[N_A_T_E]

I don’t think this is a science or safety issue, it’s an issue with bad ingredient labeling. They should name these numbered dyes something more understandable. “Red dye 4” sounds pretty sketchy when they could say “Cochineal extract for coloring”. People can reject the product because the ingredients include a bug derived coloring rather than fear of the unknown “red dye” invented by their imagined evil food scientists.

[dehrmann]

> Cochineal extract for coloring

95% of people wouldn't realize that's code for "insect juice," and they might prefer the artificial color.

[hinkley]

Red 4 is already bug paste. Always has been. The “preference” based only on perception is just advertising.

Naturally colored candies use beet extracts for red.

[cma]

Wait until people find out where jelly beans come from.

[FuriouslyAdrift]

Since cochineal casues so many allergic reactions, there's already a law that they have to put it on the label.

[hinkley]

When I was a kid I ate lunch with a girl who couldn’t have M&Ms because she was allergic to the red die. I was appalled by this.

And the strangest thing about that story is that she was maybe 4 years old when Mars pulled the red M&Ms due to a cancer scare with a different red food coloring. Though my recollection was that it was a few years more recent than that, given how shelf life and supply chains work, I may have been getting back stock. I think I eventually proved to her that there were no red M&Ms anymore. I guess her parents hadn’t bothered to check for years. Not the first injustice I had tried to right but the easiest one.

Five years later they added Red back and I would think of her every time I ate M&Ms for a long time after.

[kozubik]

"... it’s an issue with bad ingredient labeling ..."

I've been working on some improved labeling for certain grocery products:

https://kozubik.com/items/ThisisCandy/

[AyyEye]

Awesome idea. Are you doing anything else in a similar vein?

[candiddevmike]

The only reason they add dyes, outside of baked goods IMO, is because they've used so many artificial ingredients, fillers, and preservatives that the resulting food product no longer looks appetizing. Whole, fresh food has never needed dyes added to it to be enticing to our monkey brains.

[AlotOfReading]

People have been coloring food for thousands of years with dyes like Saffron, carmine, turmeric, and squid ink.

[mslansn]

> Whole, fresh food has never needed dyes added to it to be enticing to our monkey brains.

Have you ever cooked? Most stews use spices for colouring. A paella looks ill without saffron in it.

[xnx]

Fruits and vegetables from a few hundred years ago would be almost unrecognizable and unpalatable to modern consumers. The colorful, delicious, and durable fruits and vegetables of today are the result of lots of work and selective breeding.

[lm28469]

jell-o of any color looks absolutely vile to me

[larrled]

That’s not super true. Salmon for instance. Or Easter eggs.

[newsclues]

I think this is a health and safety issue, and I think the food business has corrupted a lot of science.

Why do we need these dyes in food?

Why are so many people so unhealthy? Could it be the food we are consuming?

Are we tracking the health and safety data from these policy changes to know if there is a change?

[bunderbunder]

> Why are so many people so unhealthy?

Because being unhealthy is the natural state of things, and keeping a handle on that fact, at scale, is difficult and complicated. We used to do a much worse job of it, though. Humans living in developed economies where everyone eats all these oft-maligned foods live much longer than their ancestors did a few centuries ago. And those who live into old age tend to remain healthier longer than those who did a few centuries ago.

That's to say that there isn't room for improvement, or that there aren't things in our food supply that don't belong there. But a sense of perspective is important. "Is this food coloring increasing people's lifetime risk of a specific cancer from 0.005% to 0.01%?" is still a pretty tidy improvement over, "Ugh, yet another outbreak of ergotism. Well, why don't we try burning witches to see if that puts it to a stop."

[mensetmanusman]

Little s Science can’t get “corrupted” because it is just a tool. When the scientific method is used to determine what people prefer to buy based on one second of looking at the product, that is arguably an immoral use of the scientific method especially if the health of the users is not taken into account.

That’s also to say that “trust the science“ can be a dangerous way to shut down discussion when people are actually grasping for words to understand whether a scientific method is being improperly used.

[UncleMeat]

Are people so unhealthy? Life expectancies continue to rise. The "a majority of americans have a chronic health problem" stats include things like back pain. It turns out that if you live a long time you get chronic health problems.

[xnx]

> Why are so many people so unhealthy? Could it be the food we are consuming?

There's no doubt about this. High sugar, low fiber is the biggest culprit.

[maxerickson]

Do yellow 5 next.