Did RFK Jr. really ban food dyes?

[Anonymous]

Many of my "crunchy" friends (and very annoying sister in law) are gloating about how RFK Jr. was such a great pick because he banned food dyes. But everything I'm seeing is saying he just asked manufacturers to stop adding them to food. Does this have any teeth?

[Anonymous]

No. He got companies to give "their word" that they will phase them out without any actual legal requirement. To ban them, they would need to have solid research showing each dye is bad at the levels present in food to have it hold legally.

There is so much misinformation on this, including that Europe bans food dyes (not true!)

And also distraction. We have PFAs in our food, farming soul, and drinking water. These do have serious health implications including cancer and fertility impact. They are regulated by EPA and they are deregulating at EPA. Food dyea are, frankly, a distraction from actual chemicals we cannot avoid ingesting causing us harm.

Furthermore, food dyes will not do jack for actual health concerns causing disease like access to affordable, fresh, whole healthy food in food deserts.

[Anonymous]

It will also be a very long process to phase them out. For example, just obtaining enough natural color plant products to use for dye will be difficult, and probably expensive.

[Anonymous]

Food companies pinky promise to *voluntarily* phase them out. Really. They are on it over a ten year time frame. They promise.

Banning these would require legislation and rule making— two things the Trump Admin seems incapable of doing.

[Anonymous]

No!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It will also be a very long process to phase them out. For example, just obtaining enough natural color plant products to use for dye will be difficult, and probably expensive.

And also, realistically, will not happen because the colors will have more variation and be less vibrant and less visually appealing causing loss of sales.... And loss of sales without legal requirement means they really won't in the end.

[Anonymous]

It’s a “voluntary” ban. The last time that happened, the companies chose to ignore the FDA recommendation to remove food coloring from food. Likely to happen this time around again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a “voluntary” ban. The last time that happened, the companies chose to ignore the FDA recommendation to remove food coloring from food. Likely to happen this time around again.

Can you point me to the last time this happened?

[Anonymous]

Also want to point out trumpet fired everyone in the fda who would be checking on this voluntary slow unroll of the food dyes, so who will ever really know?
It’s just smoke and mirrors.

[Anonymous]

I can’t even be interested in confirming it because it doesn’t matter if we’re not testing our food for salmonella and E. coli and reducing meat and food production oversight. His other negative decisions are much more consequential.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It will also be a very long process to phase them out. For example, just obtaining enough natural color plant products to use for dye will be difficult, and probably expensive.

And also, realistically, will not happen because the colors will have more variation and be less vibrant and less visually appealing causing loss of sales.... And loss of sales without legal requirement means they really won't in the end.

Realistically, companies could do it tomorrow, since these dyes are banned in other countries so they already have alternatives worked out. And consumers would get used to changed color palette of food, if every company did it. It wouldn't harm their bottom line at all. But an actual ban would take work and RFK doesn't know how to work, he's never done it. So he's just going to ask nicely and claim success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It will also be a very long process to phase them out. For example, just obtaining enough natural color plant products to use for dye will be difficult, and probably expensive.

And also, realistically, will not happen because the colors will have more variation and be less vibrant and less visually appealing causing loss of sales.... And loss of sales without legal requirement means they really won't in the end.

Realistically, companies could do it tomorrow, since these dyes are banned in other countries so they already have alternatives worked out. And consumers would get used to changed color palette of food, if every company did it. It wouldn't harm their bottom line at all. But an actual ban would take work and RFK doesn't know how to work, he's never done it. So he's just going to ask nicely and claim success.

Actually not all dyes are banned. Europe approves many of the same ones we use as safe and also has other synthetic dyes they use that we don't