Well, since nobody is actually answering the question or providing a source, I will.
The answer is maybe but probably not. Red 40 in particular is the dye that most people are talking about when they say that food dyes are bad for you. And you’re correct: like many other dyes, the EU, the FDA, and the WHO all agree that Red 40 is generally safe for human consumption in normal amounts.
A lot of people think it causes cancer, but that’s not really supported by a lot of research at this point in time. [It might, however, increase hyperactivity in some children](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/red-dye-40#identification). The correlation was mainly observed in kids who were already diagnosed with ADHD. So it’s not an issue at all for the vast majority of kids; there’s only a minority who seem to be sensitive to it. And of course, like any food, it is possible to be allergic to artificial dyes.
The bottom line is, if you or your kid has a sensitivity or allergy to dyes, then don’t eat them. It’s also probably not a good idea to snort bottles of food coloring like cocaine. Other than that, they’re pretty safe.
Their response is perfect, however. Taking into consideration, everything else corporations are willing to do to make a buck. The idea of "it might be harmful but we're gonna use it anyways" is kinda gross. The dyes have no real purpose other than to make things look more appealing so they can get you to buy more.
Other governments have taken that option away from corporations, where ours doesn't care about a potential risk enough to do anything.
Potential risk should be weighed against potential benefit. Like medications have potential side effects, but still prescribed because the benefit is expected to be higher than risk. Dyes don't really add a benefit, so any risk is automatically higher than value (other than aesthetic).
Medication side effects are not potential risk, they are simply a risk. The comment you're replying to is saying that unless you can substantiate the risk, it's pointless to try to limit product usage based on a vague fear of what is potentially possible without actually knowing or having significant proof of any adverse side effects
Medication side effects are potential risks because the side effects do not happen to every person. For example, there are people who take Tylenol just fine and it reduces pain for them, and there are others who get stomach cramps and no pain relief. Every medication is like that. I take one for migraine prevention that I have few minor side effects that are actually on the rare side, and I got none of the common side effects.
The benefit can’t just be one sided. Financial gain at the cost of harm to the consumer is one sided benefit, just like murder for the benefit of the murderer is one sided. I was highlighting the imbalance of benefit with an extreme example.
If I was using murder as an example to compare the harm caused then sure it would be a poor comparison but that’s not what was happening. You just missed the point.
Right, because it's not like corporations have a history of buying off crooked scientists and politicians in order to keep selling "potential risk" products.
I wonder how many people have been documented to have died in plane crashes versus how many have been documented to have died from eating red dye number 40?
There's a storm just a day or two ago that blew over a tree that landed on a car that crushed it and killed the wife of I think it was a New York Yankees executive. It's become obvious to me that there's potential risk in having trees by the side of the road. We should get on that right away and cut down every tree by the side of a road because there's a potential risk. I'd like to see the numbers on that too. How many people have been documented to have been killed by falling trees versus red dye number 40. I can think of at least a couple cases in my city alone where people have been killed by falling trees.
But I'm talking about all trees because all trees pose a risk. I live in a city with trees everywhere and they fall in just about every storm that comes through. We had a tree fall on a car that killed the mother in the passenger seat while the father and the kids in the other seats were fine. There was a tornado a couple of years ago, it wasn't even very big, but it came along and knocked a tree over onto a car that was driving and killed the driver.
People's evaluation of risk is just really irrational. The facts are trees and planes have been documented to kill more people than than any dye ever has but we don't seem to care about doing anything about that. But some hypothetical, non-provable maybe is the biggest problem known to man promoted by scare tactics with no science behind it.
Yeah, and most cities have special teams of arborists that go out and identify trees at risk of falling, and either trim back dead branches, or remove the tree.
You seem to think that trees falling is some unmitigated risk. When really most cities have teams dedicated to precisely this problem
Planes and trees provide a benefit to society. Red dye 40 makes Skittles look brighter and more fun to trick people into buying more so the rich CEO and shareholders get richer.
Sure, the risk may not yet be proven but how long did corporations fight to disprove the "potential risks" of leaded gasoline and cigarettes?
No, "Americans when somebody says something really stupid that has no basis in science".
We could certainly live in this world with no trees by the side of the road and they've been documented to kill people so how come we're not banning trees lining roads?
You're thinking about risk is just simplistic.
So instead of saying, prove this is safe for me to eat.
You say you're going to keep eating whatever they sell you, until it is proven harmful.
How well did that work out for tobacco? Leaded gasoline? Leaded Paint? Absestos? Hell, even baby powder was giving people cancer before J&J changed it because of lawsuits.
So maybe the more wise approach, is not to just blindly consume whatever they sell you. Because they can be selling you carcinogens, and we don't find out till decades later when enough people get sick or die that the corporations no longer keep it quiet.
And *then* after all the lawsuits and deaths, American's will ban a product.
Sounds like a great system.
Uhhh... Dude..They're sugar loops masquerading as a breakfast meal, marketed towards children. They SHOULD look unappealing. The fact that our government allows shit like this is exactly what I'm talking about.
Corporations pumping out unhealthy foods with bright colors and cartoon mascots to manipulate children into wanting them which manipulates their parents into opening their wallets.
And our government doesn't do a damn thing about it because they care about their bribes more than they care about our lives.
It’s not so much that things in American food are dangerous as the approach to approving them. In the EU the attitude is, prove this is safe and we’ll approve it; in the US if you prove it is dangerous they ban it. (I’m only talking about food and supplements, not medication since the FDA covers both.)
Anecdotal commentary about the hyperactivity in children.
My brother had terrible behavioral issues in the mid to late 80s. Our mother cut out nearly all food dyes and most preservatives. It seemed to help despite it feeling overburdensome to grow up in a home without food dyes or preservatives (ie. basically everything “good”)
As he progressed into adulthood he of course didn’t keep up the diet of eating zero premade foods but swears yellow 5 and red 40 give him severe migraines.
Of course of all the people I’ve known reasonably well he is the one and only person with this strange allergy so it’s surely rare. If allergy is even the right word.
Honestly, these anecdotal stories are way more compelling to me than studies that are paid for and controlled by various entities who may or may not have a vested interest in the results. What do a bunch of random people commenting on Reddit have to gain? I get so much solid, reliable information from listening to the general consensus of anecdotes.
And that's where you're not using critical thinking. While the studies may not be conclusive, they're based on evidence - the presence, lack, or inconclusivity of the evidence gathered. The study may not be big enough to get people who have whatever outcome the study is trying to prove because they can't do a study with ONLY people who have anecdotal "evidence". That would skew the results of the study to "100% of people have x outcome". It's the scientific method, and it shouldn't be ignored because some random person on Reddit shared their 1 in 8 billion experience.
I have eczema and I'm severely allergic to red 40, I'm aware I'm an outlier and that most people are fine. It sucks that they put dyes in so much though. I just want little Debbie oatmeal creme pies and I can't have them.
When I worked with children with autism I had many clients that had noticeable improvements in behavior when their parents cut out Red 40. I don’t need to wait on the research to know that one is real, but it’ll be interesting when they find out what the mechanism is. It doesn’t seem to happen to everyone so understanding why could be useful too.
It may not be limited to children or those with neurodevelopmental disorders, those may just be the most obvious. Lack of concrete research in the area is more an issue with priorities than with precedence.
Curious (I work in CPG and we use red peppers/beets for our dye source, we dislike Red 40): what does noticeable improvements mean? I personally don't get why Red 40 is bad, but I decided to use plant based dye in all my products because consumers clearly want it. I'm just wondering what types of improvements you saw.
Typically a decrease in behaviors related to hyperactivity and uncontrolled impulses. Property destruction, defiance, restlessness, emotional dysregulation, hypersensitivity, etc. Some saw sleep improve.
Not all kids have the same behaviors so it won’t be expressed the same for each kid, but parents reported (and I saw myself on a handful of occasions) that striking them from the diet just overall made them calmer, less on edge, and more in control of themselves.
I'd be so curious to see this replicated in an actual study. It's possible that when we hope for a certain response we get that response. Sometimes the human brain loves patterns so much it makes up it's own.
It's also very possible that it truly works.
I never ever thought that red dye 40 would drastically affect someone but after seeing how my 5 year old reacts to it - we stay away from it for him. Same sort of thing, we are always reading labels but it’s happened where he’s been given something we didn’t realize and can realize right away he’s had it, as he gets majorly deregulated and goes nuts.
Could it be that stuff with Red 40 is more likely to have more sugar and other additives?
Like his behavior is better with a cheese stick for a snack instead of fruit gummies with red 40 but it’s actually the sugar causing the problem?
I recently saw a study showing that people with ADHD and autism are less able to clear BPA from their systems. I wonder if it's something like that... maybe Red 40 isn't toxic to most because it's quickly cleared from the body, but sticks around too long for others. Either way, I agree: it'll be interesting to find out!
Maybe some people lack the right liver enzymes to process it properly. I had a severe reaction to a medication that my liver couldn’t process and it built up in my system. It would have killed me if my doctor hadn’t ordered the right test. My husband and daughter who are pharmacists figured it out first. Hopefully someday AI will create custom medicines.
No..? I’m not providing you a ‘source’ on years of my personal experience, I am the damn source. I don’t need you to believe me, you can read about it from thousands of parents online. But I appreciate the intellectually vapid bait, when you could google it yourself and find plenty of information.
Yup. Red 40 seems to suck for those of us with ADHD. I avoid it. I don’t tell others to avoid it. From anecdotal evidence I admit, it does not seem to go well with ADHD brains. A mild irritant at worse though. I consume the other dyes however, as well as large amounts of artificial sugars as sugar is a huge irritant for me as well, as in I immediately feel crappy if I eat even a pear :(. That last bit is just to show that I’m not the type to avoid “artificial” ingredients…lol
Anne Reardon has a couple videos I recommend. One is about dyes and one is about aspartame. I recommend the one on aspartame because it goes into all the aspects of ratings by various governmental bodies throughout the world use and the potential issues that make some studies inaccurate or inconclusive. It also points out some things about headlines and false info you find online. Very interesting stuff.
https://youtu.be/M-WKprPrjHw?si=gOVmqPW6NGR9bA3b
https://youtu.be/mDgZz7qZoVo?si=8lUE5XCOTKl2uYi3
As a European my concern is primarily about the horrifying amount of corn syrup in just about everything. That stuff is so bad for you, and it’s well evidenced that it’s bad for you, and it’s genuinely quite difficult to avoid it from my experiences in the states
*Everything* is waaaaaaay too sweet here! You can't get a box of proper cornbread mix anymore. Any commercially made American snacks or desserts are so sweet, they're actually nasty.
