Snack Makers Are Removing Fake Colors From Processed Foods (msn.com)
- Reference: 0176647667
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/08/033219/snack-makers-are-removing-fake-colors-from-processed-foods
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/snack-makers-are-removing-fake-colors-from-processed-foods/ar-AA1AoWRw
> In one of the final acts of President Joe Biden's administration, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration [2]banned Red No. 3 , effective in January 2027 for food, one of a handful of synthetic colors that have become something of a symbol of all that is wrong with the American food system and the ultraprocessed foods that dominate it. Putting Red No. 3 aside, the rest of the colors remain legal, and they're used in tens of thousands of supermarket and convenience-store products in the United States, according to NielsenIQ data. The recent campaign against them became one of the pillars of the "Make America Healthy Again" movement championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The criticism follows what health advocates have been saying for years: The synthetic colors add nothing to taste, nutritional value or shelf life but make unhealthy foods more visually appealing. Worst of all, there are concerns that the dyes may be [3]carcinogenic or [4]trigger hyperactivity in some kids.
>
> [Ian Puddephat, vice president of research and development for food ingredients at PepsiCo] says PepsiCo is "on a mission to get them out of the portfolio as much as we can"... PepsiCo has a dozen brands, including Simply, that don't have the artificial dyes, and the company is working to pull them out of an additional eight brands in the next year.
Other companies are trying too, according to the article. Though Ironically, "the supply chain for colors like a radish's red or annatto's orange is not as robust as that for Red No. 40 or Yellow No. 6."
But there's also been some success stories:
> In 2016, Kraft Heinz Foods Co. announced that it'd made good on [5]an earlier promise to get [6]artificial dyes out of its recip e — and apparently, nobody noticed. "We just haven't told that story," says Carlos Abrams-Rivera, Kraft Heinz's CEO. (The lack of artificial dyes is more prominent on the boxes now...)
Thanks to long-time Slashdot [7]schwit1 for haring the article.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/snack-makers-are-removing-fake-colors-from-processed-foods/ar-AA1AoWRw
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-15/us-fda-to-ban-red-dye-no-3-rfk-went-after-due-to-cancer-link
[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23026007/
[4] https://publichealth.berkeley.edu/news-media/research-highlights/new-report-shows-artificial-food-coloring-causes-hyperactivity-in-some-kids
[5] https://news.kraftheinzcompany.com/press-releases-details/2015/Iconic-Kraft-Macaroni--Cheese-to-Remove-Synthetic-Colors-and-Artificial-Preservatives-in-the-US-in-2016/default.aspx
[6] https://money.cnn.com/2016/03/08/news/companies/kraft-mac-and-cheese-recipe/index.html
[7] https://www.slashdot.org/~schwit1
Tawt I Saw a... (Score:2)
"Puddephat"
Another reason (Score:3, Insightful)
They'll raise prices. First it was covid, but when covid was over prices never went down. Then it was rising wages, but when wages stagnated the prices never went down. Now it will be because they're removing fake colors from food and the replacements are more expensive. Until they're not in which case prices won't go down.
There's always an excuse.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
hmm, Trump is the one that is going to increase the prices, because "tariff is a beautiful word" or rather because he likes being a bully and he thinks that works. Also because he plan on getting rid of people that actually work but are not white. On the positive side, no regulations, so cheaper, if you don't mind getting sick and dying.
Re: (Score:2)
A broken brainworm clock is right twice a day.
Dye Supply (Score:2)
About sixteen years ago, I toured the factory of a dairy coöperative in Vermont; they are fairly well-known in New England, and distribute there, but also have had some success further down the east coast of the US. They were talking about their flagship cheddar cheese, and how especially in the midwest, people came to expect cheese to be yellow in color. In New England, they do not add dyes, but when they ship their products elsewhere, they would use carrot juice to give it the more yellow/orange co
Re: (Score:2)
From what I remember the orange-yellow dye is to separate American cheddar cheeses from European ones back when the American cheese industry was starting. Part of the reason was shipping cheese from Europe back then was not without complications. Now there is concern from Europe that the orange dye is made from nuclear waste or something similar but it is just carrot juice.
Re: (Score:2)
> ... there is no reason that cheese needs to be dyed in the first place. People in certain areas became used to it, and then expected it, because of lower-quality cheeses that had been produced there for ages.
I have this problem with my wife - she wants her cheddar cheese to be yellow. Drives me nuts... if I buy the white version of the exact same cheese (same brand, same sharpness level), invariably she complains.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Next week - "Snack makers replace vegetable oils with fully-hydrogenated hydrogenated beef tallow and raw butter.
Re: Thank you RFK Jr! (Score:3, Informative)
They could do worse...and they have in fact. Remember olestra?
Re: (Score:2)
> They could do worse...and they have in fact. Remember olestra?
Although to be fair, the side effects from that showed up rather quickly. The food industry use of Olestra ended up being rather self-limiting since it literally made people shit themselves if they'd eaten too much of it.