[HN Gopher] US will ban cancer-linked Red Dye No. 3 in cereal an...
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US will ban cancer-linked Red Dye No. 3 in cereal and other foods
Author : toomuchtodo
Score : 197 points
Date : 2025-01-15 15:01 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://archive.today/O00Tr
|
| https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-00830.pdf
|
| Related:
|
| _FDA weighing ban on red dye No. 3_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42542951 - Dec 2024
|
| _FDA may ban artificial red dye from beverages, candy and other
| foods_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42382676 - Dec 2024
|
| _US Food and Drug Administration moves to ban red food dye_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42352983 - Dec 2024
|
| _The data and puzzling history behind California 's new red food
| dye ban_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37857175 - Oct
| 2023
|
| _California becomes first US state to ban 4 potentially harmful
| chemicals in food_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37838521 - Oct 2023
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The comparison between American and Canadian Froot Loop cereal is
| illuminating:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/uc265y/a...
| kwanbix wrote:
| Those companies ought to be sued. They know that their die is
| cancer-linked and they still use it in the US even though they
| don't do it in Canada/EU.
|
| We, as humanity, should sue all this big companies (nestle,
| coca-cola, etc.) for poisoning our lives for profit.
| haliskerbas wrote:
| in the US, priority #1 is fiduciary duty to shareholders. if
| customers are buying, and we make it more expensive to make,
| then shareholders will be mad!
| parineum wrote:
| Not causing cancer falls under fiduciary duty.
| gonzobonzo wrote:
| I looked into it, and from what I can tell the only link to
| cancer they've found so far is in male rats exposed to high
| levels of it, but they haven't found evidence that it causes
| cancer in humans or other animals.
|
| What's odd to me is that it's still fine to sell food like
| bacon, where the link to cancer in humans appears to be much,
| much stronger.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Ok, well then, I'm sure no Americans are eating high levels
| of foods that contain dyes. So, surely there are long term
| 20 year plus studies on cumulative effects, right?
| streptomycin wrote:
| The only rats that developed cancer more than baseline in
| the study had a diet that was 4% red #3. Pretty sure no
| Americans are approaching that lol
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| Depends on the definition of high level. Was the amount
| given to the rats equivalent of 5x fruit loop bowls, or
| 5,000,000x?
| sneak wrote:
| ...or cigarettes, which are available for sale everywhere.
|
| If unhealthy foods are to be banned, we must also ban
| cigarettes and alcohol. If we are to let people be
| bodybuilders, or body destroyers, then all of these things
| should be available for purchase.
|
| Ultimately it is a special kind of arrogance to tell people
| what they are or are not allowed to do to the one thing
| they unambiguously own and control: their own body.
| kwanbix wrote:
| the difference is that you are aware and are told about
| tobaco (which I would ban) and alcohol, food you are not
| told.
| zerro4 wrote:
| Keep in mind that the negative effects (beyond the
| coughing and diminished lung capacity) of cigarettes have
| only been publicly admitted to and explicitly taught only
| very recently in the history of tobacco.
|
| The tobacco industry fought tooth and nail against any
| suggestion that tobacco products are linked to cancer and
| even advertised cigarettes as healthy.
|
| I agree with you in principle. I would caution against
| taking for granted what we know today to be very clearly
| unhealthy and cancer-causing. It is often an up-hill
| decades long battle against incredibly wealthy interests
| to get to the truth.
| smallerize wrote:
| I don't think Froot Loops ever used red 3. They use red 40.
| darknavi wrote:
| It's more of a commentary about how food in the US is overly
| colored for no other reason than it looks cool, sometimes at
| the detriment of the health of the consumer.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > food in the US is overly colored for no other reason than
| it looks cool
|
| My understanding is that a lot of food is colored to look
| "natural" for uniformity. A good example of this is
| applesauce.
| ninju wrote:
| Another item is sprayed for coloring is ORANGES (Citrus
| Red No. 2 is the color)
|
| https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-
| guidan...
| will4274 wrote:
| Neither color of Fruit Loops is natural. American food is
| colored to look cool, because cool sells better with
| Americans. Canadian food is colored to look dull, because
| dull sells better with Canadians.
| dymk wrote:
| Is that your guess or were you in the marketing research
| department at Kellogs?
| will4274 wrote:
| It's just how cereal is made. Before fruit loops are
| loops, they are grain mash. That grain mash is mostly
| uniform in color and brown-ish. In order to have a bowl
| filled with loops where some of the loops are yellow and
| others are green and others are blue, they add different
| colors of dye. It's the same whether it's neon green or
| organic green - the dye is added at the end for appeal to
| the consumer.
| chucksta wrote:
| Why would they not just use less dye to reduce the colors
| in Canada then? Surely its more effective to produce them
| in one way instead of two.
| raincole wrote:
| Are you sure that Canadian version is less detrimental to
| the health of the consumer? It too looks artificial color-
| loaded to me.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| I wouldn't consider Froot Loops a health food, but the
| Canadian version have all natural flavour and colour-
|
| "Concentrated carrot juice (for colour), Anthocyanin,
| Annatto, Turmeric, Natural flavour, Concentrated
| watermelon juice (for colour), Concentrated blueberry
| juice (for colour), Concentrated huito juice (for
| colour)" etc
|
| From their ingredients.
