Food brands eliminate artificial dyes but Americans like color: NPR

Cupcake frosting and sports drinks – in all their pencil colors – are the last borders of the Nick Scheidler team.

Scheidler directs the development of products at the Sam’s Club of Walmart, which in 2022 was committed – at the end of this year – withdraw dozens of ingredients from its store brand called Member’s Mark. This includes corn syrup with high fructose content, some preservatives and artificial colors.

The latter turned out to be the most delicate.

“Color was a challenge for us,” said Scheidler. “We are not going to send deaf colors to the market, right?”

RIGHT?

The race is now underway, under pressure from the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and certain states. Large food brands undertake to eliminate the synthetic coloring of snacks, candies and cereals: Kraft Heinz, Nestlé, Campbell’s. Even Mars says that he will try a natural color version of M&M.

And they spend millions to prevent buyers from noting the transition to natural dyes, looking for dynamism and saturation to correspond to the old look, brilliant and alive.

This time and money investment – to make natural colors less – it’s worth it? To this diet, the leaders would say: turn off the saga of the Trix cereals.

Advertising on colors, the modern supermarket and the rise of processed foods helped train the expectations of buyers on the appearance of snacks and candies.

Zayrha Rodrigue / NPR

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Zayrha Rodrigue / NPR

How Trix fought

Ten years ago, General Mills made an engaging commitment to eliminate artificial cereal dyes and naturally released Trix with fruits and vegetables. The new version was more dull than the original and lacked the bluish puffs.

And many buyers hated that. A man said The Wall Street Journal The new Trix was “essentially a salad now” because people went to social networks and news to complain.

General Mills capitulated and brought back the original Trix, artificial dyes and everything.

“And this is really a problem because General Mills has known this as a problem of demand from consumers: this is what consumers want,” explains Thomas Galligan with the Center for Science In the Public Interest, which pleads against synthetic dyes on health problems, especially in children.

The Flip Trix has set the tone. Thus, when Kellogg then dyed loot loops with spices and juices, he did it in Canada, but not the United States Mars eliminated artificial colors in M&M in Europe, but not the United States, the all-American, neon kraft, Mac and cheese carefully removed remarkable synthetic dyes.

The Sam club used beet powder and spices to give its quinoa tokens of reddish colored.

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Is the love of brilliant foods nature or education?

The dietary dye dates back centuries. Think of dairy producers adding spices to cheese to make it more yellow.

In the United States, railways and the spread of processed foods had a great impact, explains the food historian Ai Hisano. When Florida farmers had to compete with California farmers, they started dyeing their oranges to appear more orange. When the butter had to compete with margarine, its yellow color obtained a richer boost.

The introduction of color advertising and modern supermarket began to train the American buyer to expect, explains Hisano, author of Visualize the taste: how the business has changed the appearance of what you eat.

“The marketing and consumption of processed food regularly educate consumers to which it should look like food,” she said.

We learn that strawberry drinks are paler than real strawberries, marinated peppers purchased in stores are more colorful than those made homemade, mint ice cream is abnormal green and blue raspberry is a Recognizable flavor, although it is not a real bay that exists.

Childhood snacks, in particular, form lifetime habits – and children love things in bright colors. (Remember Trix?) Recent research by Galligan and other scientists have found synthetic food colors in almost 20% of foods and packaged drinks sold in the United States, especially those marketed with children.

Over time, between natural instincts and marketing education, data show that people first eat their eyes – and colors change the way we assess the taste before taking a bite or a sip.

“People think that food is better if it is in bright colors,” explains Marion Nestlé, a long -standing nutritionist from public health that has followed research on food colors. “The more vivid colors are perceived as a larger tasting, whether the taste changes or not.”

Over time, between natural instincts and marketing education, data suggest that people fall for bright colors in food.

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No dusty dust

When the Scheidler team of the Sam’s Club began to test natural dyes in snacks and candies, they turned to some of the proven options. Turmeric makes things yellow; Beets produce red; A seed called Annatto can give orange; Blue can come from Spirulina, an algae.

But the addition of dyes with a tasty taste to cakes like cakes or candies often requires hiding their flavors with sweeteners or other new ingredients. Natural dyes tend to be more expensive and more capricious, less stable.

“There have been so many revisions,” said Scheidler. Sometimes natural dyes do not stay. Or sometimes, “the colors were in a mute, and they have become continuously clearer over time.”

In one case – a frozen star cookie – it took 30 times more concentration of natural colors to obtain the right vibrant shade, known as Scheidler, because of the way the dyes react to the fat content of the frosting.

Does the bustle are really worth it, again, in what seems to be a new turning point on synthetic dyes in the American zeitgeist?

The irony is that without bright color, many snacks and cereals look faded and, clearly treated. Sports drinks can look troubled and dusty. And as long as rival options also seem in bright colors, many food manufacturers are not willing to be the first to go dull.

In June, Sam’s Club was 96% of the path to its goal of ridding its food of artificial colors and other ingredients. Scheidler expects to reach the end of the end of the year. Along the way, his team organized a regular survey of buyers on the updated ingredients – and their comments are unwavering:

“Color and appearance are always very important parts of what they are looking for in a product,” he said.