It is not a question of which foods are "fine" and which are not; the question is whether you must declare, and if using the blue form, the answer is YES.

I would agree with your assessment of those specific items. However, in order to comply with U.S. Customs regulations when using the blue paper form, you still MUST DECLARE ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING you are carrying that could be consumed as food, EVEN IF you know those items are permitted. Not to declare is to risk huge fines and red flags on your record if they decide to search you and find undeclared items, even if they are permitted items. Declare means declare, period. When I used to bring in cookies using the paper declaration form and checked "yes," the officer would ask me "what food?" and I would hold up my bag of cookies. The officer stamped the form and off I went. That's the way to do it.


One huge advantage of GlobalEntry is that you do NOT have to declare anything and everything that can be consumed as food. Instead, the kiosk asks more specifically about fruit, meat, etc. In other words, the government trusts you to know what kinds of things need to be declared. Not so for the average traveler using the paper declaration form.


I suspect that a large number of frequent travelers put themselves at risk every day by not declaring permitted food items for the sake of convenience. If I were you, I would not make that mistake. A lie of omission is still a lie, which in this case also happens to be a federal offense. All it would take is one random secondary inspection (discovering undeclared items) and you could face unpleasant entries to the USA for a long time in the future--again, EVEN IF THOSE ITEMS WERE PERMITTED. If the form asks about it, you must answer truthfully.