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My understanding is that there are somewhat more restrictive regulations on food dyes in the EU compared to the US. But that overall there isn't a big concern a
by fabian2k 1y ago
My understanding is that there are somewhat more restrictive regulations on food dyes in the EU compared to the US. But that overall there isn't a big concern about the majority of these dyes.
There also isn't a fundamental difference between a synthetic and a natural dye. Okay, humans are more likely to have encountered a natural dye during their evolution and adapted to ingesting them. But that is unlikely to matter to all kinds of dyes, and also wouldn't filter out any health effects that don't affect reproductive fitness.
Treating a whole category of molecules this way does not make sense. It makes sense to evaluate the health effects of individual dyes. But that is not unique to synthetic dyes.
- themafia 1y ago> It makes sense to evaluate the health effects of individual dyes I wonder if changing the color of food is actually that important.
- psunavy03 1y agoAh, yes. The "I don't think anyone needs to do this, therefore no one needs to do this" argument.
- themafia 1y agoHardly. I'm openly wondering. If you _need_ to do this, then please, by all means, share that with us here now.
- jabroni_salad 1y agoI was looking at this paper which seems to have a bunch of citations. Different colors are associated with different flavors in certain countries. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13411-015-0031-3#Fig4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13411-015-0031-3#... But yes I think the food color is ultimately important to succeeding in the marketplace and we aren't going to be getting rid of food dyes in manufactured food anytime soon.
- hollerith 1y ago>the food color is ultimately important to succeeding in the marketplace The decision-makers at Walmart seem to believe artificial colors are no longer important to succeeding with Walmart's customers and prospective customers. And clearly they're not important to succeeding at Whole Foods, where all artificial colors have been disallowed for many years.
- ImHereToVote 1y agoWait? If artificial dyes become forbidden. Won't it make competiton easier since your competitors can't use dyes either.
- jabroni_salad 1y agoThere are natural dyes that can be used too.
- bagful 1y agoArtificial colorants make it easier to design visually hyperstimulating foods without having to compromise on flavor. What could the upside for the consumer be, to disrupt our evolved associations between appearance and flavor?
- euroderf 1y agoInquiring minds want to know: have experiments been done on the perception of (say) totally monochromatic Froot Loops, or monochromatic Lucky Charms ? At one point NASA tried out things like blue ham.
- youainti 1y agoIt is if you're trying to sell it. Not dyes, but beer bottle color affects purchasing decisions [0-1]. [0]: https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5710/6/4/64 https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5710/6/4/64 [1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666154324000875?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266615432...
- psunavy03 1y agoBut this is likely also an attempt to market to people who think things like "but I don't want to be exposed to chemicals" while not realizing water is a chemical.
- rovr138 1y agothey might not drink water
- dmix 1y agoMost likely so if they buy their food at walmart.
- pfexec 1y agoIt's extremely presumptuous of you to assume that everyone who shops at Walmart are uneducated simpletons. Maybe they're smarter than you with money. The same box of cereal that costs less than $2 at Walmart is almost $6 at Whole Foods.
- dmix 1y agoI meant overweight not dumb. Fat people (like my dad) don't drink a lot of water, they drink soda and sugar water. And every time I grocery shop at Walmart is pretty noticeable demographic of people buying crates of coke.
- alrs 1y agoThis is the kind of nerd-snark that makes normal people not trust anything from the mouths of "experts." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM
- logicchains 1y ago[flagged]
- 1y ago
- Retric 1y agoThe sheer percentage of artificial food dyes that have been banned suggests otherwise. There’s a long pattern of banning something once enough evidence builds up only to be replaced by something that’s then eventually banded. If there where significant value that might be different, but there isn’t a great argument for experimenting on millions of people here.
- fabian2k 1y agoHow many artificial food dyes have been actually banned? I mean in the time where we actually had some regulations, the old days were quite wild in terms of safety in all areas, so I don't think that would be a useful comparison.
- Retric 1y agoI don’t recall the exact number, but well over half that have been in common use were eventually banned. Edit Prior to this administration: Butter yellow, Green 1, Green 2, Orange 1, Orange 2, Orange B, Red 1, Red 2, Red 4, Red 32, Sudan 1, Violet 1, Yellow 1, Yellow 2, Yellow 3, Yellow 4 + some more in the really early days. EU had a longer list including Titanium dioxide.
- greygoo222 1y agoTitanium dioxide is naturally occurring.
- Retric 1y agoThe poster was using the phrase natural dye. It’s a naturally occurring non organic molecule, but it’s not naturally a white pigment. It takes a lot of processing to get that brilliant white powder and as such it’s not something our ancestors dealt with.
- hollerith 1y agoIt is not naturally occurring in the human diet.
- wnevets 1y ago> My understanding is that there are somewhat more restrictive regulations on food dyes in the EU compared to the US. There isn't. The US's FDA allows fewer of them than the EU's EFSA.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- infecto 1y agoI could not find my reference but I thought it was something more along the lines that either they don’t need to be disclosed in the EU or they go under different safer sounding names.
- colechristensen 1y agoThere are people with allergies to some naturally derived dyes. Annatto (from tree seeds) and carmine (from bugs) in particular. A small number of people get anaphylaxis from carmine.
- KolibriFly 1y agoI think Walmart's move probably isn't about toxicology as much as it is about consumer perception
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoProbably. It's still interesting that Walmart perceives consumer perception to be shifting against synthetic dyes.
- kyleee 1y agoBipartisan issue we can all rally around
- dboreham 1y agoAs someone who has an allergic reaction to one of these dyes, I support their banning. I'm allergic to Yellow #5 (Tartrazine), but not to Tumeric which seems to do just as good as job of making things yellow/orange.
- slowmovintarget 1y agoYeah, Yellow dye #6 may cause testicular cancer, but I can't stand boring looking pastries. Sure people could use saffron, but that's expensive and we have to have cheap and good looking, right? Ban 'em all. If it isn't already in the foods we eat, it doesn't belong.