A food battle royal is brewing

Corn is ubiquitous.

Americans eat a lot of corn products. There’s the obvious…corn tortillas, corn flakes and corn chips just to name a few.

Beyond that the manufactured food industry uses processed corn in a majority of foods served to the public. Sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup. Thickeners like corn starch. Additives like dextrose, maltodextrin and xanthan gum. Corn oil.

Not to mention corn’s major use as animal feed.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service says Americans consumed 1.38 million bushels of corn, either directly or in processed products, in 2023.

An oft quoted number bandied about by the corn industry, including the Nebraska Corn Board, estimates that “about 75 percent of all the processed food in the United States contains corn.”

Seemingly, corn is in everything. Of course that makes U.S. corn farmers very happy. Corn production in the U.S. has been on an upward trend for decades. And without all those corn products — well, corn prices would tumble and likely below production costs, making growing corn a losing proposition in the U.S.

But now Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is exploring whether it might be possible to upend the nation’s consumption of corn and other products by creating what the Food and Drug Administration calls a uniform definition of ultra-processed foods.

Earlier this month, the Center for Disease Control reported that, on average, U.S. adults get 53% of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods. For kids, even more — 63%.

It’s generally accepted that eating too many ultra-processed foods is bad for your health. A 2024 British Medical Journal review of 45 existing studies found that eating too many ultra-processed foods increases the risk of dying from any cause, and has ties to more than 30 health conditions including heart disease, mental health disorders and type 2 diabetes.

But here’s the rub. There isn’t one standard definition of what comprises an ultra-processed food.

Most researchers recently have used the Nova classification system, which ranks foods from unprocessed to ultra-processed. Generally speaking, ultra-processed foods are manufactured and often contain unnatural additives like emulsifiers or food color. They often are high in salt, fat and sugar. Ultra-processed foods go through numerous industrial steps before being shipped to the grocery store.

Products produced from corn, we’re looking at you.

Last month’s FDA notice in the Federal Register is asking the public to respond to a bushel basket of questions on what constitutes an ultra-processed food including:

What types of ingredients might be used to characterize a food as ultra-processed?

To what extent, if any, should the relative amount of an ingredient used in a food influence whether the food should be characterized as ultra-processed?

What physical, biological or chemical processes might be used to characterize a food as ultra-processed?

Having that discussion is a good thing. For example, not all ultra-processed foods are associated with bad health outcomes — foods like yogurt, tofu and whole grain bread come to mind.

Kennedy says, “Ultra-processed foods are driving our chronic disease epidemic. Defining ultra-processed foods with a clear, uniform standard will empower us even more to Make America Healthy Again.”

Well, Mr. Kennedy, the corn industry will be oh so closely watching where this debate is going. USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins says she will “make certain the great men and women of the agriculture value chain are part of the conversation.”

I expect it won’t be long before Kennedy and Rollins get an ear full. Feds…best of luck. You’re going to need it.