Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Skittles, Mountain Dew Baja Blast. These foods all contain petroleum-based synthetic food dyes the FDA wants to phase out by the end of next year. Will the ban change American eating habits?

Guests

Jennifer Anderson, registered dietitian. Founder of Kids Eat in Color, which helps families find the best way to provide a nutritious diet for their kids.

Also Featured

Melissa Hockstad, CEO of Consumer Brands Association.

Joe Schwarcz, chemistry professor. Director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society.

Austin, Texas has a reputation as a funky, liberal haven in a deep red state. But now big tech money is transforming the Texas capital in ways locals struggle to comprehend. Who wins and who loses in Austin’s evolution.

Transcript

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Toucan Sam made his debut as the Fruit Loops mascot in 1963. By the time I was a kid in the 1980s, he was a fixture at many breakfast tables in America, including mine, and I admit. I loved Fruit Loops for a while, at least that sweetness. Of course, my adult self looks at that 12 grams of added sugar per serving now and feels more than a little gross about it.

But when I was a kid, that sweetness was amazing. And then there’s the color, especially the swirls of color. The cereal left behind in the milk. It felt like slurping up a rainbow at the end of breakfast. Those colors have another name, Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1, and Yellow 6.

MARTIN MAKARY: For the last 50 years, American children have increasingly been living in a toxic soup of synthetic chemicals. The scientific community has conducted a number of studies raising concerns about the correlation between petroleum-based synthetic dyes and several health conditions.

That is FDA Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary announcing a little earlier this month that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration intends to phase out eight petroleum-based synthetic dyes commonly used in thousands of food products consumed in the United States.

Those dyes are Red Dye 40 used in everything from candy to sports drinks to jam, just to name a few. Green Dye 3, canned vegetables, salad dressings, many more. Citrus Red 2, used to color orange skins. Orange B, used in hot dogs, sausage and casings. And Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Blue 1, found in soft drinks, popcorn, yogurt, sauces, cheeses, soups, ice cream, so many more, including Fruit Loops.

Current Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long campaigned against synthetic dyes in food. He swore to get rid of them if confirmed as HHS secretary, a position he now holds. So in that announcement, earlier this month, Secretary Kennedy took aim at food company executives saying that he believes they have exerted too much influence on the FDA.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: If they want to add petroleum, they want to eat petroleum, they ought to add it themselves at home. They shouldn’t be feeding it to the rest of us. (APPLAUSE) And without our knowledge or consent.  

CHAKRABARTI: Well, a quick survey of headlines after the announcement finds words such as ban or remove, but is that really what’s happening with the FDA’s announcement? To be clear, the real answer is no, at least not for now. So what is going on with the FDA’s food diet intentions and will it make the American food supply healthier?

Jennifer Anderson joins us to help demystify this. She’s a nutritionist and the founder of Kids Eat In Color, an organization dedicated to help improve nutrition for kids. She’s also a registered dietician with a Master’s of Science in Public Health. Jennifer Anderson, welcome to On Point.

JENNIFER ANDERSON: Thank you so much for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so let’s get straight to what did the FDA actually is going to do or says it’s going to do? That’s why I had to use the word intends to phase out. What exactly did this announcement contain?

ANDERSON: That’s a great question. Yes. They’ve used the word phase out. They also said, the FDA commissioner said, I believe in love.

We want to come to an agreement with the food industry. I’m not exactly sure what that means. But removing approvals for a couple of the food dyes and then phasing out approvals for a few others. That is not a ban. And a lot of the FDA staff have been cut. Who is gonna enforce this ban? I don’t know.

CHAKRABARTI: Ah, good point. Now regarding Dr. Makary saying that he believes in love, we have that clip here again, he’s the FDA commissioner. And he was asked to identify if there are any formal regulatory or policy changes in the work, so like actual rules that food companies would have to follow. And here’s where Dr. Makary responded that he believed the agency could work with food companies to accomplish a shared goal of phasing out those dyes.

MAKARY: I believe in love, and let’s start in a friendly way and see if we can do this. Without any statutory or regulatory changes, but we are exploring every tool in the toolbox to make sure this gets done very quickly.

CHAKRABARTI: Jennifer, to be clear, for six of these dyes, Green 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1 and Blue 2, the intention is to work with industry. And ideally, in the FDA’s mind, to eliminate them from the food supply by the end of next year. From your knowledge of how the American food industry works, how motivated do you think they would be to actually accomplish this?

ANDERSON: It’s hard to say. I don’t work for the food industry. But I will say this. When we look at the health of children, food dye is such a small part of the problem. There’s a quote of someone saying before they’re swimming in a toxic environment. Yeah, they are swimming in a toxic environment of food injustice and lack of vegetables and it being harder to access school lunches and people not caring about weight stigma and so many things.

So yeah, it’s toxic, but if the food industry says, okay, cool, we’re going to remove food dyes. That doesn’t have as big of an impact on them as some of the other regulations. That could help, say, remove food marketing to children, which would have a huge impact. Red food dye is a form of food marketing to children.

It makes them want to eat the food. You can make them want to eat the food with beet juice. And beet powder. So to me, the bigger issue goes way beyond these food dyes. And yeah, maybe the food industry wants to use food dyes because then they won’t have to care about food marketing to children.

CHAKRABARTI: Hang on here for a second, Jennifer.

With all due respect though, aren’t we making perfect the enemy of the good here? Why not applaud an attempt to, at least, take a step forward on the very multifaceted issue of poor nutrition for America’s kids?

ANDERSON: I totally understand that, and especially if you were to have children who has a sensitivity to food dye, you could absolutely say that, but what we have to remember is things are happening at the same time that this food, quote, ban is being discussed.

So farm to school vegetable programs have been cut, food assistance to families has been cut. Cuts to, funding cuts to SNAP are coming. The regulations on PFAS, which are forever chemicals in water. Those regulations are either stalled or they’re being cut back. Environmental protections which protect our soils from chemicals and heavy metals which get into our food.

Those are being cut back. These huge protections that have been protecting our health and improving the health of children, those are being cut back. At the same time that we are applauding food dyes being, quote, removed, which we don’t even know if that’s going to happen. If I had a refrigerator full of nutritious food and fruits and vegetables and all the things, and somebody took all those out and they filled it with cake.

And then they said to me, Hey, but you know what? It’s dye free cake.

CHAKRABARTI: But that’s not, forgive me, but that is not what’s happening. I understand the broader picture here. I get it about all the other things that’s cut. But it doesn’t mean that, like, all of a sudden, kids are only going to be able to eat the most unhealthy foods.

I don’t want to fall into this trap of being, of ignoring one potential step forward. With the context you just said. I’m not debating you on that. But are you saying that this doesn’t matter at all, is even like one positive step?

ANDERSON: I’m not saying it doesn’t matter at all.

Like I said, for some children, it’s gonna make a huge impact. But we’re also not thinking about food dyes in, say, medications, which are often essential for kids. So we’re specifically talking about foods and we’re specifically talking about processed foods. Is this having a big impact on some children?

Absolutely. Is it great to, say, keep it out of school food services? I actually think that’s great. I think that’s a great idea. But if we are caring about this at the expense of caring about all the other public health supports that are being weakened or eliminated, then we are being distracted and we are missing the point.

Yeah, sure. I’m excited that some food dyes are being removed, especially in school food systems, but a lot of attention is going to this and not a lot of attention is going to, say, the water system. And that is a huge problem.

CHAKRABARTI: But you said also that if, not if, that food companies add these dyes to make them more attractive to kids to eat. Now, maybe, okay, so maybe the dyes, we’ll talk about what the science is and isn’t regarding the toxicity of the dyes. But the intent of why they’re in there is to make kids eat more of these foods. Now you’re not saying that if they eat fewer Cheetos, Flamin ‘Hot Cheetos, that’s not going to make a difference in the lives of many children.

I argue that it would make a huge difference if kids ate less processed, highly processed foods, because they’re not as visually attractive.

ANDERSON: Yeah, I agree with you 100%. But we have to remember that there’s many ways to color foods and quote, “natural ways,” also make the foods highly attractive.