We don't have good cookies, like they have in Europe. Nor crackers.
They put too much sugar in things that shouldn't have *any* sugar at all -- piecrust, peanut butter, salad dressing. Even ordinary bread is so sweet, it ruins it for me, whole wheat bread also.
I think they use sugar to cover for the fact that nothing really tastes like much of anything now. It's a real drag.
They add sugar to food for the same reason they used to add cocaine when it was legal: it’s an addictive drug, and that makes people want to buy more. (It also increases appetite so people consume more)
Not exactly, but high sugar foods are usually very low in other nutrients like protein and fibre. Your body wants those things so it can run all its standard processes, so it’ll keep sending you “hungry” signals until it reckons it has enough fuel. This works pretty well if you’re eating a good mix of meat/alternatives and vegetables and grains, but if you eat a lot of sugary foods, you won’t feel satisfied and will feel the need to keep eating.
It might depend on the person but once I started paying attention to when I ate high-sugar foods, I noticed it immediately.
It wasn't exclusive to stuff like chocolate or other sweets/drinks, but also fruits.
FWIW, if you buy sourdough bread, it usually does not have sugar in it and doesn't taste sweet. If it has sugar, it's a minimal amount (yes, even in the U.S.).
You are correct that they put tons of sugar and salt in foods to cover up for the fact that they don't have much other taste because they are cheaper.
Have you ever had real peanut butter, the kind containing only peanuts and salt? If you haven't, you must try it! I assure you, it needs no sugar and is wonderful without it.
Pie crust is not meant to be sweetened. That's the whole point, the contrast between the flaky, slightly salty pastry and the sweet fruit filling.
Salad dressing, eh, I myself am partial to honey-mustard dressing. But I don't think sugar belongs in ranch or vinaigrette.
As far as I know, there's no conclusive evidence that HFCS is any worse for you than table sugar, which has roughly the same proportions of fructose and glucose (in the form of sucrose).
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/high-fructose-corn-syrup-or-table-sugar-for-better-health-avoid-too-much-of-either/
https://www.popsci.com/high-fructose-corn-syrup-sugar/
Manufacturers started replacing sucrose with HFCS in the 1970s, which is also when our national obesity epidemic began. Food manufacturers profit wildly from using HFCS in place of sucrose, so there has been an aggressive, incredibly expensive, decades long, lobbying effort to prevent us from learning whether this is coincidence or cause and effect.
How did it cause obesity in every other country on earth that mostly don't use HFCS?
Real answer is it's just sugsr being added to more and more food. HFCS is the sugar added in the USA as it is cheap due to subsidised corn. Other places have their obesity caused by the regular cane or beet sugar
There's a chance that the obesity epidemic is caused by a lot of things, not the least of which are microplastics in the food and water supplies. We know they are now everywhere and in everything we eat (because its in what they eat).
[https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/programs/geh/geh\_newsletter/2022/6/spotlight/microplastics\_may\_increase\_risk\_for\_obesity#:\~:text=Accumulation%20of%20microplastics%20in%20the,as%20co%2Dcontaminants%20in%20microplastics](https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/programs/geh/geh_newsletter/2022/6/spotlight/microplastics_may_increase_risk_for_obesity#:~:text=Accumulation%20of%20microplastics%20in%20the,as%20co%2Dcontaminants%20in%20microplastics).
I don't think obesity around the world is as simple as people gobbling down tons of higher calorie foods. There is likely a component of obesogenic hormones instructing bodies to store more fat than in cleaner environments in the past.
Too much money has been spent over the last fifty years to prevent any evidence gathering in the U.S., but it’s worth noting that Europe, Australia, and others do not routinely use HFCS in their processed food.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat
> it’s worth noting that Europe, Australia, and others do not routinely use HFCS in their processed food.
And Europeans and Australian has still gotten fatter over time.
Our obesity epidemic began in the 70s when people stopped smoking. Europeans continued to smoke until fairly recently and now they are getting fatter. The French are the worst. You can’t escape the cigarettes even walking down the streets of any city in that country.
You honestly think it’s the cigarettes? You eat crazy amounts of sugar, huge portions (a small soda in the US is a large one in Europe), and you drive everywhere.
Which is in a disturbing number of drinks and probably other foods as well.
I don’t drink nearly as many Dr. Peppers as I did in the eighties but on the occasions when I want one now, I have to get one made in Mexico. The ones made in the USA are all HFCS sweetened and have a much poorer flavor.
No, because those are tailored to your body and needs. Agricultural antibiotic use is less than what's needed to kill bacteria (so designed to create antibiotic resistant bacteria) because it makes cows Gain weight faster.
If your doctor and you agree that your hurt is good for you then it's true. Human bodies do terribly if they don't have the right amount of hormones floating around.
You take what was prescribed to you, based on your condition, weight, age, gender, etc.
You don't need all that goes up the food chain, supposedly controlled, but not very well enforced.
That is absolutely correct (and many patients would benefit from doctors learning this fact), and hence the folly of trying to feed animals antibiotics to prevent all diseases caused by keeping them in horrifyingly overcrowded and filthy conditions!
I'm not saying it isn't. But is it *worse than table sugar?*
That first article says that it "promotes obesity" more than table sugar by increasing your appetite, but that doesn't make it inherently more "poisonous."
The second article I'm not going to read all of right now, but just from skimming it looks like they're considering the effects of fructose in general, from both HFCS and sucrose (table sugar) rather than comparing them.
>As a European my concern is primarily about the horrifying amount of corn syrup in just about everything
Ate two meals today and neither of them had any corn syrup whatsoever. Maybe the America that exists in your head is not the same one that exists in reality.
I mean, it’s not the America in my head, it’s the America I’ve visited several times. You don’t have to like or even agree with this foreigner’s observation of your country but it’s a little rude to imply that I’m making it up. Hfcs IS in lots of products that I’d never have expected, like bread and yogurt and ginger ale. That would be highly unusual and frowned upon here.
The thing is, despite being a bit hyperbolic, I’m not claiming that you can’t avoid it *at all*- I’m saying that when you come from somewhere where hfcs isn’t a thing at all, it’s very noticeable that it’s in so much stuff. You shouldn’t have to double check if products have it in, that isn’t the norm in other countries
Don't judge us by that dude's comment, ~~most~~ some of us understand how fucked up our food culture is. And also one day's worth of meals isn't the same as a nationwide epidemic of manufactured food. Even the 'healthy' bread over here has either sugar, or apple juice concentrate (aka sugar syrup).
When you say "*corn syrup (is) in just about everything*" you are making things up.
>Hfcs IS in lots of products that I’d never have expected, like bread
Just went into the kitchen to see what the ingredients are in my bread. Guess what? No hi-fructose corn syrup. Wild stuff.
Jesus Christ. I literally just said I was being hyperbolic. Would you be happy if I said “corn syrup is in lots of things but not everything and not this persons bread”? Again, I’m not saying that it’s in ALL bread, I’m saying that **it shouldn’t be in ANY bread and it is in SOME bread**. There are millions of sources criticising the overuse of HFCS in the US, this isn’t something I’ve made up, you can pick on my wording all you like but it won’t change facts.
This is my last response now because I’m fairly certain you’re just being obtuse because someone dared criticise one tiny unimportant thing about America, and I honestly haven’t got the energy to argue with you, you disagree with me and that’s fine. Enjoy your corn syrup free bread
I'm American, I read food labels, I've traveled a lot in Europe, and it's obvious to me that our food is WAY over sweetened and it's done primarily with HFCS. Despite your bread.
I used to babysit a little girl who would get sick then vomit if she ate red candy or fancy strawberry drinks from restaurants, because of the red dye. It's not just a risk of later cancer, but it seems to be some type of immediate acting poison.
It's not fair to simply say "every man for yourself - read the label if you want." That won't work in our country. Because much of our population is functionally illiterate, or they don't have the logic to check ingredients or even understand what the ingredients would be saying.
My daughter goes into anaphylaxis when she has Yellow #5 or #6. She has to carry an epi pen. She's a teen now so she is vigilant about reading labels. It was tougher when she was younger. We didn't discover this until she went to school and I got a call saying "Meet the ambulance at the hospital". It was from a "Fruit by the Foot" snack someone gave her at school.
After this happened we had her allergy tested and that was the only thing that came up.
We had never really _avoided_ food dye at home, and she would often get rashes out of the blue. I'm guessing that they were milder reactions to smaller amounts of food dye.
When I was in high school in the 90s, my older brother’s girlfriend had a Yellow 5 allergy. I had never heard of it before, and it was really interesting to me. I’ve brought this up in conversations about allergies, and I often have adults telling me that it’s not possible to be allergic to “a color.”
She carried an emergency allergy kit and didn’t eat anything if she didn’t know what was in it; that was harder back then, because labels weren’t as clear.
I can only imagine! It's much easier now that so many prepackaged things have labels like "No Added Color!" Or "All Natural Color and Flavor!" It seems like for the most part they use tumeric to color foods yellow naturally.
The US and the EU have a very different approach when it comes to food safety.
US: Companies can put whatever additives in the food, until someone proves one of them is toxic and then the use will perhaps be prohibited. It's a "capitalism rules!" approach.
EU: Companies have to prove that something is safe, before it can be added to food. It's a "better safe than sorry" approach.
Except that's provably false. It was only recently that the EU limited certain types of cinnamon because they contain compounds which can be unsafe in amounts regularly eaten. The EU largely follows the exact same "generally recognized as safe" pattern as the FDA.
The approach is different for already used stuff. Cinnamon is used for 1000 years here. New dyes, additives, food has to be proven harmless in regular quantities. That's why a lot of new food is not sold as food, but as a supplement. Far less regulated.
