With everything blooming, it’s such a nice change of pace to see all the colors around us! Where colors (artificial colors anyway) may not belong is in what we eat. The empty calories and high fructose corn syrup may not be the only bad guys in sodas, candies, and even in the so-called “healthy” foods. Almost all processed foods contain some sort of artificial dye…for no other reason than simply to lure us into eating/drinking it.
Over 15 MILLION pounds of artificial food dyes are added to foods EACH year! That is FIVE times higher than in 1955. The reasoning for this is that food and beverage companies are marketing toward children. [I’m surprised they don’t use edible glitter].
Here is a list of the artificial dyes and their potential risks:
Cancer: Citrus Red 2, Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, and Green 3
Allergies: Blue 1, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6
Hyperactivity: As the result of some studies, Britain requested food companies in 2009 to gradually phase artificial dyes out of children’s food because of their links to hyperactivity.
Because there is no nutritional value to the artificial dyes (plus their potentially harmful side-effects), in 2009 Britain told their food suppliers to stop making products using artificial food dyes. These products did not go away, or even increase in price. They remained on the markets and for the same price to consumers. McDonald’s stopped using “Red 40” and used strawberries instead to give the red color to their strawberry sundae (go figure…strawberries to give strawberry sundaes their red color). Also, Fanta now uses pumpkin and carrot extracts, instead of “Red 40 and Yellow 6” to give their orange soda it’s color. The U.S. is still using these artificial dyes in these particular products.
If your children simply cannot give up their gummies or lollipops, check out YumEarth or Surf Sweets for organic alternatives.