So if you give a child a chance to eat a naturally dyed Cheeto. Not a Cheeto, but a naturally dyed cheese, crunchy cheese thing. Are they going to turn it down because it is a slightly different color of yellow? They might, if they are given a choice of artificially flavored and colored Cheetos versus other ones, they might.

But what if their only option is naturally colored ones? They’re certainly going to choose that over corn, out of frozen corn that’s been cooked, or a fresh corn on the cob, they’re still going to want that. It’s still highly palatable, which means sugar, salt, fat have been added to that food to make it extra yummy. That’s hyper palatable. And it’s just gonna hit differently than a corn on the cob.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah, no I get it. Because once the colors get you to put it in your mouth, and once you do, those additives really trigger the brain for sure. To make you eat more.

But when we come back out, I do wanna talk with you about the state of the science around the potential toxicity of these dyes, because it does not escape my notice that. Some of them for decades now have been banned in cosmetics in the United States, but we continue to use them in food.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: We’re talking about the FDA’s announcement earlier this month of their intention to phase out eight synthetic food dyes used in, or eight synthetic dyes, I should say, used in thousands of food products in this country. First of all, as Jennifer and I discussed earlier, the intention is to phase it out, but there are currently no actual regulatory changes in the works.

They’re going to work with industry, they say, to eliminate six of those dyes. But Jennifer, I did want to point out that I think two of them, that the FDA is initiating a process to actually revoke authorization, which would be a true regulatory change for Citrus Red 2 and Orange B.

So at least for two out of the six, they are taking, what, at least at this point, seems to be concrete action. No?

ANDERSON: It does seem like that. At least that’s what they’re saying.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So you heard, you pointed out the word toxicity earlier that was used by Dr. Makary and then Secretary Kennedy as well.

He talked about not without our knowledge or consent, which I want to ask you about in a second here. But how would you describe what the state of the science is around the potential health effects of these dyes?

ANDERSON: In terms of short-term effects, there is a fair amount of research. It’s not an extensive amount of research, but I think there’s enough to show that, yes, the artificial dyes can affect some people, especially in the short term.

And of course, this is largely about children, right? So much of this research was used and it has been shown that if you eat enough of it. And for some dyes, especially like Yellow 5, there has been research that’s shown likely some kids are reaching that. It can create effects with behavior, attention, memory, learning, those sorts of things.

But that’s for some children. It’s not all children. It’s not 100% of children. It’s not even 50% of children. So we’re talking about a much smaller amount. I’m not gonna give you an exact quote because I don’t have it in front of me, but we think that, oh my gosh, all the kids are all having this major short-term effect.

They’re not. So your child may have an effect in the short term, but it’s more likely that they’re not. And we have to remember that really, it’s the dose that makes the poison. So if I have one thing with red dye today, am I gonna be okay? Good chance. Good chance I’m gonna be okay. Good chance my kids are gonna be okay.

How about if I eat every single thing in my diet today with an artificial dye in it, and my body is sensitive to that, am I gonna have an effect? Good chance. Good chance. I will. Now, a lot of times these, people say, oh my gosh, it’s gonna cause cancer, it’s gonna do all these things. They are basing that on extraordinarily small amount of research that was done in rats.

We don’t have research saying, Oh, if a person eats a lot of dye over the course of their life, they are all of a sudden gonna get cancer. We don’t know that at all. So they’re saying, oh, what’s happening in these rats here is for sure gonna happen. No, that’s not always true. We’re not rats.

And although that opens up the possibility that it may potentially contribute in some people to cancer. That doesn’t mean it causes it, and it doesn’t mean that everybody will get that. You know what I mean?

CHAKRABARTI: No, I don’t know what you mean. No, because I’m looking at a meta-analysis done in 2022.

It was published in the Journal of Environmental Health, their April 29th, 2022 edition. Lead author Mark Miller, et all. And they did a meta-analysis of 27 clinical trials. I’m reading from the abstract here, of children exposed to synthetic food dyes. That was 27 trials that they looked at in the review.