| dboreham wrote:
| It's colored so some set of people can make more money.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| I find this particularly interesting because it is due to
| market conditions, not legislation, that many Canadian foods
| have switched to colors from natural ingredients.
|
| These companies appear to believe that Canadians prefer fewer
| artificial ingredients, and that Americans don't seem to care.
| Very curious.
| ipython wrote:
| It is happening, albeit slowly, here in the USA as well.
| Trader Joe's generally has no added artificial dyes, fruit by
| the foot now is naturally colored, Whole Foods of course, and
| Wegmans bakery products.
|
| Its just that there still are so many products you don't
| expect- marshmallows with blue dye to make them more "bright
| white", candies/sprinkles, any children's medicine in syrup
| form (although you can now get some in dye free form finally)
| lm28469 wrote:
| It's the same from most things, I wonder why americans are ok
| with that
|
| mcdonalds fries: https://boingboing.net/wp-
| content/uploads/2015/01/McDonalds-...
|
| fanta:
| https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/ab2mWVvJ_Tp7.UWQpFd.pQ--/Y...
|
| oats: https://foodbabe.com/app/uploads/2019/02/U.S.-vs.-Uk-
| quaker-...
|
| chips: https://foodbabe.com/app/uploads/2019/02/U.S.-vs.-Uk-
| doritos...
| lovecg wrote:
| I'm wondering, what are we seeing here? Actual difference in
| ingredients used, or a difference in regulations requiring
| listing all ingredients?
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Yeah, take the Doritos as an example: the UK bag lists
| "Cheese Powder", the US bag lists "Cheddar Cheese" with
| sub-ingredients in parentheses (plus Whey and Skim Milk).
|
| What is in the UK Doritos' "Cool Original Flavour" (read:
| Ranch) ingredient? Maybe something like Tomato Powder,
| Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Buttermilk, Natural and
| Artificial Flavors?
| thomspoon wrote:
| I agree with you until you bring foodbabe into this. She's
| notorious for hand-picking things that meet the MAHA agenda.
| For example, the oats argument, yes there is a ton of crap in
| the ultra processed Quaker oats, but that's an old recipe.
| Here's what they sell at target:
|
| https://www.target.com/p/quaker-fruit-38-cream-instant-
| oatme...
|
| STRAWBERRIES & CREAM INGREDIENTS: Whole grain oats, sugar,
| dried strawberries, salt, dried cream, natural flavor, nonfat
| dry milk, sea salt, dried vegetable juice concentrate
| (color), tocopherols (to preserve freshness).
|
| There's not always a one-to-one comparison, and I agree shady
| companies in the US have free rein over what crap they add to
| our foods, but this has already been debunked.
| Retric wrote:
| It wasn't debunked, it worked.
|
| They changed the recipe after it received significant
| attention. Before then the company was happy to use food
| coloring on Apples to pretend it had strawberries while
| actually providing strawberries in another country.
|
| The thing is you can't bring attention to every single
| product, which is the point of regulations around deceptive
| packaging.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| As an oatmeal connoisseur, I'd be remiss not to point out
| that the two oatmeal products being compared there are not
| the same. The American product is specifically "Strawberries
| and Cream," which looks like it was deliberately picked
| because it adds a few extra scary-looking ingredients from
| the creaming agent; whereas the UK product is just "Heaps of
| Fruit," sans cream.
| astura wrote:
| Here's the American version of "heaps of fruit," "fruit
| fusion."
|
| https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/quaker-oats-instant-
| oatmea...
|
| Ingredients
|
| Whole grain oats,sugar,dried raspberries,dried
| strawberries,natural flavor,tricalcium phosphate,salt,beet
| juice concentrate (color),iron,vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol).
|
| The American version is identical to the UK version until
| "natural flavor." The US version then adds some vitamins
| plus tricalcium phosphate, salt, and beet juice
| concentrate. The only "scary" ingredient is tricalcium
| phosphate, which appears to be an anti-caking agent.
|
| Edit: on Quaker's website
|
| https://www.quakeroats.com/products/hot-cereals/instant-
| oatm...
|
| It says "Tricalcium Phosphate is a source of phosphorus
| that also provides the essential mineral calcium." Which is
| actually what I suspected, it's another added vitamin that
| has the benefit of also being an anti caking agent.
| jacobgkau wrote:
| Why does our version need an anti-caking agent when
| theirs doesn't? And why do we need to get calcium from
| _checks notes_ oat meal (the non-cream version, mind you)
| when people in other countries can get it from things it
| 's in naturally, like milk?
|
| There may be ostensible reasons why some of the extras we
| get are theoretically useful, but I'd still wonder why
| we're the only ones who go to all the trouble (when we
| don't seem to come out ahead for it, health-wise).
