July is National Ice Cream Month, which dates back to 1984 when President Reagan issued a Presidential Proclamation and Congress issued a joint resolution to celebrate this “nutritious and wholesome food.” President Reagan wasn’t alone in referring to ice cream as a nutritious; several others did too during a Congressional hearing in 1977, which was held in response to…

I love air travel and airplanes — all types of airplanes, including propeller-driven planes. While they are noisy and bumpy, they are also romantic and cause me to imagine that I’m experiencing the early days of air travel. Unfortunately, the last major U.S. airline (American Airlines) just flew its last propeller-driven flight: an era is…

Sunglasses — they are an essential part of looking cool, as well as keeping the sun out of your eyes, especially when driving on those summer road trips. However when thinking about looking cool and driving, the Food and Drug Administration rarely comes to mind too. However, FDA regulates sunglasses as a medical device. While this…

Glass jars filled with delicious apple juice. The label depicts two beautiful, fresh Grade A apples — implying that apples such as these were used to make this yummy looking apple juice. One problem, “rotten, wormy, moldy, black — whatever shouldn’t happen to an apple had happened to those apples” were used to make the…

To get away from FDA?   At the inception of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) in 1906, Americans ate far less than the 35.8 pounds of chicken they do today. Chickens were a delicacy, a treat, that “typically cost 50 cents a pound (about $22 today).” Chicken…

Beyond being extremely creepy, this orange cat helped to make the current regulatory regime for color additives in the United States. This orange cat was dyed with an excessive amount of FD&C Orange No. 1 — a previously permitted color additive dating back to the original Pure Food and Drug Act. Excessive amounts of this…

Before the clean label movement, there was the pure food movement and a major fear was ketchup. This excellent condiment had been associated with being made from decomposed materials. It was this (pure food) which Heinz built its brand-on, and FDA spent its time removed ketchup consisting of decomposed materials from the market – like…

FDA once regulated the fireworks we are enjoying to celebrate the new year. FDA is one of the oldest consumer protection agency in the United States and, for a longtime, essentially the only agency with such a charge. Thus when Congress passed a new consumer protection law, it historically fell to FDA to implement and enforce…

People are familiar with FDA approved drugs and medical devices, but FDA does not approve food items. Except for one year when FDA approved the Thanksgiving cranberries. At a press conference, November 9, 1959, Cabinet Secretary Arthur Flemming announced that FDA testing detected aminotriazole in the cranberry crop from Oregon and Washington State. Aminotriazole is pesticide that caused carcinogen…