25 were challenge studies, and I’m just going to read it here, so people get the full quote.

All studies used crossover design and most were double blinded and randomized. 16 or 64% out of the challenge studies identified some evidence of a positive association regarding behavior change in children, and 13 or 52% of the studies showed that the association was statistically significant. These studies support a relationship between food dye exposure and adverse behavioral outcomes in children.

CHAKRABARTI: Then to your point, it says animal toxicology literature provides additional support for effects on behavior. Quote:

Together the human clinical trials and animal toxicology literature support an association between synthetic food dyes and behavioral impacts on children. The current FDA acceptable daily intakes are based on older studies that were not designed to assess the types of behavioral effects observed in children.

ANDERSON: Right, which is what I mentioned at the beginning, which is we do have enough research to show that it is going to affect all children. And if you really dig into those studies, you’re going to see. And I love that. I love that paper. I think that paper is so helpful and it’s really what got the food dye ban passed in California in school meals. I think that paper is so key, but what it shows is that not all kids are affected by food dyes. Some are.

CHAKRABARTI: But since when did we, since when did that become like an acceptable reason to not do something?

ANDERSON: I think it is.

CHAKRABARTI: I just sat on an airplane yesterday where one person somewhere had a mild peanut allergy and they stopped serving nuts on the whole airplane to protect that one person. And we were all okay with that. Why is it that, oh, if we don’t know that 100% of kids will have behavioral impacts from food dyes, but some will, we’re like, maybe we should just leave dyes in foods.

I don’t get it.

ANDERSON: No, I agree with you, and I think that’s why it’s great that California banned them in school lunches. And why the idea of banning them in school lunches, potentially even nationwide. I think that’s a great idea for all the reasons you just listed and for the fact that it especially affects behavior and learning, which are so key in the school setting.

I think that’s huge. The bigger issue and really the pushback is the extreme language around it that is causing a large fear-based emotional reaction around this and a distraction from other things that are happening. It doesn’t mean we don’t have to care about food dyes. I think especially for some children, this is huge.

This is huge. This is equivalent of an allergy to them. But if that’s all we care about and all we’re focusing on, we’re missing the bigger picture.

CHAKRABARTI: But I don’t think anyone says this is all that we care about. Again, I’m engaging in, hopefully you find respectful debate here.

ANDERSON: Yeah.

CHAKRABARTI: But when I hear you say these things, you know what it reminds me of what? Don’t get mad. Oh, get mad. That’s all right.

ANDERSON: Yeah, sure.

CHAKRABARTI: It reminds me of the endless Benghazi hearings that the Republicans held. They ignored everything else that the Obama administration was doing on foreign policy.

And they were like Benghazi; we’re just focused on Benghazi. It feels like that’s what you’re saying right now, it’s like we’re overly focused on one thing, but that’s not what’s happening. Like here you are talking about all the other issues and every other parent out there, or even non-parent who just wants to eat healthier food, also knows that there’s issues with sugar ultra processed food, like you said, just overall availability of healthy food.

No one’s seeing this as one thing or the other. I don’t think it’s a distraction.

ANDERSON: Yeah. And it could be that you’re right. Also, when you say get onto social media, what’s getting all the attention? The food dyes. What is really pumping parents up right now? It’s the food dyes.

What is everybody getting, saying? Oh, I’m loving this administration. It’s the food dyes. But if they knew that maybe their school was going to lose funding for free school lunches, maybe they’d have a different opinion and maybe they don’t know that’s coming. If they knew that their school was getting fresh produce from a local farm, and all of a sudden that is gone, do they know that happened?

And if so, would they be so excited about the food dyes or would they be saying, Hey, wait, why did you take that away from us? That was supporting my local farmer, and it was supporting the school and it was supporting my child. That was really great. Why did you take that away? So again, is this gonna be great for some kids if it actually happens? Sure. It’s going to be really great. But are parents aware that many of the supports are being weakened or removed? And is this a distraction from that?

CHAKRABARTI: I don’t think it’s meant. First of all, I’m glad that you’re bringing up these other things, right? Because we want to have the whole context.