| hackingonempty wrote:
| The UK product contains freeze dried strawberries and
| raspberries. The USA market "strawberries and cream"
| contains no strawberry, instead it has freeze dried apple
| dyed red with added strawberry flavor.
|
| I don't believe natural is inherently good nor artificial
| inherently bad but the USA product is objectively lower
| quality. IMHO it is cheaply made crap to fool people that
| do not read the ingredients.
| noja wrote:
| to fool people that do not read the ingredients?
|
| I say if your product mentions strawberries and you get
| dyed apples instead the problem is not the person failing
| to read the ingredients list, something has gone wrong at
| the legislative level.
| rcpt wrote:
| Protip: neither of those are oats.
| Loveaway wrote:
| protip: do not drink fanta, do not eat mcdonalds fries, do
| eat oats (but just buy real oats and throw in raspberrys or
| whatever), do not eat chips. Doesn't matter whether you are
| in the US or UK :)
| shusaku wrote:
| Orange fanta is not really a good example because they are
| totally different flavored drinks. It's less about chemical
| rules than the flavor design
| deaddodo wrote:
| The McDonald's fries are the exact same ingredients, the FDA
| just requires more granular specifications which look
| "scary". Those are the bracketed "sub"-ingredients you see
| versus just "Vegetable Oil" for the other side.
|
| As to the additional anti-caking ingredient, I can't tell
| you. No idea if it's omitted from the UK side due to
| regulatory reasons or it's actually included but has no
| requirement to be listed, since it's included in a plethora
| of British foods in the same places that it's used in the US
| (things like powdered/confectioner's sugar):
|
| https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2903/j.efsa.2020.
| ..
|
| Either way, it's not particularly nefarious (despite her
| scary red highlight added to it).
|
| As an aside, saying this as someone who's eaten McDonald's in
| probably 70+ countries. It's all the same thing (except a few
| countries in Asia; Korea and Japan notably), especially like
| for like (Double Cheeseburger for Double Cheeseburger). I
| have no idea where this "European McDonald's is
| healthier/better" idea sprang up, outside of European
| superiority complexes (probably due need to self-justify how
| insanely busy McDonald's are in Europe). _Especially_ in a
| country who 's most famous takeaway item is greasy fried
| chicken/fish and fries/chips tossed in a bag; then covered
| and shaken in even more salt and condiments, possibly with a
| handful of cheese tossed on for good measure.
| slavik81 wrote:
| The Canadian cereal was the same colour as in the US until a
| few years ago. I'm not sure what prompted the change.
| deaddodo wrote:
| Hot Cheetos, outside the US and parts of LATAM, aren't red:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDOFPuy33m4
|
| It's kinda jarring having grown up with that association.
| tivert wrote:
| Now for the important question: which children's cereals will be
| changing color?
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I assume all the really colorful ones, including froot loops.
| None / less of the organic ones.
| sgt wrote:
| Why don't all parents just buy the organic ones to start
| with? Lack of information?
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Drastically more expensive. This adds up way too high for
| most people who make average income. I do think its also
| lack of information.
|
| Edit:
|
| The only people I've ever heard of whining about cereals
| having bad ingredients are the people everyone calls
| conspiracy nuts, this is my issue with calling things
| "conspiracy theories" and dismissing people, when someone
| brings forth valid information, you miss out because you're
| blindly dismissing them based on bias not fact.
| gangstead wrote:
| My kids won't eat the healthy cereal so for me the number
| one reason is taste. The organic ones also cost more so
| price conscious people have a second reason.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| > My kids won't eat the healthy cereal so for me the
| number one reason is taste.
|
| This is one of those things where "taste" is basically
| sweetness. I used to love cereal. Ate bowls of it all the
| time. I've been on a basic oatmeal with blueberries kick
| for the last couple years, though, and whenever I try
| cereals I used to like again I'm disgusted by how sweet
| they are. You really can _only_ taste sweetness. Kids
| love that sweetness, though, and brands are extremely
| focused on marketing candy to children as "healthy"
| breakfast staples. Lots of kids think stuff tastes bad
| because it doesn't taste like candy.
|
| The price of "organic" cereals is an issue though.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| $$$
| happyopossum wrote:
| They're considerably more expensive and their kids prefer
| the others?
|
| Look, there are plenty of things in our diets that won't
| cause harm in small amounts just because a large amount
| causes harm to a rat. Some people (somewhat rationally)
| extended that to food dyes and additives.
|
| If you or I want to choose differently that's great, but
| denigrating people who don't make the same choices you do
| is condescending and unhelpful.
| EasyMark wrote:
| more likely lack of money
| hammock wrote:
| What about Red 40?
| gertrunde wrote:
| Relevant news story from a few years ago in the UK, where a
| bakery was using US sprinkles on cakes, that aren't legal to use
| in the UK, due to Red #3 :
|
| https://www.npr.org/2021/10/15/1046348573/sprinklegate-sinks...
| do_not_redeem wrote:
| "British sprinkles just aren't the same, they're totally s***
| and I hate them."
|
| "I am extremely passionate about sprinkles."
