Photo by Lennart Tange. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says that HHS and the US Food and Drug Administration will phase out the use of petroleum-based food dyes over the next two years to “Make America Healthy Again.”

Of all the policy changes coming out of Washington DC, this is probably the most visible — literally.

If the changes go as planned, a lot of the foods you eat, liquids you drink, and medications you take will probably look a lot different than you’ve become used to.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, it depends on who you ask.

For decades, scientists have researched — and lobbyists and activists have fought over — the effects of those artificial colorants on Americans’ health. Some researchers and advocates claim links between artificial food colorings and various disorders. The companies using those colorings, naturally, deny such links.

In the 1990s, I knew a couple who did everything they could to keep Red Dye 40 out of their son’s diet. He’d been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. They believed (upon observation I had to agree) that getting the food coloring out of his diet greatly relieved his inability to sit still, concentrate, etc. That’s just anecdotal, of course, but the differences did seem dramatic.

Chicken or egg? Did consumers nudge food makers to give their products the “pop” of more brilliant colors, or did that “pop” condition consumers to associate bright hues with quality?

Would we buy fruit-flavored cereal if it didn’t come in a mix of reds, yellows, purples, and green?

Would we want those gummy bears or shell-covered candies if they were off-white?

I don’t claim to know, but color’s what they’re selling and we buy a LOT of it.

I don’t support a ban.

As long as sellers truthfully disclose what they’re putting in their products, we’re free to buy or not buy — and one positive outcome of the “information age” is that we have instant access to both scientific information and others’ opinion (well-informed or not) on the ingredients in our food.

In the normal course of things, I might or might not give credence to RFK Jr.’s opinion on the matter when deciding what to put in my shopping cart and in my body. You might or might not as well. That’s fine. What’s not fine is him just deciding for all of us, whether we like it or not.

Most of us aren’t old enough to remember, but at one time many states required margarine to be dyed bright pink as a way of discouraging its use versus butter (as you might guess, the dairy industry lobby backed such laws).

It’s not a hill to dye on (see what I did there?), I guess. I’m sure we’ll get used to the changes in how our food looks.  Maybe we really will get healthier physically — who knows?  But letting a politician control our choices this way is a worse disease than any malady associated with food coloring.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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