Our experience at MealSquares[1] has been that these external testing services are entirely oriented around the food industries needs for 'check-offs' rather th

Our experience at MealSquares[1] has been that these external testing services are entirely oriented around the food industries needs for 'check-offs' rather than any concern about whether food is good or even safe for humans. I repeatedly had food science advisors confuesedly tell me 'but it's generally recognized as safe!' when I raised concerns about newly released designer cocktails of preservatives or flavoring agents (MealSquares still has neither). There's also a mini-industry around 'clean labeling' which in practice means food additive companies finding every loophole in the FDA regulations to be able to refer to some crazy concoction as just 'modified starch' and similar on the label. The real rabbit hole is 'processing aids' which don't even need to go on the label but wind up in your food (and our ingredients have to be tested for). We've found no reasonable way to signal to the market that we are not engaged in these shenanigans partially because 99% of the market isn't even aware of these shenanigans. There's the organic and gmo free sect, but those have often been found to be worse than the alternative in terms of things like carcinogens in the organic pesticides used. I will say this: several of our friend's kids eat MealSquares. Our advisory panel includes a registered dietician who specialized in meal replacements for many years, an academic nutritionist, and an MD who specializes in obesity research. And we've made changes based on their input. We've also checked in with a pediatrician who does nutrition research for kids. We give a shit. 1. I am one of the founders of http://www.MealSquares.com http://www.MealSquares.com