|
| Honestly hilarious. I feel his pain.
| modeless wrote:
| Getting it out of the way before RFK can do it, huh?
| EasyMark wrote:
| Might as well get some credit for the one or two good ideas he
| has before the antivaccine rhetoric begins and
| measles/mumps/whooping cough kills a few tens of thousands of
| people and the GQP goes "oops" and fires him and puts the old
| policies back in place.
| diob wrote:
| Pretty wild how far the US is behind in banning these sort of
| things compared to other countries.
| wnevets wrote:
| Source? The last time I checked the FDA bans more food dyes
| than most other countries.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Not sure on food dyes but my understanding is the FDA is
| leagues behind the EU on regulation when it comes to food.
|
| My experience in Italy with foods that normally cause some
| issues (dairy/cheese) really opened my eyes to that. My
| sister who doesn't eat cheese/dairy at all here in the US was
| able to eat it there without issue because of how they
| process dairy over there or something.
| rconti wrote:
| So it might not have anything to do with regulation at all?
| thfuran wrote:
| Possibly, but dairy processing is heavily regulated.
| estebank wrote:
| Similar thing with my wife and bread. In the US she
| developed/discovered/exposed a gluten intolerance, to the
| point that she removed it from her diet entirely, but bread
| in France is ok for her.
| rsynnott wrote:
| In that case it's not a gluten intolerance; there is
| gluten in bread in France. Might be a sugar thing? Bread
| in the US is more likely to contain added sugar and/or
| HFCS than in most countries.
| ars wrote:
| That just means that her gluten intolerance is stress
| related, rather than there being any difference in the
| gluten in France.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| It is more complicated than this, the US has much more
| rigorous food safety standards in a number of dimensions.
|
| For example, the US has much stricter standards for
| preventing bacterial contamination than Europe, outside of
| the Nordics which share similar food safety regulations as
| the US. The US prohibits a lot of food importation from
| Europe because of lower food safety standards related to
| contamination.
|
| Europe makes a lot of food safety exceptions on the basis
| of a process being "traditional" in some sense, nominally
| preserving culture. The US is a bit more technocratic less
| prone to the naturalistic fallacy; the FDA doesn't care
| that something is cultural or traditional, if there is
| scientific evidence of material risk then it will be
| banned.
|
| If I had to summarize their food safety perspectives, the
| EU tends to focus more on allowable ingredients, the US
| tends to focus more on the uncontaminated and sterile
| handling of the food supply chain.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Most other countries, maybe, now compared to the EU...
| signatoremo wrote:
| Why don't you do the comparison?
| lm28469 wrote:
| Because people have done it before and we have something
| named the internet
|
| https://www.tilleydistribution.com/insights/food-
| regulations...
|
| https://eatwell.uky.edu/sites/default/files/2024-08/foods
| -us...
| wnevets wrote:
| Sure the US is ahead of the EU. The EU allows 11 [1]
| synthetic food dyes while the US only allows 9 [2]
|
| [1] https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/food-colours
|
| [2] https://www.fda.gov/food/color-additives-information-
| consume...
| lm28469 wrote:
| Good thing only the numbers are important and not the
| health effects!
| wnevets wrote:
| You are the one that asked for the comparison. Didn't get
| the numbers you thought you would?
| mrcwinn wrote:
| Source?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Go to Italy or France, or any EU state. The food is better
| and often cheaper in almost every case.
|
| Even a McDonald's hamburger is _good_ , and not dominated by
| the fake chemical garlic substitute. In the US, McDonald's
| french fries contain: Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (canola Oil,
| Corn Oil, Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Natural Beef
| Flavor [wheat And Milk Derivatives] _), Dextrose, Sodium Acid
| Pyrophosphate (maintain Color), Salt._ natural Beef Flavor
| Contains Hydrolyzed Wheat And Hydrolyzed Milk As Starting
| Ingredients.
|
| In Italy, the ingredients are: Potato, Oil, Salt.
| wnevets wrote:
| I hate to break this news to you but there are countries
| outside of the EU.
|
| The FDA also bans more food dyes than the EU.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I didn't say there was no world beyond the EU. I'm not
| personally acquainted with every nation's food regulatory
| regime. I was just struck by the obvious qualitative
| difference between even the lowest quality food.
|
| Feel free to regail someone who cares about the food
| regulations of the world.
|
| The FDA factoid is cool -- they just didn't ban the dye
| that causes cancer.
| wnevets wrote:
| > Feel free to regail someone who cares about the food
| regulations of the world.
|
| You're the one that responded to my comment about
| comparing the US to the rest of the world by saying I
| needed to compare it to the EU. I didn't hop into your
| comment chain with random factoids.
|
| > I'm not personally acquainted with every nation's food
| regulatory regime.
|
| Didn't stop you from providing uninformed commentary tho.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| > difference between even the lowest quality food
|
| Have you been to a farmer's market in the US? Potatoes
| are potatoes. In fact, potatoes are native to this
| continent and we have more potato cultivars to choose
| from. You can get very high quality meat there.