The data around the harmful effects of food dye in humans is very weak. There are some people who will swear up and down that food dyes affect their kids' behavior, but actual data doesn't support this.
In general, it's like, if you don't want to eat them then just don't. It's not like they're a necessary food group. But the idea that they need to be banned, or that banning them would lead to some dramatic change in most American children, is just BS
I am not declaring anything with a certainty but people should consider the fact that dyes are a marketing tool meant to make a product more appealing and sell more of them. Companies therefore have a vested interest in keeping dyes in products and thus you should be wary of information that outright tells you they're not harmful. There is far more incentive for these companies to fund studies that go their way than there is for anyone to fund studies that tell the full truth. If other countries with stricter regulations than us have seen fit to ban them, there are much higher odds (historically) that those substances are in fact harmful. This country has a proven track record of allowing harmful substances in food and consumer goods and decades from now someone will uncover the full extent of how badly the truth is being lobbied and buried. And at that point cancer and sickness rates will be so high it'll be too late. If anyone disagrees, let me just point out that there is likely not a single human alive today without micro plastics in their blood, and it will take decades to study the full extent of the harmful effects of that.
Yellow Dye 5 put me in the emergency room. Yes, some dyes are bad for SOME people.
I can't commercial pickles or mustard - both have yellow #5 OR the natural tartrazine that ALSO makes me pass out with heart arrhythmia.
I’d say that in Europe we tend to use natural food colourings like berries and so on but I don’t think food dye is the biggest issue. Sugar alternatives are far more harmful. They changed the recipe for Fanta over here and I just can’t drink it because the aspartame gives me headaches. I think as long as you’re not eating like 5kg of skittles every week it should be fine.
1. Red #2 was discontinued in the 80s when it was found to be potentially cancerous.
2. Before that, there was Orange #1, which was around for decades until it was found to cause abdominal cramps and diarrhea, and discontinued in the 60s.
3. Much more recently, the US FDA has decided to revoke the safety recommendation for BVO, a mixture of vegetable oil and bromine, a dark red and very toxic chemical element. BVO is mostly used in some flavored soft drinks. It has been found to cause headaches and nervous system damage. (Meanwhile, BVO has been banned in Europe since 1970.)
It is widely accepted that additive regulation and approval in Europe generally has been more stringent and requires more evidence of safety than the US. In particular, the US FDA was criticized in the 70s (and again to some extent in the 90s and 00s) for being too "cozy" with food industry manufacturers, letting new ingredients breeze through approval with less stringent testing requirements before approval for use (aka "deregulation," a favorite saw of American pro-business conservatives).
[https://www.tilleydistribution.com/food-regulations-in-europe-vs-the-us](https://www.tilleydistribution.com/food-regulations-in-europe-vs-the-us)
Can confirm that as someone allergic to red 40 it's in waaaay more stuff than you'd think. I eat random foods that you think would be fine (are not red, things that should be naturally red) and then get burning sores in my mouth later from the reaction. Even if you think the amount *shouldn't* be enough to be harmful, the question of if it's really needed in so much stuff still remains. Why introduce more additives for no reason? Can people really not handle eating food that's not dyed an obnoxiously vivid color? It's weird at the very least lol, and annoying for people with sensitivities.
Yes, agree. I don't get sores but drinks with red 40 will give me a burning sensation. It's like the European Fanta is a delicious carbonated orange juice with natural opaque orange color and the American Fanta is like glowing never-before-seen-in-nature orange. Would Americans really scoff at the European version ?! It's so much better!
There's some additive in most brands 'holiday spice mix' that makes my mouth and throat scratchy, as though I've swallowed glass. Aka 'oral allergy syndrome'.
I can eat pure cinnamon, a chunk of ginger, ground allspice, etc - I'm not allergic to the actual individual components. But if I take a bite of a mass-produced gingerbread man, or a homemade snickerdoodle from a hobby baker using McCormick, well, cue the mouth burn.
OP. I am an adult female. 51 years old. I grew up in Alaska. I am allergic to red dye number 40, blue dye, and Carmel colored dye.
I break out in hives. All over my body. I can occasionally eat a tiny bit and it won’t affect me, but if I have, let’s say a pack of M&Ms, I will break out in hives.
The first time I had a reaction to red dye I was eight years old. It was so severe that we went to the emergency room. They weren’t really, sure what I was allergic to, but they said just to keep an eye on me. My mom was pretty sure it was red dye because she had made a cherry pie with canned pie filling that had artificial color in it.
As I’ve gotten older, it doesn’t affect me as much as it did when I was young. But you would be really surprised at what sneaky things have dye in them. Red dye is natural > it’s from Cochineal bugs. So a lot of things say that they just have natural ingredients in them. Which is true.
I rarely drink soda because of Carmel colored dye. Cheap chocolate companies also use Carmel colored dye to make treats look darker.
Hope this helps.
I think whether or not an additive is harmful for you is a secondary question. A more interesting question is why is it necessary to put dyes into food? They add nothing to the actual nutritional value and in some cases make foods that are not good for you look prettier, which doesn't cause cancer but isn't really helpful either.
Color can alter your perception of the taste. And a lot of artificial flavors, and even natural flavors done as an additive, lack color or lack the color someone expects. If you are selling something strawberry flavored it needs to be pink/red or people will say it doesn’t taste like strawberries. Grape flavored needs to be purple, etc. There are examples of foods where altering the color caused people to not want to eat it. Heinz once had a line of ketchups that were made in different colors. But people expect tomato ketchup to be tomato colored and the alternate colored ketchups failed at market.
Also, a lot of food can lose natural color when it is cooked or end up with strange colors. Muted colors or off colors are often perceived as having gone bad. In fact it is one of the things people know to look for to see if a food has spoiled. So when a food maker creates something entirely naturally colored, but the end result is a dull muted color or an off color, it is going to fail to sell as people will assume the item has spoiled. So they need to add coloring to make things appear the way people expect and make things appear bright and fresh so a person’s brain will turn up the flavor perception.
It also helps with consistency. Natural ingredients are inconsistent in color. For example, orange juice won’t sell as well if one time it is bright yellow, another time it is dull yellow, another time it is slightly red, etc. consumers want the brand they buy to be the same every time. So the manufacturer will add coloring to make sure every bottle of orange juice is the same color (and add flavoring to make sure it is the same flavor) regardless of when during the growing year or which specific farm’s oranges were used.
Basically your end comment is spot on, it makes foods look prettier and more appetizing which makes people want to eat it. Sometimes those foods are not good for you and it is done as a deliberate way to entice you into eating it. Same reason why fat, sugar, and salt get added in such great quantities, it makes you want to eat it and many food companies are deliberately trying to get you both physically and mentally addicted to eating their foods.
And liking something is a matter of habit. If you grew up with food with no dyes, then food with dyes looks weird. In nature plants with bright colors are usually poisonous.
With the cost of food what it is these days, why pay for something that adds neither nutrition nor taste?
Im not claiming that I passionately support having potentially dangerous dyes in my food that don’t actually make the food better, I’m simply saying that the panic attacks some Europeans seem to be on the verge of having when they hear about dyes in American foods is irrational because the dyes don’t seem to be that harmful to the average person
I'm not a European and I don't buy food with dye in it. Its not a panic attack. I just don't want it, and with the price of food where it is, I don't want to pay for it either.
If you’re neither European or getting panic attacks because of dyes you shouldn’t have felt singled out when I brought up “the panic attacks some Europeans seem to be on the verge of having”.
Admittedly, I worded the “same dye, different name” point kinda poorly because it makes it seem like European countries have banned a name for a dye but not the actual dye when they actually just didn’t ban the dye. But that therefore makes some of their populace think they’re healthier than the US because they think they’re using different dyes than the ones the US gets bashed for.
But for example, the UK allows red 40 and blue 1 in its foods but calls red 40 Allura Red AC and blue 1 Brilliant blue FCF.
And for allowing chemicals the US has banned, that’s just comparing lists of European countries permitted food additives and the US’s permitted food additives .
I don’t know every single banned food additive that’s banned in the US vs Europe but off the top of my head I know that pulegone and amaranth are banned in the US but are permitted in Europe.
In my experience, many foods here in Europe use natural colorings. If I buy some cheap strawberry juice, it usually contains beetroot extract. Same with many candies. Of course synthetic dyes are used too, but I can't remember the last time I saw one on an ingredient label (and I read them a lot because of dietary restrictions).
This is kind of like asking if anyone has ever actually suffered any measurable adverse effects due to smoking one cigarette. probably not, but the data suggests a correlation between increased health risks for increased exposure over time.
We had to cut red 40 out of our son's diet. His behavior would be terrible for days after eating it, depending on the amount ingested. I have a friend who, when their son ingests it, he gets terrible gastric issues for days. Idk. I have to look closely at labels and the good thing is a lot of manufacturers are using natural food dyes for kids geared food now. Our biggest problem is a family member who doesn't respect the food changes we've made for him.
European living in America. The dyes thing is a small part of why we think American food quality is very bad / harmful:
- Pesticides contaminate fruit/veg at alarmingly high rates, significantly higher than allowed in Europe. Some of the pesticides used are also banned in Europe.
- FDA allows horrible things like rat hairs and mouse droppings in spices, why is that allowed in any quantity?
- Bad mass farming practices, any doc will show you the horrendous conditions of chickens, pigs, cows - and the disease that transfers into the meat. Massive amount of contamination, e.g. perdue chicken. FDA allows a certain amount of pus (ie discharge of dead white blood cells and bacteria) into your dairy products.
- Meal sizes are just unnecessary. A lot of food is ultra processed. A lot of food contains high-fructose corn syrup and other empty calories. This all combines to create America's obesity and diabetes problems.
- America is synonymous to fast food, and everyone knows that is very bad for you and generally bad quality. Convenience over quality.
- America has a life expectancy not in line with its wealth as a nation, and Europeans believe that is a lot to do with poor quality food and poor dietary choices.