But I also want to do, I hope for an America in which once hearing about all these other issues that you’re bringing up and the potential, the cuts that you’re talking about, that we as Americans can hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. Which is yes, we may, a lot of us maybe support the removal of food dyes.

And that same individual rejects the other decision to reduce the availability of fresh produce for schools. We can have two thoughts at the same time.

ANDERSON: I absolutely agree.

CHAKRABARTI: I think the most important point regarding the dyes though, and I do wanna underscore this, is that it’s not actually a ban. The even for people who say, yes, we do not want these synthetic, petroleum-based dyes, many of which have been outright banned in Europe.

We’ll talk about why in just a second. That the federal government, the Trump administration can’t even go so far as to take this win and just make the regulation. It’s not even that. And I do want to ask you about, with your experience as a dietician, how often do you think that’s the approach that government takes, because of the power of the food industry?

ANDERSON: The food industry is very powerful. The hyper palatable food industry is very powerful, and a lot of politicians are getting their funding from the food industry. And these food dyes, whether they’re natural or artificial, really make kids want these foods, and they make them beg their parents for them.

It’s called pester power. It’s an actual research term, and that makes a lot of money for that food industry.

CHAKRABARTI: Oh yeah, it definitely does. I was subject to pester power all of last week when I was on vacation with my kiddos. Let me tell you, there were more bags of Doritos and Gatorade consumed than I would care to admit.

But Jennifer, hang on here for a second because we, I do wanna spend a moment talking more about the food industry as a whole. Because in my estimation other than keeping itself in good stead with the Trump administration, which is not insignificant, I don’t actually see much motivation for them to change the formulation of their foods. Because the use of these synthetic food dyes has always been voluntary.

Anyway, so to that effect, we spoke with Melissa Hockstad, she’s the CEO of the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group that represents consumer packaged goods producers.

MELISSA HOCKSTAD: These ingredients are safe. That for us is first and foremost most important to really acknowledge. Again, these ingredients meet very rigorous safety standards set by federal and state regulators and legislators.

CHAKRABARTI: Hockstad, says, the proposed quote, phasing out of certain dyes in foods is not straightforward. And for the industry it would pose some logistical challenges.

HOCKSTAD: When you’re looking at potential, what I would call recipe changes, you need to think about availability of source materials, how they are then processed, supply chain considerations, because they can vary for different types of ingredients, quality control, and other elements of the process.

And the reality is all of this does take time to get it from an idea that you might have on a piece of paper to actually putting it into use for consumer products.

CHAKRABARTI: Hockstad and the Consumer Brands Association assert that they will work with the FDA to ensure that they play a role in any policy change. If it so is proposed, that may become more formalized.

HOCKSTAD: What’s really important as an industry is making sure, as you noted, that we are able to have a seat at the table, work with them on this path forward.

CHAKRABARTI: In other words, industry helping to shape regulation. Now, Hockstad says the desire to be involved in policy comes from their mission to serve consumers, and she asserts the organization has long maintained a desire to address and serve consumer needs.

HOCKSTAD: We’re always keeping in mind that preferences could change, tastes can change, needs can change, even budgets can change, which is why we’re constantly innovating. And if you look at the grocery shelves now, you can find products with and without certain ingredients.

And that’s because we are listening to what consumers are looking for, not only right now, but where they might want to head in the future.

CHAKRABARTI: So that’s Melissa Hockstad. She’s with the Consumer Brands Association. And by the way she also told us that the group actually welcomes some coherent FDA policy. If such a thing is possible, for current and future regulation, because according to the Consumer Brands Association, there right now are 137 product policy bills under consideration in 38 different states.

That’s a patchwork attempt to regulate foods across the country, which she says for the industry is very challenging, and can reduce access to products in specific locations and increased costs as well.

CHAKRABARTI: So to that point, Jennifer, I just want to tell listeners that in a couple of minutes you had mentioned California, and we will talk about California in detail because it’s such a huge and important state.

