Since became secretary of health and social services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has aimed to color the compounds of food, drinks and medical products, saying that they can compromise people’s health. In the recently published Make Make Healthy America report, Kennedy and others mention food coloring and note data connecting some to children’s behavioral problems. HHS has already taken measures to prohibit certain synthetic food dyes and replace them with natural alternatives, and plans to introduce more naturally derived options.
Synthetic dyes are generally made from oil and concocted in the laboratories. Their rich and deep shades are often not in nature. (Think of jel -o red bright – courttisy of red 40 and Mountain Dew, made neon by yellow 5.)
The transition of artificial food colors to natural alternatives had already started well before the Maha report, with the rise of organic and more “natural” options. In 2016, Kraft deleted the artificial colors, flavors and conservatives of his cheese macaroni, and General Mills announced that he would eliminate these colors from his cereals and other foods provided to schools this summer, while JM Smucker Co. and Kraft-Heinz were committed to ceasing to use synthetic dyes in their products here 2027.
Since January, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved four new color additives for food and prohibits one, and has announced a plan to work with food manufacturers to voluntarily eliminate all states, such as California, Virginia-Western, Virginia-Western, in particular in schools, especially in school programs.
But industry experts say that the transition to natural dyes is delivered with a unique set of challenges – and may not always be safer for human health. Here is what you need to know about food colors that soon arrive in your pantry and refrigerator.
Just because they are “natural” does not make them safer
The FDA has different processes in place to assess synthetic and natural dyes. Synthetic dyes are highly regulated and companies are required to send samples of each batch of colors they make to the FDA for inspection and assurance that colors comply with the strict safety specifications established by the agency.
Natural dyes, on the other hand, are subject to a self-certifying process in which the burden of the inspection is intended for manufacturers to attest that their additives are in accordance with the regulations specified, explains Paul Manning, president and chief executive department of sensinated technologies, one of the largest manufacturers of natural food additives in the United States which also produce synthetic food colorings.
There are now four natural colors approved for use in food: Galdieria blue extract, which comes from red algae; Extract from Fleur de Pois butterfly, which produces shades of bright blue with dark and green purple; calcium phosphate, which makes white for candies and chicken ready to eat; And Gardenia Blue, which is extracted from the Gardenia Fruit.
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But their natural sources of color do not necessarily mean that they are safer or without potentially harmful compound. Natural sources can be treated with pesticides and herbicides, and are also subject to contamination by bacteria and other pathogens, adds Manning. To strip the natural products of these contaminants, manufacturers treat them with various solvents, some of which could remain in the final coloring and contribute to negative health effects, says Manning.
Another potential drawback: you generally need more natural color than synthetic color to do the same shade in a final food. “As a rule, it takes eight parts of a natural color to obtain the same color result in a finished food product,” explains Manning.
Make natural coloring safer
To better understand how widespread these contaminants are in natural dyes, tests formulated on the raw material products from producers and have found “alarming failure rate” of dangerous quantities of solvents and pesticides, explains Manning. “When we told them that they were not in the specifications established by American law and that we did not want them, most often, we have heard that they would sell to someone else.”
In an effort to distinguish its standards for natural dietary dyes, Sensit developed certainly, a certification program that it uses to assess the raw materials it gets for natural food colors. Certain certification means that natural coloring has been inspected and has passed the tests deemed safe for human health.
Transition challenges far from synthetic dyes
“If everyone in the United States wanted to convert to natural colors tomorrow, this could not be done with the existing supply chain,” explains Manning. Currently, he says that around 60% of the company’s food products are natural and 40% are synthetic.
There are manufacturing challenges. “The offer needs time to make up for demand,” he says. Indeed, plants and crops that are at the origin of naturally derivative dyes require time to develop, but require planning to secure farmers who know how to make them grow large enough. Manning says that it is generally about five years to increase a new source of natural coloring.
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Part of this rise in power concerns the fact that very little of natural natural colors additives recently approved in the United States are cultivated in the United States, therefore land, resources and farmers must be recruited and brought aboard the world to meet higher demand.
Sense, for example, made the extract of butterfly pea in the blue mouth, which grows in Southeast Asia. Recently increased prices on products abroad, as well as continuous growth in the demand for natural food dyes worldwide, could grant an even higher burden on companies passing from synthetic to natural dyes, explains Manning. (About 80% of the European food market is based on natural dyes, for example.)
It is also difficult to match the color obtained by synthetic dyes, and Manning says that its customers have reported a drop in sales when the intensity of the natural coloring is insufficient. People even report different tastes with naturally dyed foods, even if the coloring should not affect the taste. “The challenge will not only concern the supply chain, and not only on quality control, but on the search for technical solutions to recreate the appearance of synthetic colors,” he says.