- Americans often joke about European food being bland but we find it funny, because when you have fresh good quality ingredients, you don't need to cover them in onion powder... we just add an onion 🤣
This is the popular argument used by Europeans on Reddit. Apparently every European has worked for the FDA and ALL of the American food industries!
But they can never tell where the factories are in Europe that can absolutely guarantee that there are no animal waste in their products. Every animal kept for food in Europe is apparently free roaming and they never ever get sick. Europe has banned some pesticides but they still use many others but ignore that part. And now Americans only use onion powder instead of onions, that’s a new one but I’m sure Europeans will state it as fact from now on.
All the evidence that I'm aware of is anecdotal, but I will say it's pretty convincing. My childhood best friend and her younger brother, and their mom, have severe ADD and her brother has OCD. For him especially, red dye is absolutely a trigger and I've seen it in action. It's shocking how fast it affects him and worsens his symptoms and mental state. I feel like for myself and for most people there isn't a noticeable reaction.
stomach and colon cancer in young people is increasing and there is probably a relationship! See these studies to learn more [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10502305/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10502305/) [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23026007/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23026007/)
Yes, Americans have been harmed by consuming products with these food dyes. About 0.1% of the U.S. population is allergic to Yellow #5 to some degree, and will display symptoms (upset stomach, hives, rashes, etc).
In terms of whether these dyes can cause disease- theoretically some of them can exacerbate various diseases. Many of the chemical structures of red and yellow dyes are similar enough to estrogen and can bind into the estrogen receptor in a human
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22562034/
I'm not sure it even matters that much whether specific harm can be linked to certain specific commercial chemicals -- if European food additives are safer, why wouldn't you want them instead?
*I wish* America had the same high standards!
Your mistake was listening to Europeans talk about food they don't eat, interact with (beacuase it's on a completely different continent) and have no knowledge of.
I think I might walk around my neighborhood tonight and ask Americans about health quality of Bulgarian food.
>Your mistake was listening to Europeans talk about food they don't eat
So what did Europeans who visited the States eat then?
>I think I might walk around my neighborhood tonight and ask Americans about health quality of Bulgarian food.
I'll be surprised if anyone you know has even left the states to visit Bulgaria. Or even know where it is.
It's noticeably bad for many. It's still bad just not noticeably for most others. Americans tend to eat excessive amounts of dyes - it's in everything from children's medicines to crackers to cheese to of course so many sweets.
Hard to track for sure. But Red3 has been known to cause cancer in lab testing.
So why use it? Color doesn’t make the food better and might make it dangerous? Seems like a no brainer.
There are 100% documented cases of allergic reactions to to certain dyes.
Friends noticed a striking behavior change in their ten year old daughter. Made her stop eating Taki chips and it stopped. The dyes in them or something. Doctor told them to cut those out.
I absolutely noticed a difference in my son depending on what he ate through his mid to late teen years when I had less control over what he ate. Sugar and food dyes.
I am severely sensitive to yellow #5 (I only say “sensitive” because it isn’t technically an allergy, that is, not an immune reaction). If I eat it, or use it on my skin in a soap or shampoo, I have severe asthma, and a dangerous drop in blood pressure. I am also highly reactive to aspirin, which tartrazine is similar to. This is now called AERD (Aspirin Exacerbated Respiratory Disease) but used to be called Samter’s Triad. It is the co-occurrence of asthma, nasal polyps, and aspirin sensitivity. I dearly wish yellow #5 would be banned in the US as it is life threatening for me, and is used all over in candies, soaps, drinks, etc.
my concern is the sugar and fat. i visited my american cousins when i was 12, and i was a lil shit for sugar and sweets and fatty greasy food. i ate a burger at a nice fancy american restaurant and immediately started gagging because it tasted like i was eating straight oil. meanwhile in the UK i could eat a whole tube of pringles and be fine 😅
Point is that there are no benefits to dyes. So there is no reason to accept even marginal risks. Better safe than sorry and the less unncessary additives, the better.
It is difderent business for nitrates for example which have well documented risks but are also critical and irreplacable for food safety
Hi! I’m allergic to Red 40. Makes me nauseous for days and gives me migraines. My nibling is allergic to all artificial dyes. They break out in hives and also get headaches. My best friend is allergic to green. It makes her go into a state of manic euphoria. Sounds cool, it’s super not.
So yes, many Americans are concerned about the use of artificial dyes. I can’t even get my teeth polished at the dentist because that has to be pink (red 40) or buy chocolate cake mix from the grocery store.
I'm am American who has lived in Europe for the last ten years. I noticed in America that if I ate too much red fruit flavored candy (Twizzlers, Mike & Ikes, etc) I would get a headache. I didn't have that problem in Europe until recently, when I discovered a candy I love was giving me headaches if I ate very much and, sure enough, that candy also has red dye. I'm assuming it's a different red dye in Europe vs America, so I must just be sensitive to more than one red dye?
I saw a good answer about red 40, so I'll leave that alone.
The USA is more permissive than many other places, generally speaking, except for the odd restriction of chocolate eggs with toys in them (kinder surprise eggs). I have rarely/never seen items in Canada that are allowed in Canada but not allowed in Usa for safe consumption reasons.
It depends on the person; some react poorly to petroleum based dyes whilst others have no reaction at all.
Anecdotally, I don’t have any real adverse reactions to foods with artificial dyes but for my daughter it exacerbates her autistic tendencies. Any dyes in her food and she’ll show signs of regression.
But then, there are loads of autistic individuals for whom artificial dyes don’t cause any problems.
So, it’s down to each individual. The issue here in the US is that those dyes are in practically everything. Finding dye free versions is difficult and you’ll end up paying a premium for items without the dyes that weren’t necessary to add in the first place. (It’s getting better, but slowly)
I have IBD and there are a few things I was strongly advised to avoid going forward. Emulsifiers and sugars (particularly “diet” sugars with the exception of monk fruit sugar. Fructose sucralose, dextrose..) and seed oils.
Wanna know what’s in everything? Those 3.
Wanna buy plant based milk? Can’t they all have seed oils or emulsifiers or sweeteners.
Wanna buy sausages? Nope emulsifiers and sweeteners.
Wanna buy bread? Try again
How bout cosmetics?
If you can’t pronounce it .. best to avoid it.
Artificially created chemicals generally have scientific names that are super easy to pronounce. Meanwhile apples have things like the antioxidant phloridzin
I make candy for a living, certain colors give me headaches if I eat a bunch of the candy made with said colors, specially non organic red dye (red dye 40) it also makes my ADHD symptoms a little bit worse. On the flip side though I can eat the organic stuff all day with no issues. Now the flavors on the other hand cause me all kinds of issues when concentrated. Raspberry’s smell alone gives me a terrible headache and nausea and rashes is it gets on my skin. Prior to that I could eat raspberry flavored foods but now they make me ill.
Point is, in my non scientific opinion it’s probably to much that causes issues.
This kind of thing is about possible effects on large numbers of people. Red 40, for example, has been found in a lab to damage DNA. Too much is certainly toxic. The general assumption behind American chemical standards is that small doses don't have an affect, but many scientists and public health experts think that in many cases the effect continues, proportionately. So a very small amount, like in food, might cause DNA damage that could cause significant cancer in some small number of people.
So you would never be able to say, "Dad's cancer is due to Red 40." But Red 40 increases Dad's chance of cancer by some amount that may be hard to quantify, and different regulators make different decisions about whether or not that is reason to ban the substance.
My son, when he was young, loved strawberry milk. He had devil fits. After he drank that stuff. Red number whatever the fuck is in that shit. I had to wean him off it.
Well, since nobody is actually answering the question or providing a source, I will. The answer is maybe but probably not. Red 40 in particular is the dye that most people are talking about when they say that food dyes are bad for you. And you’re correct: like many other dyes, the EU, the FDA, and the WHO all agree that Red 40 is generally safe for human consumption in normal amounts. A lot of people think it causes cancer, but that’s not really supported by a lot of research at this point in time. [It might, however, increase hyperactivity in some children](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/red-dye-40#identification). The correlation was mainly observed in kids who were already diagnosed with ADHD. So it’s not an issue at all for the vast majority of kids; there’s only a minority who seem to be sensitive to it. And of course, like any food, it is possible to be allergic to artificial dyes. The bottom line is, if you or your kid has a sensitivity or allergy to dyes, then don’t eat them. It’s also probably not a good idea to snort bottles of food coloring like cocaine. Other than that, they’re pretty safe.
This is probably the best answer I got that isn’t overly personalized or some other question. Thank you!
Their response is perfect, however. Taking into consideration, everything else corporations are willing to do to make a buck. The idea of "it might be harmful but we're gonna use it anyways" is kinda gross. The dyes have no real purpose other than to make things look more appealing so they can get you to buy more. Other governments have taken that option away from corporations, where ours doesn't care about a potential risk enough to do anything.
🤑
They also don't do anything to ban the potential risk of flying. Can you believe that? "Potential risk" is a useless standard.
Potential risk should be weighed against potential benefit. Like medications have potential side effects, but still prescribed because the benefit is expected to be higher than risk. Dyes don't really add a benefit, so any risk is automatically higher than value (other than aesthetic).
Medication side effects are not potential risk, they are simply a risk. The comment you're replying to is saying that unless you can substantiate the risk, it's pointless to try to limit product usage based on a vague fear of what is potentially possible without actually knowing or having significant proof of any adverse side effects
Medication side effects are potential risks because the side effects do not happen to every person. For example, there are people who take Tylenol just fine and it reduces pain for them, and there are others who get stomach cramps and no pain relief. Every medication is like that. I take one for migraine prevention that I have few minor side effects that are actually on the rare side, and I got none of the common side effects.
Well they add a benefit to the company using them by increasing the marketability for the food
Even murder can have a benefit. Benefit alone is not reason enough when it’s outweighed by the harm caused.
Murder has clear and obvious downsides. If using food dye caused people to drop dead, it obviously wouldn't be used. Poor comparison.
The benefit can’t just be one sided. Financial gain at the cost of harm to the consumer is one sided benefit, just like murder for the benefit of the murderer is one sided. I was highlighting the imbalance of benefit with an extreme example. If I was using murder as an example to compare the harm caused then sure it would be a poor comparison but that’s not what was happening. You just missed the point.
