Latest news with #RedNo.3
NBC News
5 days ago
- Health
- NBC News
Kraft Heinz to remove artificial dyes from U.S. products by end of 2027
Kraft Heinz said Tuesday that it will remove FD&C artificial dyes from its products by the end of 2027, and will not launch any new products in the U.S. containing those ingredients. The company said in a release that about 10% of its U.S. items use FD&C colors, the synthetic additives that make many foods more visually appealing. Kraft Heinz brands that sell products with these dyes include Crystal Light, Kool-Aid, MiO, Jell-O and Jet-Puffed, according to a Kraft Heinz spokesperson. The company removed artificial colors, preservatives and flavors from its Kraft macaroni and cheese in 2016 and its Heinz ketchup has never used artificial dyes, according to Pedro Navio, North America president at Kraft Heinz. It is unclear how removing the dyes will affect the company's business, as consumers could perceive the products as healthier but also may be less drawn to duller colors. The decision follows pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Department of Health and Human Services, led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for the food industry to pull back on artificial dyes as part of a larger so-called Make America Healthy Again platform. The FDA in April announced a plan to phase out the use of petroleum-based synthetic dyes by the end of next year and replace them with natural alternatives. Besides the previously banned Red No. 3, other dyes that will be eliminated include red dye 40, yellow dye 5, yellow dye 6, blue dye 1, blue dye 2 and green dye 2, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said at the time. Kennedy said at the time that the FDA and the food industry have 'an understanding,' not a formal agreement, to remove artificial dyes. The Health and Human Services secretary discussed removing artificial food dyes during a meeting in March with top food executives from companies including Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo North America, General Mills, WK Kellogg, Tyson Foods, J.M. Smucker and the Consumer Brands Association, the industry's top trade group. A spokesperson for Kraft Heinz said on Tuesday that the company looks forward to partnering with the administration 'to provide quality, affordable, and wholesome food for all.' Momentum against food dyes had been building for years. In January, before President Donald Trump and Kennedy took office, the FDA announced a ban on the use of Red No. 3 dye in food and ingested drugs. The dye gives many candies and cereals their bright red color, but is also known to cause cancer in laboratory animals. The FDA allowed Red No. 3 to be used by food manufacturers for years, though the state of California had already banned the dye in 2023. Kraft Heinz said in the release Tuesday that it has made more than 1,000 recipe changes over the past five years to improve product nutrition. 'The vast majority of our products use natural or no colors, and we've been on a journey to reduce our use of FD&C colors across the remainder of our portfolio,' Navio said. 'Above all, we are focused on providing nutritious, affordable and great-tasting food for Americans and this is a privilege we don't take lightly.'
CNBC
5 days ago
- Health
- CNBC
Kraft Heinz to remove artificial dyes from U.S. products by end of 2027
Kraft Heinz said Tuesday that it will remove FD&C artificial dyes from its products by the end of 2027, and will not launch any new products in the U.S. containing those ingredients. The company said in a release that about 10% of its U.S. items use FD&C colors, the synthetic additives that make many foods more visually appealing. Kraft Heinz brands that sell products with these dyes include Crystal Light, Kool-Aid, MiO, Jell-O and Jet-Puffed, according to a Kraft Heinz spokesperson. The company removed artificial colors, preservatives and flavors from its Kraft macaroni and cheese in 2016 and its Heinz ketchup has never used artificial dyes, according to Pedro Navio, North America president at Kraft Heinz. It is unclear how removing the dyes will affect the company's business, as consumers could perceive the products as healthier but also may be less drawn to duller colors. The decision follows pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Department of Health and Human Services, led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for the food industry to pull back on artificial dyes as part of a larger so-called Make America Healthy Again platform. The FDA in April announced a plan to phase out the use of petroleum-based synthetic dyes by the end of next year and replace them with natural alternatives. Besides the previously banned Red No. 3, other dyes that will be eliminated include red dye 40, yellow dye 5, yellow dye 6, blue dye 1, blue dye 2 and green dye 2, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said at the time. Kennedy said at the time that the FDA and the food industry have "an understanding," not a formal agreement, to remove artificial dyes. The Health and Human Services secretary discussed removing artificial food dyes during a meeting in March with top food executives from companies including Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo North America, General Mills, WK Kellogg, Tyson Foods, J.M. Smucker and the Consumer Brands Association, the industry's top trade group. A spokesperson for Kraft Heinz said on Tuesday that the company looks forward to partnering with the administration "to provide quality, affordable, and wholesome food for all." Momentum against food dyes had been building for years. In January, before President Donald Trump and Kennedy took office, the FDA announced a ban on the use of Red No. 3 dye in food and ingested drugs. The dye gives many candies and cereals their bright red color, but is also known to cause cancer in laboratory animals. The FDA allowed Red No. 3 to be used by food manufacturers for years, though the state of California had already banned the dye in 2023. Kraft Heinz said in the release Tuesday that it has made more than 1,000 recipe changes over the past five years to improve product nutrition. "The vast majority of our products use natural or no colors, and we've been on a journey to reduce our use of FD&C colors across the remainder of our portfolio," Navio said. "Above all, we are focused on providing nutritious, affordable and great-tasting food for Americans and this is a privilege we don't take lightly."