|
| Saying all US food is lower quality is kind of a wild
| opinion.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Not to be "that guy" but you did reply to someone saying
| "most other countries" with a counter argument citing
| three, then waved away the fact you're unaware of most
| other countries. That's where the pushback is coming
| from. The US tends to be a little more progressive than
| the middle of the pack in this space and set the global
| standard for food safety regulation where none existed
| before. The cherry picking of a few examples when
| discussing global comparisons is fraught and the US
| always exists in this world where whatever topic there's
| always some other place doing better on some metric used
| as some argument the US is a steaming pile of refuse with
| wandering zombies laden with cancer and illiteracy. It's
| not intellectually honest or particularly helpful in
| discussion of the actual problems. Anyway - that's where
| the pushback came from, not that these three countries
| regulate food dye additives better or not.
| legitster wrote:
| I hate to break it to you, but a lot of that difference
| comes down to labeling and disclosure requirements. If the
| Italian fries don't even have to disclose what type of oil
| they use, they probably also don't have to disclose the oil
| stabilizers and seasonings they use.
|
| Let's not forget that Europe had massive epidemic of _horse
| meat_ being snuck into the supply chain with no one
| catching on.
| Spivak wrote:
| I think your cultural palate is showing. The marketing of a
| few simple ingredients sounds good except it's not like
| American McDonalds is putting them in for no reason. You
| can make the case that fillers are used to cut cost but for
| french fries all that stuff costs extra. To Americans that
| shit tastes great.
|
| * The beef flavor is mimicking frying in beef tallow. If
| you use Marmite in your brown gravy you're using the same
| trick.
|
| * Americans, being flushed with corn and corn syrup which
| is sweeter than granulated sugar, developed a sweeter tooth
| than other places which is why the dextrose.
|
| * Potatoes once cut and exposed to air get that gross dark
| color. Most home cooks usually solve that by keeping them
| submerged in water until frying but Sodium Acid
| Pyrophosphate works the same.
| anomaly_ wrote:
| Mate, that is labelling requirements. I guarantee most/all
| of those ""horrible"" ingredients are present in Italian
| McDonalds.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| EU law mandates listing all the ingredients in the food,
| you can't pick and choose:
|
| https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/product-
| requirements/f...
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Bans add a lot of overhead to both the agencies responsible for
| enforcing them and industry. Those agencies are only so large
| and are spread thin, sometimes there are 'bigger fish' they
| need to focus on.
|
| I can understand waiting until there's sufficient evidence
| before starting that process.
| adamnemecek wrote:
| Other countries manage to do this just fine.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| A lot of other countries do not have the shear mass of
| industries and services that the US does.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Why would they have less? They produce food for their
| people.
| adamnemecek wrote:
| This trope tends to be wrong.
| bobro wrote:
| Enforcing bans strikes me as a revenue generator, no?
| bobthepanda wrote:
| At least one proposed solution I've seen is to split the FDA,
| because regulating food is almost nothing like regulating drugs
| in 2025.
| rafram wrote:
| We already have the FDA (most foods and drugs), the USDA
| (produce, animal products besides milk), and TTB (alcohol).
| Each one sets its own safety and labeling standards, which is
| why, for example, mixed drinks containing alcohol don't have
| to list allergens(!). Another level of fragmentation would be
| a disaster IMO. We could split the FDA, but we'd need to
| merge the food regulator half into one of those other
| existing agencies.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| To be honest, I could see an argument for separating the
| handling of raw agricultural product from the rest of the
| food system. The health effects of Oreos vs. making sure
| our eggs don't have bird flu are quite different regulatory
| concerns.
| will4274 wrote:
| Only if they actually cause cancer. The FDA's statement
| (https://www.fda.gov/food/hfp-constituent-updates/fda-
| revoke-...) says:
|
| > The way that FD&C Red No. 3 causes cancer in male rats does
| not occur in humans. Relevant exposure levels to FD&C Red No. 3
| for humans are typically much lower than those that cause the
| effects shown in male rats. Studies in other animals and in
| humans did not show these effects; claims that the use of FD&C
| Red No. 3 in food and in ingested drugs puts people at risk are
| not supported by the available scientific information.
|
| if "these sort of things" aren't actually harmful, and what we
| see in Europe is mostly governments reacting to unscientific
| panic among their citizens, then I'd say it's other countries
| that are wild, not the United States.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I think I care about more than cancer. What if I cared about
| genetic defects, ADHD, mental health, water contamination,
| obesity...
|
| Maybe if the dye served ANY purpose besides getting people to
| eat more of it, I could find a bit of care to not remove it
| from foods.
| thfuran wrote:
| Should all things that have only benefits that you don't
| care about and which aren't proven to have no downsides you
| care about be banned?
| will4274 wrote:
| Well, if you read the quote in my comment (or clicked on
| the source link I included), you would see that the FDA
| evaluated it for health risks all-up, not just cancer.
|
| Your comment violates the following hacker news guideline:
|
| > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith.
|
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html for
| the full set.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Cancer is a genetic defect.