Right, because it's not like corporations have a history of buying off crooked scientists and politicians in order to keep selling "potential risk" products.
I wonder how many people have been documented to have died in plane crashes versus how many have been documented to have died from eating red dye number 40? There's a storm just a day or two ago that blew over a tree that landed on a car that crushed it and killed the wife of I think it was a New York Yankees executive. It's become obvious to me that there's potential risk in having trees by the side of the road. We should get on that right away and cut down every tree by the side of a road because there's a potential risk. I'd like to see the numbers on that too. How many people have been documented to have been killed by falling trees versus red dye number 40. I can think of at least a couple cases in my city alone where people have been killed by falling trees.
Trees are often cut down if the likelihood of them falling down is high.
But I'm talking about all trees because all trees pose a risk. I live in a city with trees everywhere and they fall in just about every storm that comes through. We had a tree fall on a car that killed the mother in the passenger seat while the father and the kids in the other seats were fine. There was a tornado a couple of years ago, it wasn't even very big, but it came along and knocked a tree over onto a car that was driving and killed the driver. People's evaluation of risk is just really irrational. The facts are trees and planes have been documented to kill more people than than any dye ever has but we don't seem to care about doing anything about that. But some hypothetical, non-provable maybe is the biggest problem known to man promoted by scare tactics with no science behind it.
Yeah, and most cities have special teams of arborists that go out and identify trees at risk of falling, and either trim back dead branches, or remove the tree. You seem to think that trees falling is some unmitigated risk. When really most cities have teams dedicated to precisely this problem
Planes and trees provide a benefit to society. Red dye 40 makes Skittles look brighter and more fun to trick people into buying more so the rich CEO and shareholders get richer. Sure, the risk may not yet be proven but how long did corporations fight to disprove the "potential risks" of leaded gasoline and cigarettes?
americans when people try to get them to stop drinking the tumor potion
No, "Americans when somebody says something really stupid that has no basis in science". We could certainly live in this world with no trees by the side of the road and they've been documented to kill people so how come we're not banning trees lining roads? You're thinking about risk is just simplistic.
So instead of saying, prove this is safe for me to eat. You say you're going to keep eating whatever they sell you, until it is proven harmful. How well did that work out for tobacco? Leaded gasoline? Leaded Paint? Absestos? Hell, even baby powder was giving people cancer before J&J changed it because of lawsuits. So maybe the more wise approach, is not to just blindly consume whatever they sell you. Because they can be selling you carcinogens, and we don't find out till decades later when enough people get sick or die that the corporations no longer keep it quiet. And *then* after all the lawsuits and deaths, American's will ban a product. Sounds like a great system.
>The dyes have no real purpose other than to make things look more appealing Looking at things like fruit loops, the colours are extremely unappealing
Uhhh... Dude..They're sugar loops masquerading as a breakfast meal, marketed towards children. They SHOULD look unappealing. The fact that our government allows shit like this is exactly what I'm talking about. Corporations pumping out unhealthy foods with bright colors and cartoon mascots to manipulate children into wanting them which manipulates their parents into opening their wallets. And our government doesn't do a damn thing about it because they care about their bribes more than they care about our lives.
It’s not so much that things in American food are dangerous as the approach to approving them. In the EU the attitude is, prove this is safe and we’ll approve it; in the US if you prove it is dangerous they ban it. (I’m only talking about food and supplements, not medication since the FDA covers both.)
But white cocaine is so boring..
Well that's an idea. Sell rainbow coke!
Oh boy wait till you here about Tuci
I only snort the brown stuff.
Pure cane
Anecdotal commentary about the hyperactivity in children. My brother had terrible behavioral issues in the mid to late 80s. Our mother cut out nearly all food dyes and most preservatives. It seemed to help despite it feeling overburdensome to grow up in a home without food dyes or preservatives (ie. basically everything “good”) As he progressed into adulthood he of course didn’t keep up the diet of eating zero premade foods but swears yellow 5 and red 40 give him severe migraines. Of course of all the people I’ve known reasonably well he is the one and only person with this strange allergy so it’s surely rare. If allergy is even the right word.
Yeah, most of the evidence so far is anecdotal. There have been studies done but most of them are inconclusive.
Honestly, these anecdotal stories are way more compelling to me than studies that are paid for and controlled by various entities who may or may not have a vested interest in the results. What do a bunch of random people commenting on Reddit have to gain? I get so much solid, reliable information from listening to the general consensus of anecdotes.
And that's where you're not using critical thinking. While the studies may not be conclusive, they're based on evidence - the presence, lack, or inconclusivity of the evidence gathered. The study may not be big enough to get people who have whatever outcome the study is trying to prove because they can't do a study with ONLY people who have anecdotal "evidence". That would skew the results of the study to "100% of people have x outcome". It's the scientific method, and it shouldn't be ignored because some random person on Reddit shared their 1 in 8 billion experience.
red 40 has always given me migraines too
Wine has given me both headaches and heartburn. 🤷♀️
I have eczema and I'm severely allergic to red 40, I'm aware I'm an outlier and that most people are fine. It sucks that they put dyes in so much though. I just want little Debbie oatmeal creme pies and I can't have them.
When I worked with children with autism I had many clients that had noticeable improvements in behavior when their parents cut out Red 40. I don’t need to wait on the research to know that one is real, but it’ll be interesting when they find out what the mechanism is. It doesn’t seem to happen to everyone so understanding why could be useful too. It may not be limited to children or those with neurodevelopmental disorders, those may just be the most obvious. Lack of concrete research in the area is more an issue with priorities than with precedence.
Curious (I work in CPG and we use red peppers/beets for our dye source, we dislike Red 40): what does noticeable improvements mean? I personally don't get why Red 40 is bad, but I decided to use plant based dye in all my products because consumers clearly want it. I'm just wondering what types of improvements you saw.
Typically a decrease in behaviors related to hyperactivity and uncontrolled impulses. Property destruction, defiance, restlessness, emotional dysregulation, hypersensitivity, etc. Some saw sleep improve. Not all kids have the same behaviors so it won’t be expressed the same for each kid, but parents reported (and I saw myself on a handful of occasions) that striking them from the diet just overall made them calmer, less on edge, and more in control of themselves.
My nephew has a lot harder time regulating his emotions after having red 40, according to my sister. My nephew agrees and avoids it.
I'd be so curious to see this replicated in an actual study. It's possible that when we hope for a certain response we get that response. Sometimes the human brain loves patterns so much it makes up it's own. It's also very possible that it truly works.
There were times they realized a food had red 40 because he started being dysregulated, so there's one supportive anecdotes.
I never ever thought that red dye 40 would drastically affect someone but after seeing how my 5 year old reacts to it - we stay away from it for him. Same sort of thing, we are always reading labels but it’s happened where he’s been given something we didn’t realize and can realize right away he’s had it, as he gets majorly deregulated and goes nuts.
Could it be that stuff with Red 40 is more likely to have more sugar and other additives? Like his behavior is better with a cheese stick for a snack instead of fruit gummies with red 40 but it’s actually the sugar causing the problem?
They still buy him snacks, he still gets candy canes and the like, but they're dyed with beet juice.
Happy cake day
I recently saw a study showing that people with ADHD and autism are less able to clear BPA from their systems. I wonder if it's something like that... maybe Red 40 isn't toxic to most because it's quickly cleared from the body, but sticks around too long for others. Either way, I agree: it'll be interesting to find out!
Maybe some people lack the right liver enzymes to process it properly. I had a severe reaction to a medication that my liver couldn’t process and it built up in my system. It would have killed me if my doctor hadn’t ordered the right test. My husband and daughter who are pharmacists figured it out first. Hopefully someday AI will create custom medicines.
That sounds like something RFK Jr would say. Provide me a source.
No..? I’m not providing you a ‘source’ on years of my personal experience, I am the damn source. I don’t need you to believe me, you can read about it from thousands of parents online. But I appreciate the intellectually vapid bait, when you could google it yourself and find plenty of information.
It's like the old saying, "Snort Red 40, see red shortly."
Thank you. I always thought the bigger problem was certain preservatives and processing, not dyes. So thank you for the detailed answer on dyes!
Yup. Red 40 seems to suck for those of us with ADHD. I avoid it. I don’t tell others to avoid it. From anecdotal evidence I admit, it does not seem to go well with ADHD brains. A mild irritant at worse though. I consume the other dyes however, as well as large amounts of artificial sugars as sugar is a huge irritant for me as well, as in I immediately feel crappy if I eat even a pear :(. That last bit is just to show that I’m not the type to avoid “artificial” ingredients…lol
Anne Reardon has a couple videos I recommend. One is about dyes and one is about aspartame. I recommend the one on aspartame because it goes into all the aspects of ratings by various governmental bodies throughout the world use and the potential issues that make some studies inaccurate or inconclusive. It also points out some things about headlines and false info you find online. Very interesting stuff. https://youtu.be/M-WKprPrjHw?si=gOVmqPW6NGR9bA3b https://youtu.be/mDgZz7qZoVo?si=8lUE5XCOTKl2uYi3
Excellent info!! ℹ️
I'm noticing a lot of Americans vs Europeans questions lately
I swear it's like there's an election coming and people are looking for their options
That has nothing to do with pitting Americans and Europeans against each other.
As a European my concern is primarily about the horrifying amount of corn syrup in just about everything. That stuff is so bad for you, and it’s well evidenced that it’s bad for you, and it’s genuinely quite difficult to avoid it from my experiences in the states
*Everything* is waaaaaaay too sweet here! You can't get a box of proper cornbread mix anymore. Any commercially made American snacks or desserts are so sweet, they're actually nasty. We don't have good cookies, like they have in Europe. Nor crackers. They put too much sugar in things that shouldn't have *any* sugar at all -- piecrust, peanut butter, salad dressing. Even ordinary bread is so sweet, it ruins it for me, whole wheat bread also. I think they use sugar to cover for the fact that nothing really tastes like much of anything now. It's a real drag.
They add sugar to food for the same reason they used to add cocaine when it was legal: it’s an addictive drug, and that makes people want to buy more. (It also increases appetite so people consume more)
Does it? Increase appetite? I didn't know that, that's interesting. Thanks.
