W. Virginia rushes to strip the artificial dyes of school meals before the start of lessons

When school begins in Virginia-Western next month, 240,000 students in large and small districts will notice something that is missing at their cafeteria plateaus.

No more cups of fruit in red jell -o, a yogurt lined with glitter with shiny shades and fresh Doritos Ranch – all foods based on synthetic dyes.

In their place, these will be foods that contain colors made only from natural sources – such as vegetables, spices and seeds – after the governor of Virginia -Western, Patrick Morrisey, signed a new radical law in March, prohibit seven artificial colors from school meals.

Other states have promulgated similar laws that would remove the artificial dyes of school meals, but the action of Virginia-Western is the first to take effect, from August 1. It sparked a four -month sprint which left the directors of state and local nutrition.

“I think the initial reaction was like” Wow, what are we going to do? “” Said Tony Crago, director of nutrition for children for the Virginia-Western Ministry of Education. “Where are we starting?”

Throughout the state, the managers of school food programs have traveled the district grocery lists for dozens of products that contained all traces of oil -based synthetic dyes, including Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2 and Green 3.

“When it was achieved, it was shocking,” said Diane Miller, who directs the nutrition of children and food services for Kanawha county schools in the central state of the State. “We started to realize that these dyes were much more than your cereals.”

The prohibition of Western Virginia in synthetic dyes has been applauded by the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who managed to put pressure on food manufacturers to accept to remove the artificial colors of their products. The law focuses first on dyes in school foods, followed by a second action which prohibits the colors plus two curators of all the food sold in the state from 2028.

This decision aims to interrupt the potential effects of the health of dyes, which have been linked to neurobehaviotic problems, such as hyperactivity and attention problems, in some children. This is part of a broader emphasis on the limitation of artificial ingredients in food, Morrisey said in March.

“By eliminating the harmful chemicals of our food, we take measures to improve the health of our residents and protect our children from significant long-term health and learning challenges,” he said.

Health defenders have long called for the elimination of dyes, citing mixed evidence of potential damage. The United States Food and Drug Administration has said that color additives are safe when they are “used correctly”, in the quantities and products approved by the agency. Most children have no problem when consuming dyes, the agency adds: “But some evidence suggests that some children can be sensitive to them.”

More recently, however, the FDA commissioner Marty Makary joined Kennedy in the thrust to get the artificial dyes out of food, despite limited evidence of health effects.

“When you get rid of oil -based dyes, children will not suddenly be healthy,” said Makary on a recent podcast. “We are not going to approach the fact that 30% of the children in our country have a prediabetes by simply removing oil -based food colors. But these are steps in the right direction. ”

Nutrition experts agree that the abolition of artificial colors from food does not deal with the main engines of American chronic health problems. These come largely from ingredients such as added sugars, sodium and saturated fats.

But dyes are “characteristics of ultra -proposed food,” said Jerold Mande, a nutrition expert from Harvard University and former federal food policy. Targets could be a way to let companies know “that the way they make food is unacceptable,” he said.

Some suppliers had already withdrawn artificial dyes from certain school foods, exchanging them against colorful products with beet juice or turmeric, said Hollie Best, director of food services for Wood County schools in Parkersburg, which has 11,000 children in 27 schools. Overall, Best said that she had only withdrawn five foods from her menus.

General Mills said that 98% of its products for schools were already made without prohibited colors. The company “will comply” with the law of Virginie-Western immediately and plans to withdraw color food dyes national by next summer, said Mollie Wulff, company spokesperson.

In the Miller district, with 23,000 students in 67 schools, the new law affects approximately 10% of the foods served, she said. She expected certain foods to contain artificial colors, such as strawberry milk and pop tartes. Others were surprising, such as pickles, vinaigrette and certain snack shavings.

“People were like:” Oh my God, more Doritos? “” Said Miller. The popular flavor of the Ranch Cool contains red dyes 40, blue 1 and yellow 5.

The challenge is to find substitutes that will always call on children, said Miller.

“Because the last thing we need is to choose not to participate in our school lunch program,” she said, adding that schools offer many students their healthiest meals of the day.

Parents of children with sensitivities or allergies to artificial dyes had already raised concerns, according to school food directors. But for others, the presence of synthetic colors in school meals was not a problem. Chris Derico, nutritional director of schools in the county of Barbour, with 2,000 students, said that few parents seemed worried about dyes.

“They would be a minority, I think,” he said. “In rural Virginia-Western, I don’t think it’s really on radar screens.”

In the Best district, the dyes had already emerged from the food written during the summer session in July. This did not make much difference for Lilith Wilson, 9, who said that his meal of a sub-Sandwich with meatballs, sweet potatoes fries and ice cream was “really good”.

When asked if she liked school lunches in general, the new fourth year student echoes the feelings of polenting children everywhere: “Sometimes no, sometimes I do it. It simply depends on what it is. ”

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