| bitwize wrote:
| The European approach is: if it doesn't look on your plate
| the way it looked on the hoof or on the plant, it's probably
| not good to consume. This is a much better heuristic than "we
| haven't found any adverse effects _yet_ , so call it GRAS".
| Science is great at determining the presence of specific
| effects. It's not so good at finding an absence of effect.
| will4274 wrote:
| > The European approach is: if it doesn't look on your
| plate the way it looked on the hoof or on the plant, it's
| probably not good to consume.
|
| I mean, that's just not true. Fruit Loops are sold in
| Europe as well (albeit with slightly different colors), and
| there's no hoof or plant that produces anything that looks
| like Fruit Loops. Food coloring is a worldwide phenomenon.
| EasyMark wrote:
| The fruit loops in Europe have natural food coloring
| which isn't known to cause cancer like red #3 (for
| instance)
| xnx wrote:
| Does that mean the US is "ahead" for not allowing bemotrizinol
| in sunscreen?
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _behind_
|
| Is it really a competition to see who can ban the most things?
| What's the prize if you win?
| thfuran wrote:
| Less cancer, mostly.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| So the US is winning considering they allow less food dyes?
| thfuran wrote:
| Well, we might be winning when it comes to food dyes but
| I don't think it's a clear victory overall.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Average life span there is a bit longer overall than the
| USA, but much like the USA it can vary quite a bit from
| region to region
| rqtwteye wrote:
| The prize to win is public health. There is absolutely no
| benefit in putting all this crap into food. Maybe some things
| are harmful and others are not but they are absolutely
| useless.
| rcpt wrote:
| Unless you sell that crap.
|
| Things like Veggie Libel Laws are very much against the
| public interest but farm owners have managed to somehow be
| _both_ rich and adored by the populace so here we are
| blooalien wrote:
| If they're competing to ban _dangerous_ things in our _food
| supply_ then the "prize" is a longer healthier life for
| _everyone_ who lives in any nation that engages in such
| competition? :shrug:
| newfocogi wrote:
| Admittedly to a fault, I tend to be quick to trust institutions
| and don't tend to be quick to believe conspiracies (not claiming
| that this is). With most of the additives to products that people
| seem to be worried about, I default to thinking it's not the most
| important thing I need to be concerned with in my daily life.
|
| But the FDA making this ruling is validating for my friends who
| seem to go way out of their way to find product ingredients to be
| afraid of. I know people have been claiming for years that Red3
| being allowed in the US is crazy.
|
| I'm genuinely here to listen: how would someone who believes that
| the US allows far too many dangerous ingredients in consumer
| goods and believes the consumer needs to actively screen and
| research what is in their products convince me that I need to be
| more serious about screening the products I use for dangerous
| ingredients?
| culopatin wrote:
| We don't need to convince you of anything. If you care, you'll
| look and do your own research about the ingredients. If you
| think you're safe, then you'll eat them,.
| gigatree wrote:
| Is it not enough to know that the federal regulatory agencies
| are captured? Why _wouldn't_ they poison you if it increases
| their bottom line and they can get away with it?
| legitster wrote:
| From the CNN article:
|
| > There don't appear to be any studies establishing links between
| red dye No. 3 and cancer in humans, and "relevant exposure levels
| to FD&C Red No. 3 for humans are typically much lower than those
| that cause the effects shown in male rats," the FDA said in its
| constituent update posted Wednesday. "Claims that the use of FD&C
| Red No. 3 in food and in ingested drugs puts people at risk are
| not supported by the available scientific information."
|
| > But "it doesn't matter, because the FDA mandate under the
| Delaney Clause says that if it shows cancer in animals or humans,
| they're supposed to keep it from the food supply," said Dr.
| Jennifer Pomeranz, associate professor of public health policy
| and management at New York University's School of Global Public
| Health.
|
| Even more confusing - the FDA _still_ doesn 't believe there's a
| cancer link with humans. But they are banning it anyway on a
| technicality.
| modeless wrote:
| They are banning it now so that the incoming administration
| can't claim credit for banning it in a few months.
| lowercased wrote:
| But... they will anyway, if public sentiment favors it. If
| not, they'll blame the predecessor. This seems predestined to
| be.
| blindriver wrote:
| They never would have banned it if RFK Jr. wasn't the HHS
| nominee.
| redserk wrote:
| Incorrect.
|
| https://public-
| inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-00830.pdf
|
| Scroll down to "I. Introduction".
|
| > In the Federal Register of February 17, 2023 (88 FR
| 10245), we announced that we filed a color additive
| petition (CAP 3C0323) jointly submitted by
|
| RFK was not the HHS nominee in February 2023.
|
| But it appears this process has been going even earlier
| than that: November 15, 2022 [0]
|
| [0]: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/17/2
| 023-03...
