Food Coloring, A Colorful Mistake

 Bright yellow, neon orange, blood red; none of these colors would be possible without the use of synthetic food coloring. Food dye is something that will show up on food labels, but no one ever thinks "Well what could this be made out of?", but you can tell just by looking that these colors are not natural. In fact, most food dyes are derived from petroleum! There are other things that can be used though. If you ever read the back of a product and stumble across the names of three food dyes: cochineal, carmine, or carmanic acid, these dyes are made from the crushed up bodies of a female South American insect called a cochineal insect.

Not only is this absolutely disgusting to think that we could be eating crushed up insects, but it's infuriating to know that this information isn't included on the label! If this isn't enough to make you run screaming away from the very thought of synthetic food coloring, here are some more reasons to quit the colors. There have been at least three studies on the link between the consumption of food dyes and ADHD in children. Despite these studies and bans on 5 food dyes (tartrazine, yellow 6, food red 17, FD&C blue No. 2, and FD&C No. 1)  that were linked to ADHD and cancer in Europe, the FDA continues to allow foods with artificial coloring to be sold without any kind of warning! But wait it get's even worse! According to Wikipedia a food dye banned in Europe called Tartrazine or yellow #5 is allowed in organic food! Despite being a synthetic dye, tartrazine may be legally included in organic foods, because the USDA allows processed foods to be certified organic if they are 95% organic by weight.  Talk about scary! To think that those organic chips you love that are USDA certified could only be 95% organic, the other 5% could literally be anything!

Resources

• http://cspinet.org/new/pdf/food-dyes-rainbow-of-risks.pdf 
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine
• http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/bugjuice.asp
• http://csglobe.com/europe-bans-food-dyes-due-to-adhd-cancer-links/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartrazine