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PORTSIDE CULTURE

CALIFORNIA ENACTS NATION’S FIRST LAW TO DEFINE AND BAN
ULTRAPROCESSED FOODS  
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Sandee LaMotte
October 9, 2025
CNN
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_ By signing the “Real Food, Healthy Kids Act” into law,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken control of a growing movement
to reform the nation’s food supply. The state legislature passed the
bill in mid-September. _

California has passed the first law in the nation regulating
ultraprocessed foods in the state's public schools. ,
EzumeImages/iStockphoto/Getty Images/File

 

California made history Wednesday by enacting the first law in the
United States to define and ultimately ban unhealthy ultraprocessed
foods, or UPFs, from what’s projected to be OVER 1 BILLION MEALS
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to California schoolchildren in the 2025-26 school year.

By signing the “Real Food, Healthy Kids Act” into law, California
Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken control of a growing movement to reform
the nation’s food supply. The state legislature passed the bill in
mid-September.

On average, children in the United States get nearly TWO-THIRDS OF
THEIR CALORIES
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ultraprocessed foods packed full of additives and high-calorie sugars,
salt and fat, according to a RECENT CDC REPORT
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Not only does the California legislation define ultraprocessed food
— a task which most of the world has yet to accomplish — it
requires public health officials and scientists to decide which UPFs
are most harmful to human health. Any “ultraprocessed food of
concern” would then be phased out of the school food supply.

California’s decisive action is a sharp contrast to the “Make
American Healthy Again,” or MAHA, movement spearheaded by US Health
and Human Services director Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“While folks in DC are commissioning reports and debating
hypotheticals, California is leading with decisive action,” Jesse
Gabriel, the Democratic California Assemblymember who introduced the
bill, said in a press conference.

“Or to put it more bluntly, here in California, we are actually
doing the work to protect our kids health, and we’ve been doing it
since well before anyone had ever heard of the MAHA movement,”
Gabriel added.

The MAHA Commission promised decisive action on ultraprocessed food by
August of this year. However, the FINAL REPORT
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released in September, only promised the government would “continue
efforts” to define ultraprocessed foods.

“Unfortunately, the final MAHA report is all promises and has no
teeth,” Barry Popkin, the W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of
Global Public Health TOLD CNN AT THE TIME
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“In my opinion, it shows the food, agricultural, and pharmaceutical
industries got to the White House and won the day,” Popkin said.

A STRONG LOBBYING EFFORT

That scenario could have happened in California as well, said
Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior vice president for California at the
Environmental Working Group, or EWG, a health advocacy organization
based in Washington, DC, that cosponsored the bill.

“There was very serious opposition. Industry always kicks and
screams and fights like bloody hell to keep these bills from becoming
law,” Del Chiaro told CNN. “Just the number of committees we had
to go through to get the bill passed illustrates how much lobbying was
going on.”

The final vote, however, told it all: Out of 120 California
assemblymembers and senators from both the Republican and Democratic
parties, only one voted no — a Republican from San Diego.

“We had broad bipartisan support because ultimately, this is coming
from the grassroots up — from politicians hearing about these issues
in their community and wanting to do something about it,” Del Chiaro
said. “We’re in this moment where Americans are waking up to the
fact that we have chemicals in everything — our food, our water and
our air — and we need to do something about it.”

CNN reached out to the Consumer Brands Association, which represents
major food manufacturers, but did not hear back before publication.

THE BEST AND WORST ULTRAPROCESSED FOODS

The “Real Food, Healthy Kids Act” specifically defines an
ultraprocessed food as one that may contain such ingredients as
nonnutritive sweeteners; high amounts of saturated fat, sodium and
added sugar; additives such as emulsifiers, stabilizers and
thickeners; flavor enhancers; a host of food dyes; and more.

The California law provides guidance on how much of an ingredient like
sugar or salt can be in a food in order to be served to elementary and
middle-school children, with a slightly different standard for high
schoolers.

But not all ultraprocessed foods will be phased out of the state’s
school supply, Gabriel told CNN.

“We can’t eliminate all ultraprocessed foods — we need them, we
need the shelf stability, the safety, the convenience,” he said.
“But the foods with the most harmful additives, foods that are
linked to food addiction or cancer or diabetes or fatty liver disease,
that’s the group of ultraprocessed foods we will phase out of our
schools.”

An ultraprocessed food can also be banned for containing additives
that have been banned, restricted or required to carry a warning by
other local, state, federal or international jurisdictions, according
to the law. (The European Union has taken action on VARIOUS FOOD DYES
AND OTHER ADDITIVES
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Another red flag: Has the ultraprocessed food been modified to include
high levels of sugar, salt or fat? (That’s a key way manufacturers
design ultraprocessed foods to meet the “BLISS POINT
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human taste buds yearn for.)

IT WON’T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT

Eliminating ultraprocessed foods from the California school food
supply is not going to be a quick process. In EARLIER ITERATIONS
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the bill, regulators were required to take some actions in 2026. In
the final law, the first regulation — requiring food vendors to
report all ultraprocessed foods they will supply — is due on or
before February 1, 2028. All ultraprocessed food of concern must be
identified and out of schools by July 1, 2035.

There’s also a concern that California’s efforts could be derailed
by a federal government controlled by Republicans.

“We are constantly concerned that Congress will fight to preempt our
authority with some kind of watered down, weak federal effort,” Del
Chiaro said. “There’s certainly members of Congress that are
threatening that, right?

“But we had broad bipartisan support, and I would certainly hope
that, politicians at the federal level see that we’re all on the
same team. We’re on Team Public Health and Team Kids and I hope they
will continue to let states be the laboratories of democracy that we
are.”

Sign up for CNN’s Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style
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Our eight-part guide shows you a delicious expert-backed eating
lifestyle that will boost your health for life.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly conflated the
number of meals served to California schoolchildren annually with the
number of students.

* school meals
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* ultra processed foods
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* California
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* Gov. Gavin Newsom
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