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| Where did you read that?
| rcpt wrote:
| These regulations fit pretty well with the Democrats platform
| but until now they would have been near impossible to pass.
| freedomben wrote:
| Historically I would agree, but we are in a new world. RFK
| Jr is the face of increased FDA regulation and banning of
| potentially toxic materials, and he is coming under the
| Trump administration. For the vast majority of his life, he
| was a Democrat Fighting frequently Republican
| administrations purposes of environment and health, but he
| is now very much rejected by The Democratic party. The
| Republican party seems to be welcoming him fairly warmly,
| although it will be interesting to see how long that
| persists as soon as he has some disagreement with Trump or
| starts making a real impact.
|
| Personally I really hope many Democrats can put The health
| of our people ahead of other things and work together to
| make meaningful changes, because something really needs to
| be done. Chronic health issues have exploded and it may
| already be too late for multiple generations who will
| suffer from chronic disease their entire life as a result
| of this. If those of us alive and aware of these problems
| now don't do something to correct this course, we will be
| guilty of criminal negligence to our descendants in my
| opinion.
| rcpt wrote:
| Increased food regulation is only one part of his
| platform. And it's something that Democrats have wanted
| for a long time.
|
| He has a ton of other stuff much more aligned with the
| right
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| From AP, seems like this has been in the works for over 2
| years:
|
| > Food and Drug Administration officials granted a 2022
| petition filed by two dozen food safety and health advocates,
| who urged the agency to revoke authorization for the
| substance that gives some candies, snack cakes and maraschino
| cherries a bright red hue.
| autoexec wrote:
| > They are banning it now so that the incoming administration
| can't claim credit for banning it in a few months.
|
| The incoming administration won't be banning things from our
| food. It will be removing regulations and allowing
| corporations to put whatever they want into their products no
| matter what the harms are. I wouldn't be surprised if the
| incoming administration actually reverses the Red Dye No. 3
| ban outright or just guts/weakens the FDA to the point where
| they can't do anything about it.
|
| We're talking about an administration that previously pulled
| USDA inspectors out of slaughterhouses and allowed the
| corporations to police themselves. It killed a rule that
| forced poultry processors to dispose of chickens with lesions
| potentially caused by a cancer-causing virus and allowed them
| to just cut off the tumors (assuming they catch them, they
| also allowed chicken and pork processors to speed up their
| production lines, reducing the time workers have to spot
| problems). It reversed bans on harmful pesticides. It cut
| back regulations on foods that claim to be "organic". It
| waived nutrition/calorie label requirements for restaurants,
| and it allowed food companies to make substitutions and
| omissions in their products without updating ingredient
| labels.
|
| I expect we'll be hearing about a lot of listeria salmonella
| and E. Coli illnesses/deaths in the near future, and much
| later on we'll be here commenting on articles talking about
| how deregulation of the food industry and regulatory capture
| by the food industry have resulted in a lot of preventable
| deaths from cancers and illnesses.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Would it be better for them to just ignore the rules if they
| don't feel that the rules make sense?
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| How about the idea that it serves absolutely zero purpose, and
| could cause cancer?
|
| Maybe that is reason enough to remove it from food? "Some
| people here" love Europe so much, they banned it for that
| reason. But, during this election, conservatives pushed for the
| same so now it's strange how "some people here" are "pro food
| dyes".
| llm_nerd wrote:
| "conservatives pushed for the same"
|
| RFK Jr is basically the polar opposite of a conservative,
| even though he hitched his wagon to Trump after Harris
| refused to return his calls. Seeing the Trump base adopt
| RFK's positions is...super weird. Trump is extremely pro
| Corporation and anti-regulation. RFK is anti-corporation and
| super pro regulation, and believes that fast food should be
| banned and the government should provide every American with
| three organic meals a day, which isn't really a Republican
| platform. And there's a good chance RFK Jr has served his
| purpose to the MAGA group and he'll start facing opposition
| that leads to his elimination from the administration.
|
| Indeed, it's normal on HN to see endless attacks on
| California (which had already banned both red dye #3 and 40,
| among others, to the extent that they can as a state) for
| banning potential carcinogens, making this a rather hilarious
| turn of events.
|
| And FWIW, the FDA started the process for this months ago,
| and months earlier received a petition (from a Democrat, if
| it matters) to ban the dye.
| rcpt wrote:
| Right. Michelle Obama pushed for a lot of things that RFK
| wants. Now that the Republicans suddenly want what the
| Democrats have always wanted of course they're going to
| pass those laws
| legitster wrote:
| > Trump is extremely pro Corporation and anti-regulation
|
| Trump is actually very, very anti-corporation. It's a very
| prominent part of his stump speeches and campaigning. He's
| accusing corporations of everything.
|
| His fortune was made from real-estate speculation and the
| Trump corporation is basically run like a family business.
| If you were try to attach a label - he is pro-aristocracy.
| He believes wealth tied to land and inheritance is
| "legitimate", and wealth tried to trade and commerce as
| illegitimate.
| huhkerrf wrote:
| Trump is actually very, very whatever will get Trump
| elected or whatever was last whispered in his ear.
|
| Trying to find a coherent philosophy from Donald Trump is
| impossible.