But I did want to just get some thoughts from you on places internationally, specifically Europe, where a lot of these dyes have been banned from use in food for quite some time. I hear your point earlier, regarding that the science can be, the current science can be interpreted in many different ways, and yet it led to a ban in Europe.

Was that due to scientific consensus or was it due to actually what Melissa Hockstad was pointing out there? And that is consumer pressure.

ANDERSON: Based on my understanding, dyes in Europe, say Red 40, it’s actually legal in Europe and it’s a pretty widespread myth that the dyes are banned because the names are different.

So, the Red 40, the Yellow 5, these have completely different names in Canada and Europe.

CHAKRABARTI: I see.

ANDERSON: But they do have different preferences. So you’re going to find, or like in the UK they have little warnings that say, if it’s got Red 40 or whatever it says, this may cause hyperactivity in children.

That may cause parents to say, Oh, maybe I don’t want that one. Maybe I want the one without the artificial dyes. In which case, like Melissa said, Hey, we’re going to make what people want. And in the United States, we want brightly colored food. If one company, I’m a business owner myself, and if one person is doing one thing and somebody wants that, great.

I’m going to do that, too. But also, if I’m a food company and we try no artificial dyes. And American children really like brightly colored foods. They’re going to go buy the stuff from the other companies. So of course, it will only make sense to actually remove food dyes if everybody does it, because again, going back to our earlier conversation, if a child sees a hyper palatable food and it’s artificially colored red versus naturally colored red, they’re probably gonna choose the artificially colored red one.

At least I would, I probably would do that now.

CHAKRABARTI: (LAUGHS)

ANDERSON: But if my only options and my kids’ only options are naturally colored food, then that’s what we’re gonna go with and no company is gonna have a problem. Compared to everybody else.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: By this point, you’re probably wondering why we even add petroleum-based synthetic dyes to food at all. I was. Because who came up with the idea of using chemical extracts from long dead dinosaurs to jazz up processed foods? It turns out that person actually has a name. William Henry Perkin. And he was just 18 years old when the British chemistry student stumbled upon something in his home laboratory in 1858.

JOE SCHWARCZ: It was an accidental discovery. He was actually looking for a synthesis of quinine, which is very much needed in those days to treat malaria. But he was unsuccessful. And one day when frustrated by his research, he threw all of his chemicals into the sink. The sink turned into a brilliant mauve of color because he had previously also spilled some alcohol in there.

And it turned out that, some of the compounds that he had accidentally synthesized in his futile quest to make move mixed with alcohol and gave this brilliant color. It became very popular because no one had ever seen a color like this before.

CHAKRABARTI: So that is Professor Joe Schwarcz.

He’s the director of McGill University’s Offense Office for Science and Society. And Schwarcz says that other chemists quickly realized that if Perkin was able to produce the rich mauve color, for which he had now become known, other colors could be generated through similar synthetic processes.

And those processes involve the byproducts of other industries.

SCHWARCZ: Coal tar is the gooey stuff that is left behind after you burn coal. And of course, back in the 1800s. This is in the Industrial Revolution era, there was a lot of coal that was being burned. So of course, there was all kinds of effort to see what that coal tar could be used for.

So when it turned out that it could give rise to compounds like aniline that could be extracted and convert into dyes, this became very popular.

CHAKRABARTI: Aniline dyes came in a powdered form that could then be dissolved in water or petroleum solvents, and this discovery gave rise to the broader use of synthetic dyes.

These dyes came under the purview of the federal government in the 1880s. The Pure Food and Drug Act was implemented in 1906 and prohibited the use of poisonous colors in foods to conceal damage or poor food quality. Then by 1927, enforcement fell to the precursor of the FDA or the Food and Drug Insecticide Administration.

The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act of 1938 gave rise to the labeling of harmless and suitable synthetic dyes. And then came the Food Additives Amendment of 1958, which included the Delaney Clause. And that prohibits the use of any additive found that can be cancerous when ingested by humans or animals.

And these, of course, are all changes within the United States. Now, Professor Schwarcz says, soon after the Delaney clause was implemented, the modern push against synthetic food dyes began.

