{"id":645,"date":"2010-08-31T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T13:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/?p=645"},"modified":"2015-09-19T09:09:57","modified_gmt":"2015-09-19T16:09:57","slug":"you-cant-judge-a-food-by-its-color-or-can-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/?p=645","title":{"rendered":"You Can’t Judge a Food by Its Color – or Can You?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"cheese<\/a>

This color should raise a red flag, or at least an orange one.<\/p><\/div>\n

I remember the first time I heard about artificial food coloring. I was about\u00a08 years old, and my friends and I had been told that Bubble Yum bubble gum (only THE best bubble gum on the planet) was going to be pulled from the shelves because it contained Red Dye No. 2, a suspected carcinogen. It was a chance we were willing to take, especially\u00a0since we really didn’t understand the chance we were taking.\u00a0We just wanted to blow bubbles the size of our heads. The FDA\u00a0banned Red Dye No 2. in 1976 but, thankfully, Bubble Yum lived on.<\/p>\n

So what is artificial color? According to the FDA, artificial colors, or color additives, are synthetically produced (or human made) and used widely because they impart an intense, uniform color, are less expensive, and blend more easily to create a variety of hues<\/em>. Well, if you put it that way, I’m just fine with food manufacturers\u00a0using\u00a0artificial, petroleum-based (yum)\u00a0colors\u00a0instead of\u00a0natural colors\u00a0like paprika, beets, carmel\u00a0or blueberries <insert sarcasm here>.<\/p>\n

There are\u00a0currently 9 synthetic dyes that the FDA has approved for use in food. The list includes: Blue 1, Blue 2, Citrus Red 2, Green 3, Orange B, Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6. There have been several other dyes that\u00a0were once on the approved list, but with additional testing, they\u00a0were delisted\u00a0as they were found to be hazardous in some way. For example, at one time specific red and orange dyes\u00a0were used to\u00a0make oranges more orange. But these\u00a0specific artificial colors were taken off the market.<\/p>\n

So why would someone want to color and orange more orange? Well, to sell more oranges, of course. Would you rather buy a perfectly orange orange, or one that was slightly yellow? The more appealing and attention getting, the more likely you are to purchase. This is often why you see so many brightly colored candies and drinks in products targeted\u00a0at children. But ask yourself,\u00a0when is the last time blue raspberry was a color found in nature? And if you’ve ever made macaroni and cheese from scratch and compared it to the bright orange powder that comes out of the box, I think you get my point.<\/p>\n

It’s important to remember that just because a label says “natural” doesn’t mean ALL natural. There may be only one natural ingredient in the product. Several of the ingredient flavors and colors may, in fact, be artificial. Artificial colors are prevalent in so many foods, even foods you might associate with being healthy. I was shocked to find\u00a0artificial colors used in my super model-endorsed yogurt.\u00a0I’ve decided to look for another brand. All you have to do to check for\u00a0artificial food colors is read the label.<\/p>\n

There has been a lot of discussion regarding the possible ties between ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)\u00a0in children and artificial colors. There have been two large scale studies conducted in Britain to study the effects of artificial colors on children. While there is not conclusive evidence to prove a connection, there was enough concern that a European\u00a0Union regulation\u00a0was passed requiring a warning statement (“may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children<\/em>“)\u00a0on foods that contain at least one of six dyes. According to\u00a0John E. Huxsahl, M.D. with the Mayo Clinic, “There’s no evidence that food additives cause attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but an increasing number of studies show that certain food colorings and preservatives may cause or worsen hyperactive behavior in some children.”<\/em><\/p>\n

With regard to the current 9 artificial colors that are allowed by the FDA, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI)\u00a0believes there could be\u00a0serious flaws with some of the testing. While all food colors (natural and artificial) must be approved by the FDA, artificial colors must pass tests to show that they are safe and don’t contain cancer-causing substances. But the FDA tests don’t always work as intended. According to CSPI, “Fifteen years ago,\u00a0FDA and Canadian government scientists discovered that most of the carcinogen benzidine that can contaminate Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 is bound to molecules in the dyes. So routine FDA tests, which look only for “free” benzidine, fail to detect it. And the dyes are sometimes contaminated with 100 to 1,000 times more bound than free benzidine<\/em>.” Yikes!<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the world of natural colors is starting to grow. As more consumers raise their voices and demand healthier products, manufacturers are starting to\u00a0utilize new, natural flavor sources like purple sweet potatoes, cochineal insects (yep, ground up bugs), and blue gardenias (which are not yet approved for use in foods in the U.S.).<\/p>\n

Like you’ve read so many times before on this blog\u00a0– it is VERY important to read labels. While you’re reading the label for nutritional information, be sure to read the list of ingredients and look for artificial flavors and colors. If you can’t pronounce it, you probably don’t want to eat it. Remember, the natural color of mint ice cream is not kermit-the-frog green and\u00a0there is nothing natural about neon orange cheese puffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artificial food colors are everywhere – all you need to do is read the label. If you can’t pronounce it, you probably don’t want to eat it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bevrages","category-foods","category-organics","category-snacks"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1036,"href":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions\/1036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepwellfoods.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}