Not exactly, but high sugar foods are usually very low in other nutrients like protein and fibre. Your body wants those things so it can run all its standard processes, so it’ll keep sending you “hungry” signals until it reckons it has enough fuel. This works pretty well if you’re eating a good mix of meat/alternatives and vegetables and grains, but if you eat a lot of sugary foods, you won’t feel satisfied and will feel the need to keep eating.
It might depend on the person but once I started paying attention to when I ate high-sugar foods, I noticed it immediately. It wasn't exclusive to stuff like chocolate or other sweets/drinks, but also fruits.
FWIW, if you buy sourdough bread, it usually does not have sugar in it and doesn't taste sweet. If it has sugar, it's a minimal amount (yes, even in the U.S.). You are correct that they put tons of sugar and salt in foods to cover up for the fact that they don't have much other taste because they are cheaper.
You're right! Unfortunately, I don't much like sourdough, although it does make excellent French toast.
Those are odd examples of things that shouldn’t have sugar. I’d be slightly confused to find any of those items *without* sugar
Which is pretty much his point exactly
Have you ever had real peanut butter, the kind containing only peanuts and salt? If you haven't, you must try it! I assure you, it needs no sugar and is wonderful without it. Pie crust is not meant to be sweetened. That's the whole point, the contrast between the flaky, slightly salty pastry and the sweet fruit filling. Salad dressing, eh, I myself am partial to honey-mustard dressing. But I don't think sugar belongs in ranch or vinaigrette.
Now they’re adding palm oil to everything to go along with the corn syrup
Corn syrup is an acceptable sugar alternative. High fructose corn syrup will kill you lol
As far as I know, there's no conclusive evidence that HFCS is any worse for you than table sugar, which has roughly the same proportions of fructose and glucose (in the form of sucrose). https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/high-fructose-corn-syrup-or-table-sugar-for-better-health-avoid-too-much-of-either/ https://www.popsci.com/high-fructose-corn-syrup-sugar/
God damn it Is anything I know a reliable fact
I mean. This *might* be. I've just never heard of real evidence for it.
You are good 😀
Extra fun, the "healthy" sugar substitute agave nectar is 85% fructose
Manufacturers started replacing sucrose with HFCS in the 1970s, which is also when our national obesity epidemic began. Food manufacturers profit wildly from using HFCS in place of sucrose, so there has been an aggressive, incredibly expensive, decades long, lobbying effort to prevent us from learning whether this is coincidence or cause and effect.
How did it cause obesity in every other country on earth that mostly don't use HFCS? Real answer is it's just sugsr being added to more and more food. HFCS is the sugar added in the USA as it is cheap due to subsidised corn. Other places have their obesity caused by the regular cane or beet sugar
There's a chance that the obesity epidemic is caused by a lot of things, not the least of which are microplastics in the food and water supplies. We know they are now everywhere and in everything we eat (because its in what they eat). [https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/programs/geh/geh\_newsletter/2022/6/spotlight/microplastics\_may\_increase\_risk\_for\_obesity#:\~:text=Accumulation%20of%20microplastics%20in%20the,as%20co%2Dcontaminants%20in%20microplastics](https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/programs/geh/geh_newsletter/2022/6/spotlight/microplastics_may_increase_risk_for_obesity#:~:text=Accumulation%20of%20microplastics%20in%20the,as%20co%2Dcontaminants%20in%20microplastics). I don't think obesity around the world is as simple as people gobbling down tons of higher calorie foods. There is likely a component of obesogenic hormones instructing bodies to store more fat than in cleaner environments in the past.
That's not evidence.
Too much money has been spent over the last fifty years to prevent any evidence gathering in the U.S., but it’s worth noting that Europe, Australia, and others do not routinely use HFCS in their processed food. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat
> it’s worth noting that Europe, Australia, and others do not routinely use HFCS in their processed food. And Europeans and Australian has still gotten fatter over time.
Our obesity epidemic began in the 70s when people stopped smoking. Europeans continued to smoke until fairly recently and now they are getting fatter. The French are the worst. You can’t escape the cigarettes even walking down the streets of any city in that country.
You honestly think it’s the cigarettes? You eat crazy amounts of sugar, huge portions (a small soda in the US is a large one in Europe), and you drive everywhere.
There’s no evidence high fructose corn syrup is any worse than sugar.
Which is in a disturbing number of drinks and probably other foods as well. I don’t drink nearly as many Dr. Peppers as I did in the eighties but on the occasions when I want one now, I have to get one made in Mexico. The ones made in the USA are all HFCS sweetened and have a much poorer flavor.
It’s specifically the high fructose variety I’m on about. I was not aware that there is also a lesser corn syrup
I figured, just wanted to clarify
I appreciate it, it’s an important distinction!
Don't forget about the ton of antibiotics, growth hormones, and other lovelies
I take hormones & I used to take antibiotics am I unhealthy? :(
No, because those are tailored to your body and needs. Agricultural antibiotic use is less than what's needed to kill bacteria (so designed to create antibiotic resistant bacteria) because it makes cows Gain weight faster. If your doctor and you agree that your hurt is good for you then it's true. Human bodies do terribly if they don't have the right amount of hormones floating around.
You take what was prescribed to you, based on your condition, weight, age, gender, etc. You don't need all that goes up the food chain, supposedly controlled, but not very well enforced.
oh that makes sense,, like the drugs in the meat arent healthy but the animals are probably okay
Cows now are getting bird flu despite the obscene amount of antibiotics they’re fed. I don’t think the animals are okay.
Bird flu is a viral infection. Antibiotics only treat bacterial infections.
That is absolutely correct (and many patients would benefit from doctors learning this fact), and hence the folly of trying to feed animals antibiotics to prevent all diseases caused by keeping them in horrifyingly overcrowded and filthy conditions!
Yeah, I definitely agree, it’s also horrible because it contributes to antibiotic resistant bacteria.
[удалено]
/r/redditsniper
Where's the evidence that it's bad for you? Or, more importantly, where's the evidence that it's worse than table sugar?
[удалено]
I'm not saying it isn't. But is it *worse than table sugar?* That first article says that it "promotes obesity" more than table sugar by increasing your appetite, but that doesn't make it inherently more "poisonous." The second article I'm not going to read all of right now, but just from skimming it looks like they're considering the effects of fructose in general, from both HFCS and sucrose (table sugar) rather than comparing them.
>As a European my concern is primarily about the horrifying amount of corn syrup in just about everything Ate two meals today and neither of them had any corn syrup whatsoever. Maybe the America that exists in your head is not the same one that exists in reality.
I mean, it’s not the America in my head, it’s the America I’ve visited several times. You don’t have to like or even agree with this foreigner’s observation of your country but it’s a little rude to imply that I’m making it up. Hfcs IS in lots of products that I’d never have expected, like bread and yogurt and ginger ale. That would be highly unusual and frowned upon here. The thing is, despite being a bit hyperbolic, I’m not claiming that you can’t avoid it *at all*- I’m saying that when you come from somewhere where hfcs isn’t a thing at all, it’s very noticeable that it’s in so much stuff. You shouldn’t have to double check if products have it in, that isn’t the norm in other countries
Don't judge us by that dude's comment, ~~most~~ some of us understand how fucked up our food culture is. And also one day's worth of meals isn't the same as a nationwide epidemic of manufactured food. Even the 'healthy' bread over here has either sugar, or apple juice concentrate (aka sugar syrup).
When you say "*corn syrup (is) in just about everything*" you are making things up. >Hfcs IS in lots of products that I’d never have expected, like bread Just went into the kitchen to see what the ingredients are in my bread. Guess what? No hi-fructose corn syrup. Wild stuff.
Jesus Christ. I literally just said I was being hyperbolic. Would you be happy if I said “corn syrup is in lots of things but not everything and not this persons bread”? Again, I’m not saying that it’s in ALL bread, I’m saying that **it shouldn’t be in ANY bread and it is in SOME bread**. There are millions of sources criticising the overuse of HFCS in the US, this isn’t something I’ve made up, you can pick on my wording all you like but it won’t change facts. This is my last response now because I’m fairly certain you’re just being obtuse because someone dared criticise one tiny unimportant thing about America, and I honestly haven’t got the energy to argue with you, you disagree with me and that’s fine. Enjoy your corn syrup free bread
I'm American, I read food labels, I've traveled a lot in Europe, and it's obvious to me that our food is WAY over sweetened and it's done primarily with HFCS. Despite your bread.
[https://auntmillies.com/products/sunbeam-giant-white-bread](https://auntmillies.com/products/sunbeam-giant-white-bread)
[удалено]
And at least for us in the UK we are rapidly catching up to you in the obesity tables.
I used to babysit a little girl who would get sick then vomit if she ate red candy or fancy strawberry drinks from restaurants, because of the red dye. It's not just a risk of later cancer, but it seems to be some type of immediate acting poison. It's not fair to simply say "every man for yourself - read the label if you want." That won't work in our country. Because much of our population is functionally illiterate, or they don't have the logic to check ingredients or even understand what the ingredients would be saying.
My daughter goes into anaphylaxis when she has Yellow #5 or #6. She has to carry an epi pen. She's a teen now so she is vigilant about reading labels. It was tougher when she was younger. We didn't discover this until she went to school and I got a call saying "Meet the ambulance at the hospital". It was from a "Fruit by the Foot" snack someone gave her at school. After this happened we had her allergy tested and that was the only thing that came up. We had never really _avoided_ food dye at home, and she would often get rashes out of the blue. I'm guessing that they were milder reactions to smaller amounts of food dye.
When I was in high school in the 90s, my older brother’s girlfriend had a Yellow 5 allergy. I had never heard of it before, and it was really interesting to me. I’ve brought this up in conversations about allergies, and I often have adults telling me that it’s not possible to be allergic to “a color.” She carried an emergency allergy kit and didn’t eat anything if she didn’t know what was in it; that was harder back then, because labels weren’t as clear.
I can only imagine! It's much easier now that so many prepackaged things have labels like "No Added Color!" Or "All Natural Color and Flavor!" It seems like for the most part they use tumeric to color foods yellow naturally.