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Editorial: Nothing fake about synthetic food dye health risks
U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, recently reintroduced the 'Do or Dye Act,' and it's a big deal. The bill, which picks up a key piece of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 'Make America Healthy Again' playbook, wants to kick eight nasty petroleum-based food dyes — including Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, and Blue No. 1 — out of our snacks and cereals. These are the same dyes linked to health risks, particularly in children, and they're already banned in several countries. Sure, RFK Jr. can be a lightning rod and some of his ideas are farfetched, but Democrats shouldn't bolt just because he's on board. This is a cause with history, science and voters on its side and it's one where both sides can actually agree. The dangers of synthetic food dyes aren't new news. A 2021 California report tied them to hyperactivity and behavioral issues in kids. Some, like Red No. 3, have been flagged for cancer risks in animal studies. Since the 1950s, their use has skyrocketed 500%, a trend that has worried health experts. Democrats have a track record of tackling this kind of thing: President John F. Kennedy tightened U.S. Food and Drug Administration rules in the '60s; the agency banned dyes like Red No. 1 over possible liver damage. In 1990, bipartisan support got Red No. 3 out of cosmetics. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, even signed a 2024 law banning six dyes in school lunches. This isn't a partisan issue — it's about keeping Americans, especially American kids, safe. Yes, we know RFK Jr.'s name can make some Democrats twitch, especially with his history of vaccine skepticism which certainly misses the mark. But dismissing this dye ban because it aligns with his agenda would be throwing out a good idea for no reason. The science is solid and the politics are too. A 2023 YouGov poll found 66% of Americans, including 62% of Democrats, want stricter rules on food additives. A 2024 Rasmussen Reports survey showed 71% of parents — across party lines — support banning dyes linked to health risks. Democrats can score points here: Voters, especially younger ones and parents, are all in for cleaner food. In a 2025 Pew Research Center survey, 78% of Gen Z and Millennials said they'd back candidates prioritizing public health. Supporting Luna's bill is a no-brainer for Dems looking to connect with their base and swing voters. Globally, the U.S. is behind the curve on this vital health issue. The European Union slaps warning labels on foods with Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6 for their impact on kids' behavior. Countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Norway have either banned these dyes or pushed companies to use natural options like beet juice or turmeric. Big brands like Kraft have already reformulated products for those markets, so why not here? Luna's bill sets a deadline of Dec. 31, 2026. We think that's a reasonable timeline for billion-dollar brands. This would seem an especially ideal opportunity for Democrats, with their history of fighting for consumer safety, to join Republicans and score a bipartisan win for the wellbeing of all America — and help reestablish their consumer-oriented brand. The data's clear, the voters are on board, and other countries are already there. Indeed, a majority of states are already moving to impose artificial dye bans of their own and not just on food products. The legislation may pose challenges for products like Lucky Charms breakfast cereal or Cheetos chips as they switch to more natural alternatives but that seems a small price to pay to address the various health threats associated with synthetic food dyes. _____
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
I gave up artificial food dyes for a month. It was harder than I thought.
