SINCE THE START of his campaign, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has targeted the food industry and getting ultra-processed foods off the shelves.
On Monday, Kennedy met with the CEOs of several major food manufacturers including Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Kelloggs, Tyson Foods, and Pepsi Co., and made one thing abundantly clear: It’s time to get artificial dyes out of our foods.
What exactly does artificial coloring do to the body? Should we be scared of Cheez-Its, Fruit Loops, and Nerds Clusters?
“It is not necessary at all [to remove artificial dyes]. Food additives such as dyes are tested rigorously and regulated with a risk assessment process that includes hazard identification data, dose-response evaluation data, and human exposure evaluation data, all of which give scientists and regulators a level of potential risk to humans,” says Abby Langer, R.D., MH nutrition advisor. There is no definitive findings linking artificial dyes and chronic disease, cancer, or other health complications.
The momentum to ban these additives partly stems from the Delaney Clause, a law enacted in 1958. The clause states that any ingredients that have been found to cause cancer in humans or in animals, regardless of dose, cannot be used in food or cosmetics. On the surface, that sounds like something we can all get behind.
It doesn’t exactly work as effectively in practice, though. “A rat could be fed 1,000 times its weight in red dye and develop a potentially unrelated cancer, and this would trigger the Delaney Clause,” Langer says.
That’s exactly what happened in the case of Red Dye No. 3, or erythrosine, banned in January. The backing for the move stemmed from a faulty study published in 1987, which found mice with diets that consisted of high levels of erythrosine were more likely to get thyroid cancer then those that did not have any in their diets. However, the mechanism that causes the cancer in mice does not exist in humans, and thus, has never been replicated in human studies.
“Banning dyes stirs up unnecessary anxiety around the food system, which is the safest it has ever been,” Langer says. Processed foods are safe, inexpensive, and capable of delivering nutrition—especially to people of lower-income and/or living in food deserts, where fresh food is hard to find. In fact, healthy food prices are increasing at a rate almost double that of unhealthy foods.
And then there’s the cost issue: The banning of these dyes may drive up food prices as companies scramble to find alternatives, furthering the issue of food security, Langer says.
“Nobody thinks that Fruity Pebbles and candy are health foods; however, when ultra-processed foods are the cheapest and most accessible option, that’s where the problem lies,” Langer says. “I consider the entire food dye conversation a distraction from what we really should be focusing on: access to healthy foods, access to healthcare, nutrition education in schools, grocery prices, and food deserts.”