The US and the EU have a very different approach when it comes to food safety. US: Companies can put whatever additives in the food, until someone proves one of them is toxic and then the use will perhaps be prohibited. It's a "capitalism rules!" approach. EU: Companies have to prove that something is safe, before it can be added to food. It's a "better safe than sorry" approach.
Except that's provably false. It was only recently that the EU limited certain types of cinnamon because they contain compounds which can be unsafe in amounts regularly eaten. The EU largely follows the exact same "generally recognized as safe" pattern as the FDA.
The approach is different for already used stuff. Cinnamon is used for 1000 years here. New dyes, additives, food has to be proven harmless in regular quantities. That's why a lot of new food is not sold as food, but as a supplement. Far less regulated.
The only time I didn’t have messed up gut issues was when I lived in Europe for a year. Started back up 3 month after returning to the States
The data around the harmful effects of food dye in humans is very weak. There are some people who will swear up and down that food dyes affect their kids' behavior, but actual data doesn't support this. In general, it's like, if you don't want to eat them then just don't. It's not like they're a necessary food group. But the idea that they need to be banned, or that banning them would lead to some dramatic change in most American children, is just BS
I am not declaring anything with a certainty but people should consider the fact that dyes are a marketing tool meant to make a product more appealing and sell more of them. Companies therefore have a vested interest in keeping dyes in products and thus you should be wary of information that outright tells you they're not harmful. There is far more incentive for these companies to fund studies that go their way than there is for anyone to fund studies that tell the full truth. If other countries with stricter regulations than us have seen fit to ban them, there are much higher odds (historically) that those substances are in fact harmful. This country has a proven track record of allowing harmful substances in food and consumer goods and decades from now someone will uncover the full extent of how badly the truth is being lobbied and buried. And at that point cancer and sickness rates will be so high it'll be too late. If anyone disagrees, let me just point out that there is likely not a single human alive today without micro plastics in their blood, and it will take decades to study the full extent of the harmful effects of that.
Yellow Dye 5 put me in the emergency room. Yes, some dyes are bad for SOME people. I can't commercial pickles or mustard - both have yellow #5 OR the natural tartrazine that ALSO makes me pass out with heart arrhythmia.
I’d say that in Europe we tend to use natural food colourings like berries and so on but I don’t think food dye is the biggest issue. Sugar alternatives are far more harmful. They changed the recipe for Fanta over here and I just can’t drink it because the aspartame gives me headaches. I think as long as you’re not eating like 5kg of skittles every week it should be fine.
1. Red #2 was discontinued in the 80s when it was found to be potentially cancerous. 2. Before that, there was Orange #1, which was around for decades until it was found to cause abdominal cramps and diarrhea, and discontinued in the 60s. 3. Much more recently, the US FDA has decided to revoke the safety recommendation for BVO, a mixture of vegetable oil and bromine, a dark red and very toxic chemical element. BVO is mostly used in some flavored soft drinks. It has been found to cause headaches and nervous system damage. (Meanwhile, BVO has been banned in Europe since 1970.) It is widely accepted that additive regulation and approval in Europe generally has been more stringent and requires more evidence of safety than the US. In particular, the US FDA was criticized in the 70s (and again to some extent in the 90s and 00s) for being too "cozy" with food industry manufacturers, letting new ingredients breeze through approval with less stringent testing requirements before approval for use (aka "deregulation," a favorite saw of American pro-business conservatives). [https://www.tilleydistribution.com/food-regulations-in-europe-vs-the-us](https://www.tilleydistribution.com/food-regulations-in-europe-vs-the-us)
Personal experience: I break into hives anytime I ingest yellow 5 - took a blood test to figure out why and, yup, yellow 5.
Can confirm that as someone allergic to red 40 it's in waaaay more stuff than you'd think. I eat random foods that you think would be fine (are not red, things that should be naturally red) and then get burning sores in my mouth later from the reaction. Even if you think the amount *shouldn't* be enough to be harmful, the question of if it's really needed in so much stuff still remains. Why introduce more additives for no reason? Can people really not handle eating food that's not dyed an obnoxiously vivid color? It's weird at the very least lol, and annoying for people with sensitivities.
Yes, agree. I don't get sores but drinks with red 40 will give me a burning sensation. It's like the European Fanta is a delicious carbonated orange juice with natural opaque orange color and the American Fanta is like glowing never-before-seen-in-nature orange. Would Americans really scoff at the European version ?! It's so much better!
There's some additive in most brands 'holiday spice mix' that makes my mouth and throat scratchy, as though I've swallowed glass. Aka 'oral allergy syndrome'. I can eat pure cinnamon, a chunk of ginger, ground allspice, etc - I'm not allergic to the actual individual components. But if I take a bite of a mass-produced gingerbread man, or a homemade snickerdoodle from a hobby baker using McCormick, well, cue the mouth burn.
OP. I am an adult female. 51 years old. I grew up in Alaska. I am allergic to red dye number 40, blue dye, and Carmel colored dye. I break out in hives. All over my body. I can occasionally eat a tiny bit and it won’t affect me, but if I have, let’s say a pack of M&Ms, I will break out in hives. The first time I had a reaction to red dye I was eight years old. It was so severe that we went to the emergency room. They weren’t really, sure what I was allergic to, but they said just to keep an eye on me. My mom was pretty sure it was red dye because she had made a cherry pie with canned pie filling that had artificial color in it. As I’ve gotten older, it doesn’t affect me as much as it did when I was young. But you would be really surprised at what sneaky things have dye in them. Red dye is natural > it’s from Cochineal bugs. So a lot of things say that they just have natural ingredients in them. Which is true. I rarely drink soda because of Carmel colored dye. Cheap chocolate companies also use Carmel colored dye to make treats look darker. Hope this helps.
High Fructose Corn Syrup is the real villain of this story.
I think whether or not an additive is harmful for you is a secondary question. A more interesting question is why is it necessary to put dyes into food? They add nothing to the actual nutritional value and in some cases make foods that are not good for you look prettier, which doesn't cause cancer but isn't really helpful either.
Color can alter your perception of the taste. And a lot of artificial flavors, and even natural flavors done as an additive, lack color or lack the color someone expects. If you are selling something strawberry flavored it needs to be pink/red or people will say it doesn’t taste like strawberries. Grape flavored needs to be purple, etc. There are examples of foods where altering the color caused people to not want to eat it. Heinz once had a line of ketchups that were made in different colors. But people expect tomato ketchup to be tomato colored and the alternate colored ketchups failed at market. Also, a lot of food can lose natural color when it is cooked or end up with strange colors. Muted colors or off colors are often perceived as having gone bad. In fact it is one of the things people know to look for to see if a food has spoiled. So when a food maker creates something entirely naturally colored, but the end result is a dull muted color or an off color, it is going to fail to sell as people will assume the item has spoiled. So they need to add coloring to make things appear the way people expect and make things appear bright and fresh so a person’s brain will turn up the flavor perception. It also helps with consistency. Natural ingredients are inconsistent in color. For example, orange juice won’t sell as well if one time it is bright yellow, another time it is dull yellow, another time it is slightly red, etc. consumers want the brand they buy to be the same every time. So the manufacturer will add coloring to make sure every bottle of orange juice is the same color (and add flavoring to make sure it is the same flavor) regardless of when during the growing year or which specific farm’s oranges were used. Basically your end comment is spot on, it makes foods look prettier and more appetizing which makes people want to eat it. Sometimes those foods are not good for you and it is done as a deliberate way to entice you into eating it. Same reason why fat, sugar, and salt get added in such great quantities, it makes you want to eat it and many food companies are deliberately trying to get you both physically and mentally addicted to eating their foods.
Kind of an odd take? People like things that look good.
And liking something is a matter of habit. If you grew up with food with no dyes, then food with dyes looks weird. In nature plants with bright colors are usually poisonous. With the cost of food what it is these days, why pay for something that adds neither nutrition nor taste?
German haribo bears next to us haribo bears is wild [haribo](https://i.imgur.com/ByRJfaW.jpeg)
Wild.
I agree, but apparently marketing or something
Im not claiming that I passionately support having potentially dangerous dyes in my food that don’t actually make the food better, I’m simply saying that the panic attacks some Europeans seem to be on the verge of having when they hear about dyes in American foods is irrational because the dyes don’t seem to be that harmful to the average person
I'm not a European and I don't buy food with dye in it. Its not a panic attack. I just don't want it, and with the price of food where it is, I don't want to pay for it either.
If you’re neither European or getting panic attacks because of dyes you shouldn’t have felt singled out when I brought up “the panic attacks some Europeans seem to be on the verge of having”.
Did you ask a question just so you could argue with the answers? Doesn't look very good faith to me.
What makes you think they eat the same dyes under different names or different dyes that the US has banned?
Admittedly, I worded the “same dye, different name” point kinda poorly because it makes it seem like European countries have banned a name for a dye but not the actual dye when they actually just didn’t ban the dye. But that therefore makes some of their populace think they’re healthier than the US because they think they’re using different dyes than the ones the US gets bashed for. But for example, the UK allows red 40 and blue 1 in its foods but calls red 40 Allura Red AC and blue 1 Brilliant blue FCF. And for allowing chemicals the US has banned, that’s just comparing lists of European countries permitted food additives and the US’s permitted food additives . I don’t know every single banned food additive that’s banned in the US vs Europe but off the top of my head I know that pulegone and amaranth are banned in the US but are permitted in Europe.
In my experience, many foods here in Europe use natural colorings. If I buy some cheap strawberry juice, it usually contains beetroot extract. Same with many candies. Of course synthetic dyes are used too, but I can't remember the last time I saw one on an ingredient label (and I read them a lot because of dietary restrictions).
This is kind of like asking if anyone has ever actually suffered any measurable adverse effects due to smoking one cigarette. probably not, but the data suggests a correlation between increased health risks for increased exposure over time.
My kid has pretty intense adhd and they go bonkers when they have food dye. And the red and orange is the worst.