SCHWARCZ: Current concern really traces back to the 1970s when Dr. Benjamin Feingold the pediatric allergist in California has suggested that some of these food dyes, along with some food preservatives caused hyperactivity in children, which today we would call it the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD. And this started what came to be known as the Feingold diet which eliminated food dyes and some mothers claim that the children behaved better.

Again, the evidence was very circumstantial. There were no proper randomized trials.

CHAKRABARTI: Now, Schwarcz himself says that he stands by some of the science that indicates synthetic food dyes are safe to eat. And by the way, he also points out that using dyes to change the color of the food we eat, that human habit is pretty much as old as modern civilization.

For example, the ancient Greeks used to dye their foods with lead-based compounds that were very toxic. Not that the ancient Greeks actually knew anything about that. Now Jennifer Anderson, let me turn back to you and ask you. So again, sticking with dyes for a second.

We will broaden this out more in a moment, but you talked about how pester power works, and I wonder if you had any thoughts about the broader implications of shaping food habits when people are really young, that these are habits that we take into adulthood and that perhaps, there is a place here for changing those habits.

ANDERSON: Yeah, we know that early food habits early in life are highly influential, and if these dyes are actually increasing, the consumption of hyper palatable foods, that has a lifelong impact. We know, especially when kids are exposed to hyper palatable foods, when they are in these developmental periods, when they’re zero to five, when they’re in adolescence.

These actually permanently change brain pathways and we’re talking about hyper palatable food. We’re talking about food dyes, but food dyes and hyper palatable food go together. We’re not artificially dying rice, for the most part. We are not artificially dying the inside of our apples.

We maybe are artificially dying the outside of our oranges, but I’ve yet to meet a kid who really loves to eat orange peels, so hyper palatable foods and the food dyes are really going together. And if there is a color that makes kids really want to drink something more, and so they’re exposed to it more, then that is going to have a lifelong impact on them, on their food preferences.

CHAKRABARTI: I wanted to, I promised listeners that I would add a little bit more detail to what you were talking about regarding Europe and you were, you’re exactly right. Things like Red 40, Yellow 6 and Yellow 5 aren’t actually strictly banned in the European Union. But the EU requires that those products, that products containing these dyes have a very big warning on the packaging that in Europe they say could affect the attention of children.

But what I actually even found more interesting than that is that there are several commonly used food additives, not necessarily dyes, but food additives here in the United States, that are banned in Europe, like titanium oxide, which you can find in Skittles, Starburst, baked goods, soups, broth, things like that.

Potassium bromate, that’s an additive used in white flour. So baked goods used thereafter. Azodicarbonamide or the additive E927a, that’s another whitening agent. That’s just a few. So I just, I did want to actually get your sense, Jennifer, overall stepping away from food dyes specifically.

Do you think that the regulatory approach on what is put into highly palatable or highly processed foods in this country, in the United States, is as robust as it could or should be in comparison to other places?

ANDERSON: So we have a different regulatory process. In the United States, we really have to prove that it’s dangerous, otherwise, it’s often, generally, recognized as safe. And this designation GRAS, generally recognized as safe. We have a lot of chemicals on that list that are generally recognized as safe, but in Europe they have a different system there.

You have to prove it’s safe. You can, you could be the judge. Which do you prefer? If it was just up to me, I would prefer that something be proved to be safe before it becomes safe and approved. But that’s really my preference. It makes it more difficult for the industry to make food.

However, so in the United States, we prioritize industry success and that’s our global value, right?

As a whole society, although if you talk to individuals like myself, you might find that we actually would prefer to have health prioritized and that we would prefer to have something be proved to be safe before we have it in our foods.

But that is sometimes going to prohibit things that we allow here. We allow monk fruit extract, and that is not necessarily proven to be safe in other places. Doesn’t mean that it’s dangerous. It just means that hasn’t met the regulation. That is true in, according to another standard.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah, no. So there is give and take here, and I think you described it really well. Monk fruit I hadn’t known about in terms of not allowed in other places. But the presumption in the United States is, I don’t think most people think, oh, it’s generally accepted versus proved, right?

