Food can be medicine and food can be poison.  We each get to choose what we eat.  Or so you would think.  The unfortunate reality is that we are all being exposed to toxic ingredients that have taken hold of our food supply.  Most of the time we don’t even realize it. 

In the 1970s and 80s, obesity rates in the United States were around 15% for adults and 5% for children.  During these decades big tobacco companies were buying up large food manufacturers and bringing their scientists along for the ride.  This gave birth to the “ultra processed foods” (UPF) that now make nearly two-thirds of the standard American diet. 

Today, obesity rates are over 40% for US adults and about 1 in 5 American children are considered to be obese.  Type 2 Diabetes in adolescents has surged 200% in just 20 years.  Rates of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease increased by 50% over the last 30 years.  In the last 20 years, ADHD diagnoses in children have doubled.  Incidents of heart disease, certain cancers, cognitive decline in the brain, decreased fertility, hormone disruption, DNA damage, and dozens of diet related chronic diseases have all steadily increased in the last 30 years.  Meanwhile the cost of treating and managing preventable chronic disease in the U.S. is priced at $4 trillion annually and growing. 

Dozens of other countries have taken steps to protect its citizens from harmful foods either by banning certain ingredients, altering their industrialized farming processes, requiring labels for harmful additives, or even educating its citizenry on healthy habits while the U.S. watches its waistline expand and wait for chronic disease to take hold. 

We cannot afford to sit around and wait for something to change.  Our food is literally killing us.
 
In order to protect Pennsylvania consumers, we are introducing a package of bills aimed at cleaning up our food supply as our society demands that we begin to unravel from the tight grip of industrial ingredients. 
 

Statutes/Laws affected:
Printer's No. 1415 (Apr 21, 2025): 3-5722