I'll be the first to admit that prior to this project, I did not give food dyes much thought. After all, I eat, shop and cook pretty healthily. I'm a lifelong vegetarian turned vaguely pescatarian, I shop organic whenever possible (at the very least for the Dirty Dozen), I frequent the farmer's market, and I actually enjoy eating all the weird types of plant-based protein. But I'm also a mom of two young kids, and therein, as I quickly learned when I began my first day of eliminating all artificial food dyes from my life, lies the rub. As I whirred my way through my fridge, pantry and medicine cabinet, I was alarmed by how many of my kids' go-tos — mostly treats, but also things like pickles and Tylenol — include synthetic additives like Red Dye No. 40 and Green Dye No. 3. What surprised me even more, though, was the flip side: There was a whole category of neon kid foods I had assumed I'd need to eliminate (mac and cheese, Goldfish crackers, etc.) that turned out to have no artificial food dyes at all thanks to naturally bright colorants like turmeric. Phew. Why try to avoid or eliminate synthetic food dyes in the first place? Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would ban the dye known as Red No. 3, which is petroleum-based and found in common foods like frosting, fruit cocktail and gummies. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently took it a step further, announcing that the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services will eliminate all petroleum-based artificial food dyes from foods sold in the U.S. The primary concern with these dyes is that consumption of them has been linked to behavioral problems in some children, according to analysis from the State of California. Then there's the issue that, while a dye like Red 40, for example, is not currently listed as a carcinogen itself, it does include benzene, which has been linked to increased cancer risk. Plus, these dyes are derived from petroleum. In an era of omnipresent and often ingested microplastics, did I really want to be feeding my kids this stuff? Of course not, I thought. But I wasn't sure how feasible it would be to swap them all out. Where to start? The Center for Science in the Public Interest shares a starter list of common foods that include synthetic dyes, so I stormed through my kitchen and bathroom in search of those and to read all the other labels I encountered. Then I set out for our local Kroger to find the necessary swaps and was only somewhat successful. Since dye-free alternatives weren't always readily available there, I also had to squeeze in a trip to the health food store. Then there are all the difficulties of sourcing dye-free in the wild, like at the gas station next to my son's taekwondo class, where he often grabs a Gatorade. Most notably, our dye-free month coincided with a family trip to North Carolina, and travel definitely put the difficulty of finding alternatives into perspective. It also meant passing up this pretty (but dye-enhanced) sea glass candy. Here are the main food dye culprits I discovered in my family's food rotation, and what I ended up replacing them with. In my research, I discovered that most of the major pickle companies, including Mt. Olive, do offer a dye-free version, but only the Vlasic one was available at my Kroger. I was interested in figuring out whether the dye-free versions would all be more expensive, as NPR's recent reporting seems to indicate, but it was impossible to find an exact dye-free/with-dye comparison within the same brand at the same store. Among Target's wide variety of Vlasic options, price variations are only a matter of cents. So the main reason to skip the swap seems to be if you really, really want your pickles to be neon. Surprise! Who knew my '90s favorite kid drink, Capri Sun, was actually dye-free? Whether we were headed to sports practice or the airport, juice-like drinks marketed to kids, from a rainbow of Gatorades to Sunny D (which includes Yellow 5 and Yellow 6), were items that kept popping up during this experiment. Luckily, my sons were not at all fazed by the (equally sugary, I'm sure) dye-free swap options. The Bubly Burst was a particular hit; it's colored with carrot juice concentrate and is compellingly bright pink. In this mom's opinion, Lily's gummies, colored with vegetable dyes, taste better. The downsides were price (Lily's gummies were $2.50 for one measly pouch at Kroger, whereas Welch's cost $6 for 22 pouches) and availability: Welch's fruit snacks are my kids' favorites to grab at the airport to help their ears pop during takeoff and landing. Sadly, the likes of Lily's have not expanded to the national airport market (yet!). Lily's gummy bears also softened the blow of having to ditch our stash of Blue 1-enhanced Airheads. We have been potty training my youngest, and M&Ms have been a hugely helpful tiny treat. My little one gets two M&Ms when he pees in the potty, three for a poop. I am not above a bribe that makes my life easier! He did not notice at ALL when I swapped his reward, and I'm now obsessed with these better-tasting (to me), off-brand, all-natural alternatives. They're colored using vegetables, and they even use real vanilla. But alas, this was a swap that required a trip to the natural foods store, and I couldn't find them at the airport. The spicy El Yucateca was a stealth culprit; I was surprised to see 'Yellow 5 and Blue 1' listed in the ingredients list. Why is it necessary to dye green peppers green? Luckily, Marie Sharp's variation made for a tasty, dye-free substitute. Ah, the problematic pièce de résistance of the food dye swap-out. My kids love grape Tylenol, but it's colored with Red 33 and Blue 1. When I got the dye-free kind and offered it to my son after a dental procedure, the prospect of sucking down non-purple medication elicited plenty of whines and a lot of pushback. Which led me to … I know I'm not alone as a conscientious yet kinda lazy parent. And while this swap-out experiment was, for the most part, straightforward, the somewhat difficult parts of it (travel, Tylenol) left me asking: How worried do I really have to be about these food dyes? Do I have to keep pushing dye-free Tylenol if the bright purple version makes my life easier? 