RFK Jr wants bright artificial dyes out of food. Are Americans ready to let go?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/25/rfk-jr-artificial-food-dyeOpen linkView original on lemmy.world195
Comments85https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/25/rfk-jr-artificial-food-dyeOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
His "point" is that food dyes cause cancer, hyperactivity, and autism. It's a great horror story I'm sure. Not really a point.
Stopped clock. Hell, even a backwards running clock is right ever so often.
... A backwards-running clock is right more often... Unless I'm misreading what you meant.
You're not misreading but you are thinking too much about the analogy.
Reading deeper, some backwards clocks can be an accurate projection of working ones if used with a mirror.
I get it, because we want to do the opposite of what RFK Jr wants the majority of the time.
A backward clock can be an accurate projection of a working one with sufficiently timed strobes
I saw what you wrote before you deleted it and it was ridiculous. I bow to your pedantry.
Also, I laughed way harder than I should have and was too embarrassed to explain to my wife what was so funny.
Its right twice a day every day. Pretty fuckin generous analogy lol
For those interested in the actual science part of the article:
None of this changes the fact that Robert F. Kennedy is a fucking moron.
Agreed. I wonder if he came up with this himself or someone from his team. There are plenty papers that cautiously correlate said dyes with abnormal brain functioning.
And my personal opinion, there isn't any reason for such dyes to exist in food. Candy or soda shouldn't have to look like "Demon Core Green"
So... sugar correlation being taken for dye causation. Ok
Sugar doesn't actually cause ADHD behaviors. There's no casual link between sugar consumption and hyperactivity
https://www.verywellhealth.com/sugar-and-adhd-what-you-should-know-5207992
I never said there is causation. Indeed, I explicitly used the word correlation.
I didn't say you did, did I?
Fair point
I was half expecting you to retort that you didn't say I said you did, haha
Interesting duh moment right.
I hate dyes because they are a form of advertisement.
The answer is yes. Everyone around me thinks the crap they allow in our food is bad for us. Europeans done have the same issues we do with food because they’re much more regulated.
There are probably lots of ways we need to improve our food supply and our health, but focusing on food dyes is at best a trivial part of that.
It starts with the research, the science, to identify actual harmful things and truthful labeling so consumers can be aware and have a choice. It almost certainly reins in marketing and lobbying . This is where he needs to spend time, yet is doing the opposite. Cutting out research, regulations, truthful labeling will have far more harm than tilting at windmills could possibly benefut
Without evidence of course. Just the same lack of critical thinking that RFK has. It "seems bad" and "it's chemicals".
BS.
Avoidance of completely unnecessary chemicals is just reasonable. I don't need to be sold on not adding something that isn't needed. Why would you need proof that being marketed to with bright colors is not worth a health risk?
You're focusing on things that in moderation didn't actually have any negative effects. At the same time, harmful chemicals from deep frying foods that are actually with diseases get a free pass
I agree with banning any dye that has evidence of harm, but let's not get it twisted. Americans are unhealthy because of eating too many calories, too much processed meat, too much fried food. This change won't make any difference
Dyes are unnecessary and should be removed anyhow. No one here is saying everything else you mentioned is less important. All these things would make a difference.
I mean, flavor is unnecessary too, we can drink powder for sustenance
An absolute dogshit comparison. You're really here simping for corporations trying to trick you with dye
I don't eat those dyed processed foods, but most dyes are not harmful when eaten in small quantities, the quantities in foods.
it's this administration. so i'm gonna guess it's because 'pride colored' candies and other foods use them.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23026007/
Just one of many studies that raise concerns. Yes, they pump rats full of a fuckton of these chemicals that no normal human being will ingest. You could say the same thing about tons of other chemicals that have turned out to be carcinogenic. We don't have the funds to give rats/animals normal doses over the course of a normal human lifespan, so pumping high amounts to shorten the duration is the next best thing.
Red has proven to be the most difficult color to synthesize due to how red colors oxidize or break down in the environment. The natural red colors all fade rapidly which makes them poorly suited for industrial purposes.
It's why carmine is a godsend because it's both stable but it breaks down in the environment. It also has an incredibly long history as a food dye and has proven to be safe. Unfortunately it's derived from insects so it's regarded as being... gross? Weird how consumers prefer health consequences over bugs
Well, that and it makes it non-vegitarian. I remember when Starbucks used insect derived dyes and vegetarians were pissed off when they weren't told their drink technically had bug in it.
That said, we eat bugs (and poop, etc) all the time since there's a legal amount you can let slip into food when processing. So eh.
One of the most striking quotes I’ll always remember from a documentary is “natural peanut butter has more bugs in it because natural ingredients always will”. When you’re eating processed peanut spread, the ingredients have gone through a lot more filtering and processing steps and allowed insect parts are lower.
I still eat natural peanut butter though
Gotta love that extra crunch!
And protein. It helps make the peanut butter slightly leaner and have slightly more protein!
Hydrogenated oil vs having to mix? Mix, definitely, unless physical limitations preclude it.
Is the food industry doing this research the way fossil fuel and tobacco did research?
I dont know but didn't big tobacco become a big food company and it then used its discoveries on addiction to enhance its food products
Like a true satan
Are you referring to Philip Morris/Kraft?
ETA idk if Staryucks is still doing it, but several years ago, they were adding extra caffeine to their coffee to make it more addictive.
