ECOfreak: The Deadly Dyes We Gobble Down

By Desiree Parker Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Let’s talk about food dyes.

I was thinking about them the other night as I was shaking my son’s gummy vitamin into my hand – it’s a lovely shade of bright red. Normally I get the vitamins with only natural, food-based dyes, but this time we were in a hurry and got the plain old poisoned kind.

You might think that’s an extreme thing to say, but any parent with a child with ADD or ADHD will tell you food dyes are horrible things. So will the folks at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a watchdog consumer safety group. Here’s a link to their run-down of why dyes are horrible for you.

If you take a minute to look at food labels, you’ll see dyes are in everything from yogurt to salad dressing to candy (I’ll tell you, if anyone is getting cancer from red dye it’s me, since I used to eat red licorice all the time as a kid). These dyes have been associated with hyperactivity in kids, allergies, and (worst word in the English language) cancer, and a new report from CSPI says they should just be banned.

Here’s what the CSPI press release says: “The three most widely used dyes, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6, are contaminated with known carcinogens. Another dye, Red 3, has been acknowledged for years by the Food and Drug Administration to be a carcinogen, yet is still in the food supply.

“Despite those concerns, each year manufacturers pour about 15 million pounds of eight synthetic dyes into our foods. Per capita consumption of dyes has increased five-fold since 1955, thanks in part to the proliferation of brightly colored breakfast cereals, fruit drinks, and candies pitched to children.”

Do we really need food dyes, anyway? I mean, would I eat an M&M if it were just chocolate-colored? Of course! Would my son eat his fruity breakfast cereal if it weren’t rainbow colors? Absolutely. Granted, we couldn’t make those lovely red and green frostings for Christmas, but I bet we could make do.

“These synthetic chemicals do absolutely nothing to improve the nutritional quality or safety of foods, but trigger behavior problems in children and, possibly, cancer in anybody,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson, co-author of the 58-page report, “Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks.” “The Food and Drug Administration should ban dyes, which would force industry to color foods with real food ingredients, not toxic petrochemicals.”

Makes sense to me.

They go on to say 200,000 pounds of Red 3 are used in foods each year, even though the FDA said in 1985 the dye has been shown to cause cancer. Tests of other dyes show equally frightening results.

Other countries like Britain are cracking down on dyes, either banning them outright or putting warning labels on them for consumers. CSPI points out that McDonald’s Strawberry Sundae in Britain is colored with strawberries, but in the United States it’s colored with Red dye 40. Likewise, the British version of Fanta orange soda gets its bright color from pumpkin and carrot extract, but in the United States the color comes from Red 40 and Yellow 6. Starburst Chews and Skittles, both Mars products, contain synthetic dyes in the United States, but not in Britain.

This is yet another reason I’m about ready to just go out in the forest and start eating weeds and small trees. I mean, just about everything we eat just is not natural and likely to cause cancer. Even produce is covered in chemicals!

That’s the end of my rant for the day. Share your thoughts on dyes below – maybe one day I’ll get up the gumption to write about other additives. That might actually push me over the edge, though, and really send me into the forest. But not without my bug spray.

Tip for the week
Can you cut out food dyes for a week? I dare you! It’s a tough proposition.

Website for the week
If you haven’t had your fill from the CSPI site, take a peek at SlashFood.com. It’s great for anyone seriously in love with food and news – it’s food news!