I think when we go to the grocery store, all of us think this stuff has all been proved to be fine for us. So I appreciate that clarification there. But Jennifer, earlier you had mentioned California. Okay, so let’s put the federal government aside. The state of California has actually done something very concrete, because recently, actually last year, it became the first state to ban certain food dyes in school lunches.

And we have a little news report here from Action News Now who talked about the ban last year.

NEWS BRIEF: Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law the California Food, School Food Safety Act. It will make California the first state in the nation to prohibit public schools from serving foods containing six synthetic food dyes.

That’s Red 40. Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2 and Green 3 that have been linked to developmental and behavioral issues in children. This prohibition in the bill will go into effect on December 31st, 2027. 

CHAKRABARTI: So California the most populous state in the union. Huge school districts, many millions of kids.

Jennifer, you said that you thought this particular piece of legislation and now state law was a good idea. Can you tell me more about why.

ANDERSON: I do. I really love it. I think that especially in the school environment where kids are learning, that taking out those food dyes, especially for that portion of children who are affected, that’s going to be really great for them.

And then outside of the school food setting, parents can do what they want, I think sometimes we get really focused on just the food diet and the consumption. But outside of school, we really want to be focused on getting kids eating foods that actually aren’t dyed.

Kids need to be eating those foods that aren’t dyed, because sometimes those dyed foods are, they’re displacing the nutrients that kids need.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah, they’re in food.

ANDERSON: And I’m a big believer in there’s no such thing as a bad food, but if we start displacing nutrients and other foods that kids need, then they do become problematic. So to have a school setting where we’re not gonna be introducing dyes, that are going to cause learning issues in some children, and then outside of school, we can be, parents can be focused on exposing kids to those foods that don’t have food dyes.

I think that is a great setup and I love what California did because it was really a collective. It wasn’t just one group of people who were like, this is our issue, a bunch of different groups of people who came together, who worked together, they did the research. They used that paper, the 2022 paper.

By Miller, to pull together that research and really say, Hey, look, some kids are getting exposed to too much food dye. And it is having an impact on them, and we want to do something to decrease children’s exposure. And hopefully by decreasing their exposure in this school setting, it will decrease it enough that kids are, even if they’re exposed to it outside of school, they’re not going to be getting that dose that’s going to be as problematic for their brains.

CHAKRABARTI: So this actually brings me back to something that the industry rep that we heard from earlier said. That, of course, from the point of view of these mega like multinational food companies, having a patchwork of at least 38 if not 50 different sets of regulation is hard on them. Boohoo.

But do you actually think that’s potentially a way to go, that if different states, say, followed California, that perhaps would be more effective than the intention to work with the food industry that the FDA has announced?

Yeah, absolutely. At some point it may make sense for food companies to say, Hey, we’re just all going to do this. We’re just all going to get rid of the artificial dyes. This is what the American parents want. They want their kids’ food to not have food dyes. Any company is really going to go where their consumers want it to go.

And so if enough parents say, yeah, we really love this. And enough school systems say, yeah, we actually think this is going to be great for learning and it’s going to really help, especially a certain group of people, that’s great. That’s why so many schools have a peanut free environment.

This is going to have an impact on a certain group of children too. And if enough schools districts say that, then the industry says, okay, hey, it actually makes more sense for us to do this. And in the United States, often it makes sense to make those changes based on economic realities instead of public health realities. Obviously as a public health professional, I would prefer that public health be the first priority, but that’s just not how it works here.

CHAKRABARTI: But would you say that overall, we just got about 30 seconds left, Jennifer, that as imperfect as I hear you seeing the FDA’s announcement is. And again, I don’t want to forget the other context that you brought regarding changes that could have an impact on American health, that the federal government is undertaking.

But do you think that there’s actually been progressively year after year more awareness about all of these synthetic products that are actually in foods that we eat?

Yeah, I think there is more awareness, and I think we just have to be responsible with that awareness and remember the bigger context and the things that matter and that are going to affect the health of all people in our country and not get distracted by something that is perhaps being used to gain our political will and energy at the expense of overall health.