You know all of those sugary cereals and fruit gummies that your kids love to eat? They’re usually the ones with their favorite cartoon characters or sports stars plastered all over the front. These products contain some controversial ingredients, and many have been linked to severely harmful side effects.
Food dyes are added to foods to make the colors brighter and more enhanced, to make food look fun and exciting, and at times to help associate a flavor with a food by changing the color.
There is no benefit to adding food coloring to food except simply to make it seem more appealing. The food dyes are completely unnecessary. Let’s go over some examples of common food dyes that you may see on an ingredient list plus what they can do to your body.
Commonly Added Food Dyes
Food dyes are nothing more than chemical substances, and they’re made from petroleum for goodness sake.
Red #40, Yellow #5, and Yellow #6 are the most commonly added artificial food dyes that you’ll see listed on an ingredient list, but there are certainly more. Here’s a list of the FDA approved artificial dyes.
- Red #2
- Red #3
- Red #40
- Orange B
- Yellow #5
- Yellow #6
- Blue #1
- Blue #2
- Green #3
There are a total of 36 approved food colorings. We’ve written about caramel coloring before and the problems it can cause. To know if these food dyes are added as an ingredient, simply flip the product over and read the ingredient list.
Food Dyes Have Been Related To Health Issues
Have you ever thought that your kid could not stay focused, or maybe they were just bouncing off the walls with so much energy that they forgot about everything else? Many parents worry and fester that something is seriously wrong. They talk it over with their doctors, and oftentimes the doctors will diagnose and prescribe a medication. But what if the behavior was related to what your kid was eating?
Studies show that artificial food dyes are actually linked to -
- Hyperactivity
- Irritability
- Depression
- Asthma
- Hives
- Tumor growth
In fact, three of the main food dyes contain a cancer causing substance called benzene. That’s quite an alarming list of potential health issues for an ingredient that isn’t even necessary.
Why Wake Up Does Not Endorse Food Dyes
Some researchers believe that more testing should be done to prove some of these studies, but it still begs the question, why are they being used at all? At Wake Up and Read the Labels, we believe that food should be made with real ingredients. Since there’s no need for artificial food colorings, AND because they’re all just chemicals anyway, we believe it’s best to avoid them.
That doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy cereal or fruit snacks. It’s all about finding the products that are made with real ingredients. Simple!
One of our favorite Wake Up podcasts was actually with the owner of Lovebird Cereal, Parker Brook. Parker worked in the marketing department for one of the big food companies, and he witnessed firsthand how shady the practices are. Listen here. It will blow your mind some of the tactics that are used.
If you’re ready to learn more about clean eating and want to know which products are Wake Up and Read the Labels approved, schedule a call with a food coach by clicking the button below. We’d love to chat with you about your journey.
