
Are Food Dyes Killing Us in The United States?
Wednesday the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made headlines by officially banning Red Dye No. 3 from all foods in our country.
The ban in edible foods comes more than 30 years after the FDA banned the substance from use in cosmetics like lipstick and eye shadow.
In a statement to the press, the FDA said: "The FDA is amending its color additive regulations to no longer allow for the use of FD&C Red No. 3 in food and ingested drugs. FD&C Red No. 3 is a synthetic food dye that gives foods and drinks a bright, cherry-red color. Manufacturers who use FD&C Red No. 3 in food will have until January 15, 2027, to reformulate their products."
A couple of things stand out about the new ban.
No. 1 -- If the dye was banned in 1990 from cosmetics, why was it allowed in our food, especially since the dye had been found to cause brain tumors in lab rats? “Red 3 has been known to cause cancer in cosmetics but we still allow it to be put in our food. I don’t understand that,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville said in the hearing. “If we know something is deadly for anybody that ingests it how do we continue to just study that and not say hey, enough is enough?”
No. 2 -- The ruling on Red No. 3 comes out of left field a bit as the spotlight in recent times has been on dyes like Red 40 and Yellow 5.
Red 40 has links to hyperactivity in children and tests have shown damage to the digestive tract among animals tested with the dye.
Yellow 5, AKA Tartrazine, has been associated with behavioral changes including irritability, restlessness, depression and difficulty with sleeping
The most popular food dyes are Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6. These three make up 90% of all the food dye used in the US.
Yellow 6 seems to be more harmless than the other dyes, but some children's advocacy groups call for the banning of all artificial dyes in food in the USA.
As for the ban of Red 5, here's a list of foods that currently contain that particular dye:
- Pez Candy Assorted Fruit
- Dubble Bubble Original Twist Bubble Gum
- Brach's Candy Corn
- Jelly Belly candies
- Trolli Sour Crunchy Crawlers
- Entenmann's Little Bites Party Cake Mini Muffins
- Betty Crocker Fruit by the Foot
- Toaster pastries with red coloring
- Cookies with red icing or decorations
- Certain ice cream flavors and frozen yogurt
- Ice pops and frozen fruit bars
- Maraschino cherries
- Some fruit cocktails
- Yoo-hoo Strawberry Drink
- Certain sodas and fruit-flavored drinks
- Some cough syrups
- Gummy vitamins
- PediaSure Grow & Gain Kids' Ready-to-Drink Strawberry Shake
- Strawberry-flavored milk
The Associated Press reports that about two-thirds of Americans favor restricting or reformulating processed foods to remove ingredients like added sugar or dyes.
"Americans are quickly learning that the FDA, which allowed Red 5 and other poisons into our foods, doesn't have our back," said one local politician. "They act like they do, but then the truth comes out and you realize it's all about money."
Red 3 is already banned for food use in Europe, Australia and New Zealand except in certain kinds of cherries.

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