA’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), will provide $60 million in loans, grants, and technical assistance for food retail and food retail supply chain projects to increase access to healthy foods, provide new market opportunities for farmers and ranchers, and stabilize small and independent retailers.

House Introduces Protecting Mothers and Infants' Access to Milk Act

Representatives Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Josh Harder (D-CA), and Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) introduced the Protecting Mothers and Infants' Access to Milk Act. The legislation would return the maximum monthly allowance of milk available under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to previous levels under Food Packages IV-VII for children ages 1 through 4 years, pregnant and partially breastfeeding women up to 1 year postpartum, women up to 6 months postpartum, and fully breastfeeding women up to 1 year postpartum. The bill follows the publication of the WIC Food Packages final rule, which reduced maximum monthly milk allowances available to WIC participants.

ATNI Publishes Report on Materiality of Nutrition

The Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI) and Planet Tracker, in association with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), published a report that analyzed 20 global food manufacturers and compared the healthiness of their food product portfolios with their profits and market valuations. The analysis' findings indicate that policymakers are increasingly considering regulation to improve the food environment, including health taxes, restrictions on marketing, limits on salt content, and mandatory front-of-package labeling. The report found that food companies are failing to disclose sufficient information to enable investors to properly price in the impacts of nutrition and that foods continue to fall short of the minimum standards for healthy and sustainable diets. The organizations recommend that investors encourage companies to improve the healthiness of their food product portfolios and provide consistent nutrition-related disclosures, among others.

Food Safety

FDA Publishes Additional Food Traceability Resources for Industry 

FDA published a series of additional resources to its website to help industry comply with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) final rule, Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods. The agency released minor revisions to the Food Traceability List clarifying the status of previously frozen foods with an accompanying FAQ summarizing the changes. FDA also published a new chart summarizing exemptions relevant to produce farms, a supply chain example for sprouts, and new translated material about the Traceability Lot Code and the Traceability Plan. The agency also announced its partnership with the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance (FSPCA) to develop training for the food industry on the final rule, with training anticipated to be available by mid-2025.

New Jersey Introduces Bill to Prohibit Seven Food Additives in the State

The New Jersey Legislature introduced a bill which would prohibit the manufacture, sale, and distribution of food products that contain seven food additives, including azodicarbonamide, brominated vegetable oil (BVO), butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), potassium bromate, propylparaben, red dye 3, and titanium dioxide in the state. The introduction of the legislation follows several attempts by state legislatures proposing to ban several food additives from their respective state’s food supply. To date, California remains the only state to sign into law legislation that will prohibit the manufacture, sale, and distribution of food products that contain BVO, potassium bromate, propylparaben, and red dye 3, beginning January 1, 2027.

Agriculture

USDA NIFA Invests in Sustainable Agricultural Research

USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) announced an investment of $70 million in seven agricultural projects to transform the U.S. food and agricultural system and sustainably increase agricultural production. The awarded projects aim to improve the local and regional supply of affordable, nutritious, and accessible food and agricultural products and establish robust and climate-smart food and agricultural systems. This investment is part of the Sustainable Agricultural Systems program area of NIFA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI).

Global

WHO Publishes Guidance for Monitoring Healthy Diets Globally

The World Health Organization (WHO) published guidance on monitoring global healthy diets that provides an overview for measuring the healthiness of diets and outlines dietary assessment methods and types of dietary intake data, surveys, and metrics that are currently available to monitor healthy diets. In this guidance, the WHO calls for better measurement and monitoring to support governments in establishing policies and programs to promote healthy diets and assess the effectiveness of such actions. The guidance, an outcome of the WHO Healthy Diets Monitoring Initiative (HDMI), identified four properties that best reflect healthy diets for the purposes of monitoring, including sufficient quantity and quality of nutrient intake, balance of macronutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins and fats, diets composed of a diverse range of foods and food groups, and limited intake of processed meat, sugar-sweetened beverages, salt, and trans fats.

WHO Releases Milestone Report on Global Trans Fat Elimination and Progress

WHO published a five-year milestone report to outline country progress towards global trans fat elimination, collected from 2018-2023. The report summarizes country actions to ban industrially produced trans fat and makes recommendations to achieve global trans fat elimination, including that food manufacturers with a high proportion of fats and oils comply with regulations to increase the use of healthier, alternative fats. WHO highlights that as of 2023, 53 countries had best practice policies in place for eliminating industrially-produced trans-fatty acids (iTFA) in the food supply. The report highlights that while WHO's REPLACE initiative to fully eliminate trans fat from the global food supply by the end of 2023 has not been fully met, there has been progress made towards this goal in every region globally.

Fun Fact: According to the early accounts of canning, peas were among the first vegetables to be preserved in a can.