'It's not a deal breaker at all,' Jamie Alan, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Michigan State University, tells Yahoo Life. When it comes to synthetic food dyes, 'a small, limited dose will likely have no effects on the vast majority of children.' The primary risk to watch for, Alan explains, is the one found in the California report: the fact that 'some food dyes have been linked to neurobehavioral issues and hyperactivity.' But that's only in some kids, and as always it's important to make decisions based on your own individual child's health and behavior (and in tandem with your child's medical care providers) rather than based on what might work best for another child — or worse, what you read on some blog. Alan provides a few helpful suggestions for parents and other individuals who do want to reduce artificial food dyes in their kitchens, bathroom cabinets and lives overall. The first step? Actually reading what you're about to buy or consume. 'Checking the label is important,' Alan says. One smart hack is shopping imported (easier said than done during 2025 tariff days, we know), since 'many other countries have already banned some of these dyes," Alan notes. "Checking the aisles for imported products, like drinks and candies, might be useful." Overall, your best bet is to pay attention to both the ingredients your family consumes and your child's behavior — something we parents should probably be doing anyway, food dyes or no food dyes. But don't stress too much about it. 'Not all children are sensitive to these dyes,' Alan reiterates, 'but there are some children who are very sensitive to these dyes when consumed.' As for me, I'm 100% going to stick with the vast majority of the food swaps I stocked up on in my kitchen — all those treats and pickles taste just as good without the additives. But I'll likely go back to buying the purple Tylenol.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
I gave up artificial food dyes for a month. It was harder than I thought.
I'll be the first to admit that prior to this project, I did not give food dyes much thought. After all, I eat, shop and cook pretty healthily. I'm a lifelong vegetarian turned vaguely pescatarian, I shop organic whenever possible (at the very least for the Dirty Dozen), I frequent the farmer's market, and I actually enjoy eating all the weird types of plant-based protein. But I'm also a mom of two young kids, and therein, as I quickly learned when I began my first day of eliminating all artificial food dyes from my life, lies the rub. As I whirred my way through my fridge, pantry and medicine cabinet, I was alarmed by how many of my kids' go-tos — mostly treats, but also things like pickles and Tylenol — include synthetic additives like Red Dye No. 40 and Green Dye No. 3. What surprised me even more, though, was the flip side: There was a whole category of neon kid foods I had assumed I'd need to eliminate (mac and cheese, Goldfish crackers, etc.) that turned out to have no artificial food dyes at all thanks to naturally bright colorants like turmeric. Phew. Why try to avoid or eliminate synthetic food dyes in the first place? Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would ban the dye known as Red No. 3, which is petroleum-based and found in common foods like frosting, fruit cocktail and gummies. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently took it a step further, announcing that the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services will eliminate all petroleum-based artificial food dyes from foods sold in the U.S. The primary concern with these dyes is that consumption of them has been linked to behavioral problems in some children, according to analysis from the State of California. Then there's the issue that, while a dye like Red 40, for example, is not currently listed as a carcinogen itself, it does include benzene, which has been linked to increased cancer risk. Plus, these dyes are derived from petroleum. In an era of omnipresent and often ingested microplastics, did I really want to be feeding my kids this stuff? Of course not, I thought. But I wasn't sure how feasible it would be to swap them all out. Where to start? The Center for Science in the Public Interest shares a starter list of common foods that include synthetic dyes, so I stormed through my kitchen and bathroom in search of those and to read all the other labels I encountered. Then I set out for our local Kroger to find the necessary swaps and was only somewhat successful. Since dye-free alternatives weren't always readily available there, I also had to squeeze in a trip to the health food store. Then there are all the difficulties of sourcing