Editor's note: This is an op-ed on food safety from Marta L. Tellado, Ph.D., president and CEO of Consumer Reports, the nonprofit and nonpartisan product-testing organization founded in 1936.
Chemicals like Red 40 and Yellow 5 sound innocuous enough. But recent research indicates that these and other common additives may do more than simply alter the color of our snacks — they may be hampering our children's health and interfering with their learning.
A number of popular food dyes have been linked to childhood neurobehavioral issues, decreased attention spans, and even cancer. That's why, in September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bipartisan, first-in-the-nation bill to ban six of these potentially dangerous chemicals from food served in public schools across the state.
Why are these dyes allowed in our food in the first place? The answer lies with the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has yet to confirm a connection between synthetic dyes and childhood health challenges — but that may have more to do with sluggishness than science.
Among the six chemicals banned from California's school cafeterias, the one most recently appraised by the FDA, Yellow 6, was reevaluated in 1986. Red 40 hasn't been assessed by the FDA for food health risks since 1971; Blue 1 and Yellow 5 were last assessed for food even further back, in 1969, the same year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
Needless to say, our ability to detect links between chemicals and health concerns has grown dramatically over the decades — as evidenced by the fact that the European Union and some other countries heavily restricted or banned many of these food dyes years ago.
In the absence of federal action, it took a 2021 review by state scientists in California to make a connection that had already been addressed around the world: evidence of "a relationship between food dye exposure and adverse behavioral outcomes in children," as the study's authors described it.
Since there are no nutritional benefits to food dyes, those findings have left many with a question that has motivated action in the years since: Why risk it, especially for children?
By stepping up where the FDA lagged behind, the coalition that made California's law possible — dedicated scientists, parent groups, and elected officials, as well as organizations like the Environmental Working Group and Consumer Reports, which cosponsored the bill — may have broken the dam.
Pennsylvania is among the states now weighing a similar proposal. And the same week that the California law was signed, the FDA held a public meeting on dyes and other food additives. The agency is now soliciting public comments on a new review process for these additives — the first step on a road that could very well lead to federal action.
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In the meantime, the onus is on food manufacturers to comply with California's law — if they want to stay in the state's public lunchrooms, they have until Dec. 31, 2027, to replace the banned dyes with substitutes like carrot or beet juice that are already used in European markets. But consumers interested in protecting the health of America's children have a job to do, too: make their voices heard.
California's bipartisan victory may have set the wheels in motion elsewhere in the country, but parents shouldn't have to wait for the gears of government to turn in order to keep kids safe from harmful chemicals. The three companies that dominate the school food market — Aramark, Sodexo, and Chartwells — could take action now to rid America's lunch trays of these potentially dangerous dyes before they are legally required to do so.
That's exactly what our new campaign at Consumer Reports is calling for — but it will only happen if a critical mass of consumers apply pressure on these companies to be proactive.
For now, parents seeking to avoid these chemicals can start at the grocery store, where sodas, candy, highly processed foods, and generic and store brands are particularly likely to include harmful dyes. Manufacturers are already required to list them in their products' ingredients — so we can all be on the lookout for Red 40, Yellow 5 and 6, Blue 1 and 2, and Green 3.
From the grocery aisle, to the boardroom, to the halls of Congress and the FDA, we can each do our part to help insist on the healthier future that all our kids deserve.
Marta L. Tellado, Ph.D., is the president and CEO of Consumer Reports and the author of Buyer Aware: Harnessing Our Consumer Power for a Safe, Fair, and Transparent Marketplace. Consumer Reports' campaign petition on eliminating food dyes from schools may be signed here.
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