Lol 😆 @ staryucks
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/09/08/did-tobacco-companies-also-get-us-hooked-on-junk-food-new-research-says-yes/
They mostly divested but the addictive technology remains in their scaly hands. But yes its something like that because they still own some food producers
"Dosage make the poison" comes to mind. If it's safe below those levels... Then it's not harmful. "BUT IT MIGHT BE" is not a coherent argument. I'm not necessarily against banning a substance that has little functional use out of an abundance of caution - but lets not pretend that it's going to save any lives since it's very unlikely to do so.
Just because some turn out later to be carcinogens doesn't make it a valid way to find them.
Sir, this is Lemmy. If the corporations do it, it's bad no matter what it is.
A red dye was recently banned because it was found to be carcinogenic. How many others are as well but just haven't been looked at closely enough.
That is very oversimplified...
Carcinogenic is not "true/false" it is probabilistic. The EU has a lower standard of evidence required for banning a substance than the US. In the EU if there was any evidence at all of it being carcinogenic in animal studies (whether in realistic quantities over realistic time periods or not) means it will be banned (I'm over-simplifying some here as well). The US standards are different.
You could say that this is a better standard as it is more cautious. I may agree. But you can't say "it was banned because it was carcinogenic" without a lot of qualifiers.
There are plenty of qualifiers, thats literally why other countries BAN them.
All a distraction. Yes some of these ideas aren't bad. We don't need this fuckhead to implement them.
That’s why we need this fuckhead to implement them. This fuckhead is doing so many things that will harm and even kill uncountable number of people and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it. Let him waste time on food dyes. Maybe it will help a small number of people who are sensitive but at least he’s not spending his time on something harmful to everyone. Let him distract himself from the evil schemes
RFK JR actually says something intelligent... That's something I never thought I would experience.
I'm ready to make him fight for this, even as I agree with him that those chemicals are an issue. Just not the issue he thinks they are.
The more time he sinks into this, the less he has to throw disabled people off of bridges.
The dyes must be harmful to the worms
I'm sure it wasn't intentional
This reminds me of the study that said that people drive more colorful cars in times when the economic outlooks are better.
So, the colorfulness expresses their character and their outlook towards a positive future.
A colleague told me of a similar study that related shorter skirt lengths on women to better economic outlooks.
Let's fix this society, if only for shorter skirts.
hell yeah!
huh, when i learned about the hemline index i learned about it in the inverse, but basically what i learned about macro is that it's bullshit.
from the article you linked
very interesting, now i know the name for it :)
I want a roadkill-eating, worm-brained psychopathic junkie out of my food, can I have that?
Curious who's gonna regulate it after they knee capped the FDA
We can't get labels that say what's actually in our food, and chuckle fuck thinks he's gonna ban food coloring.
Only decades after other countries kicked them out. Some of those common American food dyes are illegal even in China, of all places.
Why not disallow all food dye, not just the bright ones?
Beet juice is a bright dye, but it’s also a food. Some dyes are entirely harmless. I believe the rule they’re talking about affects artificial dyes, not bright dyes, and the headline is mistaken.
For example, some red dyes are sourced from petroleum instead of edible substances.
so are skin creams and lipstick btw and i'm pretty sure these are non-toxic
if you wanna know more, look up "paraffine wax". it's literally what skin creams are mostly made of.
Skin safe is not necessarily ingestion safe
Harmless by themselves, perhaps, but if they make some ultraprocessed foods more appealing are they entirely harmless? I think it's fine to make beet juice in the kitchen for our own uses.
I mean, the fact that there is stuff for sale in the US with the label saying "scientists in California have proven this causes cancer" is proof enough that even a crazy nutter like RFK can be sometimes right.
The Prop 65 warning is on so many things because it's way cheaper to put the label on everything, regardless of whether it's technically true or not, than it is to run the tests to prove that the specific substances called out are not present.
Is this comment about the Prop 65 warnings? Prop 65 is useless, because the dose is the poison and it says nothing about that. Putting warnings up almost everywhere means people will (and often should) ignore them.
I'm ready for that psycho to die. I don't care how he goes. But he does need to go. Go on down to the lower room. Where his drug addled cracked out demented ass belongs.
I mean I don't care. At least then I wouldn't have vaguely orange spoons after making Mac-n-cheese.
You don't care? You don't care that you are being poisoned but you're kinda happy your spoons won't have a funny color.
Is this the American Educational system in practice?
NGL, I'm currently working on a nice early heart attack. Cancer is like the 4th or 5th way I'm least interested in dying.
Edgy... 🙄
What the fuck is wrong with you man. I'm an American. I can't afford to live past 50.
Fun fact, though, Kraft Mac and Cheese removed artificial dyes in 2013, didn't tell anyone at first, and waited to see if consumers would complain. Nobody did, so they announced that they were able to replace the artificial yellow colors with really colorful spices like annatto and turmeric.
So you're still gonna get staining. Turmeric gets in everything.
Yeah but Kraft ain't the only brand out there, and tasted the worst. They just made it sweeter so kids will want it more, kinda like Wonder Bread.
LOL this is great!
I'm ready to let go of RFK Jr.
I can taste some of them, especially red and blue artificial food dyes. I'd love to see them replaced because I look like a weirdo eating around the m&ms I don't like.
Idk, there's something beautiful about seeing all one or two colors of M&Ms left in a bowl.