
60 Minutes 02/15/2026: Generally Recognized as Safe, Youngest Survivors
Feb 16, 2026
Investigative reporting on the controversy around the GRAS classification and calls to rethink ultra-processed food ingredients. Discussions about how processed starches and sweeteners affect the brain and public health, and political and legal efforts to change food policy. A separate human-interest tale follows three infants born in Nazi camps who survived against all odds and later reunited.
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Ultra-Processed Foods Explain Rising Obesity
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. highlights rising obesity and malnutrition tied to ultra-processed diets.
- He emphasizes it's not laziness but engineered, low-nutrition, high-calorie foods harming health.
Force Safety Proof For GRAS Ingredients
- David Kessler petitioned the FDA to revoke GRAS status for refined carbohydrates unless safety is proven.
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledges to use gold-standard science to review GRAS ingredients.
Processed Carbs Drive Metabolic Harm
- David Kessler argues many processed starches and sweeteners are metabolically harmful and rapidly absorbed.
- He links those ingredients to overeating, fatty liver, and cardiometabolic disease.


