Public confidence in the safety of American food has dropped to its lowest recorded level, with barely half of adults now trusting what ends up on their plates. The decline tracks a rising wave of concern over toxic chemicals, particularly per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, that have been detected in both drinking water and food packaging across the country. Federal regulators have responded with new enforceable limits and product bans, but whether those actions can keep pace with public anxiety is an open question.
Food Safety Confidence Hits a Record Low
The International Food Information Council’s 2025 Food and Health Survey found that just 55% of Americans expressed confidence in the safety of the U.S. food supply. That figure stood at 70% in 2023 and slipped to 62% in 2024, meaning roughly one in seven confident consumers changed their minds in just two years. A 15-percentage-point erosion over that span is steep by any measure for a sentiment metric that had been relatively stable for years, and it suggests that worries about chemical hazards are reshaping how people evaluate everything from grocery store produce to takeout meals.
The survey pinpointed what is driving the shift. Cancer-causing chemicals in food ranked among the leading concerns, alongside pesticides and heavy metals. Those worries are not abstract: PFAS, a class of synthetic compounds resistant to heat, water, and oil, have turned up in everything from municipal tap water to fast-food wrappers. The speed of the confidence drop suggests that general awareness of these “forever chemicals” has crossed from niche environmental reporting into mainstream kitchen-table anxiety, and the data now reflects that shift in hard numbers. For policymakers, the survey operates as both a warning and a benchmark for whether new protections actually move public sentiment.
PFAS in Drinking Water: What Federal Testing Found
The EPA’s Fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule, known as UCMR 5, represents the most wide-ranging monitoring effort for PFAS ever conducted in the United States. It tested for 29 PFAS compounds plus lithium across large and midsize public water systems, along with a representative sample of smaller systems. Monitoring ran from 2023 to 2025, with quarterly data updates continuing through 2026. The scope matters because previous testing programs covered far fewer chemicals and far fewer utilities, leaving significant blind spots in the national picture and making it difficult for residents to know whether their own taps were affected.
In response to what those results revealed, the federal government finalized the first-ever national drinking water standard for PFAS. The rule set enforceable maximum contaminant levels at 4 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS, two of the most studied and widespread compounds in the class, with limits also established for four additional PFAS. The EPA estimated the standard would reduce PFAS exposure for approximately 100 million people, a scale that underscores how widely these chemicals have spread through water systems. Compliance timelines are built into the regulation, giving water utilities a defined window to install treatment or take other corrective steps, while the publicly accessible UCMR 5 data tool allows residents, journalists, and local officials to track detections in specific systems as new quarterly releases arrive.
The Gap Between Regulation and Reassurance
Setting a limit of 4 parts per trillion is an extraordinarily tight standard, roughly equivalent to four drops of water in an Olympic swimming pool. That threshold signals how seriously regulators view even trace-level PFAS exposure, but it also creates a practical challenge: a meaningful share of water systems may need to take action to meet the new ceiling, according to the EPA’s own assessment in its announcement of the rule. Smaller rural utilities, which often lack the capital budgets of large metro systems, face the steepest compliance curve, and some will have to weigh rate increases, new treatment technologies, or consolidation with neighboring systems. The UCMR 5 dataset includes a representative sample of those smaller systems, but full reporting will not be complete until 2026, leaving localized risk profiles partially unresolved even as national headlines highlight the dangers.
That timing gap is where public trust frays. Families can look up their water system in the federal database today, yet many results are still preliminary or incomplete, and even systems that already meet the new limits may struggle to communicate that fact clearly. The regulation exists on paper, but the compliance deadline stretches years into the future, and interim steps can be difficult for non-experts to interpret. For consumers already primed by survey data showing that cancer-causing chemicals top their list of food safety fears, the lag between a rule’s announcement and its real-world effect can feel like a promise without proof. Transparent, localized monitoring that shows measurable drops in contamination within the next two years will likely determine whether the new standard rebuilds confidence or simply adds to the anxiety that the regulatory system is always a few steps behind emerging science.
PFAS Phased Out of Food Packaging
The contamination problem extends beyond the tap. Grease-proofing agents containing certain PFAS were long used in fast-food wrappers, microwave popcorn bags, and take-out paperboard containers, creating a direct dietary exposure route every time someone ate a burger or reheated leftovers. The FDA worked with manufacturers to end sales of PFAS used in U.S. food packaging, eliminating what the agency described as a major source of dietary exposure from that category. Because consumers have limited visibility into the chemistry of packaging materials, the phase-out is significant: it targets a pathway that people had almost no ability to control on their own, short of avoiding packaged food entirely or trying to decode technical product specifications.
The regulatory mechanics tightened further when the FDA determined that authorizations for 35 food-contact uses related to PFAS were no longer effective as of January 6, 2024. That decision effectively closed the door on a broad set of previously cleared applications, signaling that the agency no longer considered the underlying safety demonstrations sufficient in light of newer toxicological evidence and exposure estimates. For restaurants, grocers, and packaging suppliers, the shift has meant reformulating products and supply chains, while for consumers it offers a relatively straightforward narrative: at least some PFAS are being deliberately removed from everyday items that come into direct contact with food. Whether that message penetrates widely enough to move the needle on overall food safety confidence remains to be seen, but it gives public health agencies a concrete success story to point to amid a landscape of lingering uncertainties.
Rebuilding Trust in the Food System
Regulatory actions on PFAS in water and packaging are unfolding against a backdrop of broader skepticism about institutional assurances. When just over half of adults say they trust the food supply, every new contamination headline or scientific study can feel like confirmation that the system is fundamentally unsafe. To counter that perception, experts emphasize the importance of pairing technical standards with clear, accessible communication that explains what has changed, what risks remain, and how individuals can interpret monitoring data for their own communities. Tools like the UCMR 5 database are powerful, but without context they can also overwhelm, leaving residents staring at concentration numbers that are difficult to translate into practical decisions about what to drink or feed their families.
Rebuilding confidence will likely require progress on several fronts at once: continued tightening of exposure pathways, faster timelines between scientific consensus and regulatory response, and more visible evidence that contamination levels are actually falling. Community-level engagement, through local health departments, water utilities, and extension services, can help translate national policies into neighborhood realities, turning abstract parts-per-trillion thresholds into tangible improvements. As PFAS monitoring expands and packaging reforms take hold, the same surveys that now document record-low trust will serve as a barometer for whether these efforts are resonating beyond policy circles and into household routines. Until then, the gap between what regulators are doing and what consumers feel will remain one of the central challenges in safeguarding both the safety of the food supply and the public’s belief in it.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