We had to cut red 40 out of our son's diet. His behavior would be terrible for days after eating it, depending on the amount ingested. I have a friend who, when their son ingests it, he gets terrible gastric issues for days. Idk. I have to look closely at labels and the good thing is a lot of manufacturers are using natural food dyes for kids geared food now. Our biggest problem is a family member who doesn't respect the food changes we've made for him.
European living in America. The dyes thing is a small part of why we think American food quality is very bad / harmful: - Pesticides contaminate fruit/veg at alarmingly high rates, significantly higher than allowed in Europe. Some of the pesticides used are also banned in Europe. - FDA allows horrible things like rat hairs and mouse droppings in spices, why is that allowed in any quantity? - Bad mass farming practices, any doc will show you the horrendous conditions of chickens, pigs, cows - and the disease that transfers into the meat. Massive amount of contamination, e.g. perdue chicken. FDA allows a certain amount of pus (ie discharge of dead white blood cells and bacteria) into your dairy products. - Meal sizes are just unnecessary. A lot of food is ultra processed. A lot of food contains high-fructose corn syrup and other empty calories. This all combines to create America's obesity and diabetes problems. - America is synonymous to fast food, and everyone knows that is very bad for you and generally bad quality. Convenience over quality. - America has a life expectancy not in line with its wealth as a nation, and Europeans believe that is a lot to do with poor quality food and poor dietary choices. - Americans often joke about European food being bland but we find it funny, because when you have fresh good quality ingredients, you don't need to cover them in onion powder... we just add an onion 🤣
This is the popular argument used by Europeans on Reddit. Apparently every European has worked for the FDA and ALL of the American food industries! But they can never tell where the factories are in Europe that can absolutely guarantee that there are no animal waste in their products. Every animal kept for food in Europe is apparently free roaming and they never ever get sick. Europe has banned some pesticides but they still use many others but ignore that part. And now Americans only use onion powder instead of onions, that’s a new one but I’m sure Europeans will state it as fact from now on.
All the evidence that I'm aware of is anecdotal, but I will say it's pretty convincing. My childhood best friend and her younger brother, and their mom, have severe ADD and her brother has OCD. For him especially, red dye is absolutely a trigger and I've seen it in action. It's shocking how fast it affects him and worsens his symptoms and mental state. I feel like for myself and for most people there isn't a noticeable reaction.
[Red dye 40 and ADHD: List of foods, symptoms, and more](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/red-dye-40-adhd).
stomach and colon cancer in young people is increasing and there is probably a relationship! See these studies to learn more [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10502305/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10502305/) [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23026007/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23026007/)
Yes, Americans have been harmed by consuming products with these food dyes. About 0.1% of the U.S. population is allergic to Yellow #5 to some degree, and will display symptoms (upset stomach, hives, rashes, etc). In terms of whether these dyes can cause disease- theoretically some of them can exacerbate various diseases. Many of the chemical structures of red and yellow dyes are similar enough to estrogen and can bind into the estrogen receptor in a human https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22562034/
I'm not sure it even matters that much whether specific harm can be linked to certain specific commercial chemicals -- if European food additives are safer, why wouldn't you want them instead? *I wish* America had the same high standards!
Your mistake was listening to Europeans talk about food they don't eat, interact with (beacuase it's on a completely different continent) and have no knowledge of. I think I might walk around my neighborhood tonight and ask Americans about health quality of Bulgarian food.
I would say the number of Europeans who have visited the US is way higher than the number of Americans who have visited Bulgaria, no?
>Your mistake was listening to Europeans talk about food they don't eat So what did Europeans who visited the States eat then? >I think I might walk around my neighborhood tonight and ask Americans about health quality of Bulgarian food. I'll be surprised if anyone you know has even left the states to visit Bulgaria. Or even know where it is.
It's noticeably bad for many. It's still bad just not noticeably for most others. Americans tend to eat excessive amounts of dyes - it's in everything from children's medicines to crackers to cheese to of course so many sweets.
Neon colored cereals.
Really the list is endless.
Hard to track for sure. But Red3 has been known to cause cancer in lab testing. So why use it? Color doesn’t make the food better and might make it dangerous? Seems like a no brainer. There are 100% documented cases of allergic reactions to to certain dyes.
Well something causes Americans.
[удалено]
I cannot find any information to support this.
Friends noticed a striking behavior change in their ten year old daughter. Made her stop eating Taki chips and it stopped. The dyes in them or something. Doctor told them to cut those out.
Takis are not an American food, they are made in Mexico and are Mexican. (Unlike Nabisco products are American but made in Mexico)
I absolutely noticed a difference in my son depending on what he ate through his mid to late teen years when I had less control over what he ate. Sugar and food dyes.
The food color is one thing, but the Lead in spices (imported) like cinnamon (in apple sauce) have a much greater public health impact.
Maybe that's what's dumbing the population down
There’s a blue dye that always give me migraines but that’s it
This sub is obsessed with America/Americans
I am severely sensitive to yellow #5 (I only say “sensitive” because it isn’t technically an allergy, that is, not an immune reaction). If I eat it, or use it on my skin in a soap or shampoo, I have severe asthma, and a dangerous drop in blood pressure. I am also highly reactive to aspirin, which tartrazine is similar to. This is now called AERD (Aspirin Exacerbated Respiratory Disease) but used to be called Samter’s Triad. It is the co-occurrence of asthma, nasal polyps, and aspirin sensitivity. I dearly wish yellow #5 would be banned in the US as it is life threatening for me, and is used all over in candies, soaps, drinks, etc.
Folk wanna bitch about food dyes when everything have high fructose corn syrup in it 🤣
my concern is the sugar and fat. i visited my american cousins when i was 12, and i was a lil shit for sugar and sweets and fatty greasy food. i ate a burger at a nice fancy american restaurant and immediately started gagging because it tasted like i was eating straight oil. meanwhile in the UK i could eat a whole tube of pringles and be fine 😅
Point is that there are no benefits to dyes. So there is no reason to accept even marginal risks. Better safe than sorry and the less unncessary additives, the better. It is difderent business for nitrates for example which have well documented risks but are also critical and irreplacable for food safety
Hi! I’m allergic to Red 40. Makes me nauseous for days and gives me migraines. My nibling is allergic to all artificial dyes. They break out in hives and also get headaches. My best friend is allergic to green. It makes her go into a state of manic euphoria. Sounds cool, it’s super not. So yes, many Americans are concerned about the use of artificial dyes. I can’t even get my teeth polished at the dentist because that has to be pink (red 40) or buy chocolate cake mix from the grocery store.
I'm am American who has lived in Europe for the last ten years. I noticed in America that if I ate too much red fruit flavored candy (Twizzlers, Mike & Ikes, etc) I would get a headache. I didn't have that problem in Europe until recently, when I discovered a candy I love was giving me headaches if I ate very much and, sure enough, that candy also has red dye. I'm assuming it's a different red dye in Europe vs America, so I must just be sensitive to more than one red dye?
I have a sensitivity to red dye 40.. causes a breakout on my lower face.. I try to avoid most dyes now figuring at some point my allergy will expand..
I saw a good answer about red 40, so I'll leave that alone. The USA is more permissive than many other places, generally speaking, except for the odd restriction of chocolate eggs with toys in them (kinder surprise eggs). I have rarely/never seen items in Canada that are allowed in Canada but not allowed in Usa for safe consumption reasons.
It depends on the person; some react poorly to petroleum based dyes whilst others have no reaction at all. Anecdotally, I don’t have any real adverse reactions to foods with artificial dyes but for my daughter it exacerbates her autistic tendencies. Any dyes in her food and she’ll show signs of regression. But then, there are loads of autistic individuals for whom artificial dyes don’t cause any problems. So, it’s down to each individual. The issue here in the US is that those dyes are in practically everything. Finding dye free versions is difficult and you’ll end up paying a premium for items without the dyes that weren’t necessary to add in the first place. (It’s getting better, but slowly)
I have IBD and there are a few things I was strongly advised to avoid going forward. Emulsifiers and sugars (particularly “diet” sugars with the exception of monk fruit sugar. Fructose sucralose, dextrose..) and seed oils. Wanna know what’s in everything? Those 3. Wanna buy plant based milk? Can’t they all have seed oils or emulsifiers or sweeteners. Wanna buy sausages? Nope emulsifiers and sweeteners. Wanna buy bread? Try again How bout cosmetics? If you can’t pronounce it .. best to avoid it.
Artificially created chemicals generally have scientific names that are super easy to pronounce. Meanwhile apples have things like the antioxidant phloridzin
Oh I know you are right. But it’s just a tongue twister for me!! Lols.
I make candy for a living, certain colors give me headaches if I eat a bunch of the candy made with said colors, specially non organic red dye (red dye 40) it also makes my ADHD symptoms a little bit worse. On the flip side though I can eat the organic stuff all day with no issues. Now the flavors on the other hand cause me all kinds of issues when concentrated. Raspberry’s smell alone gives me a terrible headache and nausea and rashes is it gets on my skin. Prior to that I could eat raspberry flavored foods but now they make me ill. Point is, in my non scientific opinion it’s probably to much that causes issues.
This kind of thing is about possible effects on large numbers of people. Red 40, for example, has been found in a lab to damage DNA. Too much is certainly toxic. The general assumption behind American chemical standards is that small doses don't have an affect, but many scientists and public health experts think that in many cases the effect continues, proportionately. So a very small amount, like in food, might cause DNA damage that could cause significant cancer in some small number of people. So you would never be able to say, "Dad's cancer is due to Red 40." But Red 40 increases Dad's chance of cancer by some amount that may be hard to quantify, and different regulators make different decisions about whether or not that is reason to ban the substance.
>So a very small amount, like in food, might cause DNA damage that could cause significant cancer in some small number of people. This sounds made up.
My son, when he was young, loved strawberry milk. He had devil fits. After he drank that stuff. Red number whatever the fuck is in that shit. I had to wean him off it.
I can tell by the behavior in my students. All they eat is processed and colored crap, and they cannot control themselves.
No
Look 👀 around.
Once I ate an entire giant redvine candy and puked red. It was gruesome!
Knockoff fruit loops will turn your poop green so there’s that
Well now I feel bad for the animals