dye-free in the wild, like at the gas station next to my son's taekwondo class, where he often grabs a Gatorade. Most notably, our dye-free month coincided with a family trip to North Carolina, and travel definitely put the difficulty of finding alternatives into perspective. It also meant passing up this pretty (but dye-enhanced) sea glass candy. Here are the main food dye culprits I discovered in my family's food rotation, and what I ended up replacing them with. In my research, I discovered that most of the major pickle companies, including Mt. Olive, do offer a dye-free version, but only the Vlasic one was available at my Kroger. I was interested in figuring out whether the dye-free versions would all be more expensive, as NPR's recent reporting seems to indicate, but it was impossible to find an exact dye-free/with-dye comparison within the same brand at the same store. Among Target's wide variety of Vlasic options, price variations are only a matter of cents. So the main reason to skip the swap seems to be if you really, really want your pickles to be neon. Surprise! Who knew my '90s favorite kid drink, Capri Sun, was actually dye-free? Whether we were headed to sports practice or the airport, juice-like drinks marketed to kids, from a rainbow of Gatorades to Sunny D (which includes Yellow 5 and Yellow 6), were items that kept popping up during this experiment. Luckily, my sons were not at all fazed by the (equally sugary, I'm sure) dye-free swap options. The Bubly Burst was a particular hit; it's colored with carrot juice concentrate and is compellingly bright pink. In this mom's opinion, Lily's gummies, colored with vegetable dyes, taste better. The downsides were price (Lily's gummies were $2.50 for one measly pouch at Kroger, whereas Welch's cost $6 for 22 pouches) and availability: Welch's fruit snacks are my kids' favorites to grab at the airport to help their ears pop during takeoff and landing. Sadly, the likes of Lily's have not expanded to the national airport market (yet!). Lily's gummy bears also softened the blow of having to ditch our stash of Blue 1-enhanced Airheads. We have been potty training my youngest, and M&Ms have been a hugely helpful tiny treat. My little one gets two M&Ms when he pees in the potty, three for a poop. I am not above a bribe that makes my life easier! He did not notice at ALL when I swapped his reward, and I'm now obsessed with these better-tasting (to me), off-brand, all-natural alternatives. They're colored using vegetables, and they even use real vanilla. But alas, this was a swap that required a trip to the natural foods store, and I couldn't find them at the airport. The spicy El Yucateca was a stealth culprit; I was surprised to see 'Yellow 5 and Blue 1' listed in the ingredients list. Why is it necessary to dye green peppers green? Luckily, Marie Sharp's variation made for a tasty, dye-free substitute. Ah, the problematic pièce de résistance of the food dye swap-out. My kids love grape Tylenol, but it's colored with Red 33 and Blue 1. When I got the dye-free kind and offered it to my son after a dental procedure, the prospect of sucking down non-purple medication elicited plenty of whines and a lot of pushback. Which led me to … I know I'm not alone as a conscientious yet kinda lazy parent. And while this swap-out experiment was, for the most part, straightforward, the somewhat difficult parts of it (travel, Tylenol) left me asking: How worried do I really have to be about these food dyes? Do I have to keep pushing dye-free Tylenol if the bright purple version makes my life easier? 'It's not a deal breaker at all,' Jamie Alan, an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Michigan State University, tells Yahoo Life. When it comes to synthetic food dyes, 'a small, limited dose will likely have no effects on the vast majority of children.' The primary risk to watch for, Alan explains, is the one found in the California report: the fact that 'some food dyes have been linked to neurobehavioral issues and hyperactivity.' But that's only in some kids, and as always it's important to make decisions based on your own individual child's health and behavior (and in tandem with your child's medical care providers) rather than based on what might work best for another child — or worse, what you read on some blog. Alan provides a few helpful suggestions for parents and other individuals who do want to reduce artificial food dyes in their kitchens, bathroom cabinets and lives overall. The first step? Actually reading what you're about to buy or consume. 'Checking the label is important,' Alan says. One smart hack is shopping imported (easier said than done during 2025 tariff days, we know), since 'many other countries have already banned some of these dyes," Alan notes. "Checking the aisles for imported products, like drinks and candies, might be useful." Overall, your best bet is to pay attention to both the ingredients your family consumes and your child's behavior — something we parents should probably be doing anyway, food dyes or no food dyes. But don't stress too much about it. 'Not all children are sensitive to these dyes,' Alan reiterates, 'but there are some children who are very sensitive to these dyes when consumed.' As for me, I'm 100% going to stick with the vast majority of the food swaps I stocked up on in my kitchen — all those treats and pickles taste just as good without the additives. But I'll likely go back to buying the purple Tylenol.