| tacticus wrote:
| > family business
|
| In the organised crime meaning of the word family
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| RFK Jr is MAGA where it counts: Anti-vaccine, vaccines
| cause autism, HPV vaccine doesn't work, Covid attacks
| whites/black but spares jews/chinese by design.
| tw04 wrote:
| Serious question: If there's even a slight chance it causes
| cancer, and it adds nothing to the food other than a slightly
| more appealing color, why risk it? What is the benefit?
| selykg wrote:
| I don't think anyone really cares or thinks there's some
| benefit. The problem is (I think) that this leads to some
| people believing that the dye causes cancer, when there's
| been no direct link in humans.
| dmonitor wrote:
| I'm surprised they're banning Red 3 instead of Red 40. Red 40
| is a very common allergen.
| will4274 wrote:
| We (humans) don't subsist on some Matrix-like slop that
| provides all of our nutrients for no pleasure. Eating is a
| weird combination of necessity and pleasure activity. You
| could ask: if there's even a slight chance it causes cancer,
| and it adds nothing to the food other than a slightly more
| appealing _taste_ , why risk it? You'd ban most spices with
| this line of reasoning.
|
| At the end of the day, the _safest_ thing (in terms of
| avoiding cancer) is probably to plant some potatoes in your
| backyard and eat them unspiced and unbuttered for the rest of
| your life. Most of us prefer food that is a bit more
| appealing than that, however. Appealing in all aspects -
| taste, texture, and appearance.
| tw04 wrote:
| >We (humans) don't subsist on some Matrix-like slop that
| provides all of our nutrients for no pleasure. Eating is a
| weird combination of necessity and pleasure activity. You
| could ask: if there's even a slight chance it causes
| cancer, and it adds nothing to the food other than a
| slightly more appealing taste, why risk it? You'd ban most
| spices with this line of reasoning.
|
| I mean, we absolutely do that already. There's plenty of
| folks on a low sodium diet because while the salt tastes
| great, it's bad for them.
|
| In this case we aren't talking about eliminating the color
| red entirely, we're arguing about a slightly different
| color. You can get red from a strawberry, raspberry, cherry
| skin, etc. which will work just as well. It just won't be
| the neon-red that red-5 produces.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yup, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of dyes one could
| use to get red that are completely harmless. Although
| they may be more expensive, I have no clue.
| B56b wrote:
| Nope, eating nothing but potatoes for the rest of your life
| is a fantastic way to ensure that you end up with severe
| macro/micronutrient deficiencies, which will be a very
| effective way of generating disease, including cancer.
| will4274 wrote:
| > Hyperbole.
|
| > 1. A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for
| emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year or
| This book weighs a ton.
|
| > 2. A figure of speech in which the expression is an
| evident exaggeration of the meaning intended to be
| conveyed, or by which things are represented as much
| greater or less, better or worse, than they really are; a
| statement exaggerated fancifully, through excitement, or
| for effect.
|
| > 3. Extreme exaggeration or overstatement; especially as
| a literary or rhetorical device.
|
| From DuckDuckGo, quoting Wordnik, quoting The American
| Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Other than bakery items, what foods do you regularly eat
| that depend on having a specific color? I don't see how
| that's anything other than a marketing tool to make them
| stand out on store shelves. When you order something in a
| restaurant, you typically don't even know what their
| version will look like until it gets to your table. I've
| never, not once, added dyes to home cooking outside of cake
| icings and things like that.
|
| There've been ridiculous attempts to get rid of perfectly
| innocent flavor enhancers before, like the fight against
| MSG. Take out MSG, and food tastes less good. But take out
| a borderline red dye, and what's the worst that happens?
| Factories have to sell soda that's slightly less pretty in
| the bottle?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Cheese
|
| Tuna
|
| Pickles
|
| Oranges (apples as well, but I can't find an old article)
|
| Wasabi
|
| Apricots
|
| Ginger
|
| Salmon
|
| https://www.treehugger.com/foods-youd-never-guess-were-
| artif...
| kstrauser wrote:
| Those _are_ dyed, but they don 't _depend_ on the dye for
| nutrition or taste. Wasabi isn 't less delicious if it's
| a lighter or different hue.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| The saying goes you eat with your eyes. These things
| depend on dye as they rot on the shelf otherwise.
|
| A paper on it: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti
| cle/abs/pii/S00319...
| smugma wrote:
| Cheetos, skittles, Froot Loops, Gatorade, salsa, salad
| dressing
|
| To paraphrase Shakespeare, "Would a Cheeto by any other
| color taste as savory?"
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| > what foods do you regularly eat that depend on having a
| specific color?
|
| Probably all of them. We are super sensitive to colors.
|
| Red meat and fish like tuna and salmon have carbon
| monoxide and sodium nitrate treatment just to keep them
| red because that's how people think they can judge
| quality.
|
| > Consumers will pay up to $1 per pound more for darker
| colored salmon compared to salmon with lighter hues,
| according to research by DSM, a company that supplies
| pigmenting compounds to the salmon feed industry.
| kstrauser wrote:
| > according to research by DSM, a company that supplies
| pigmenting compounds to the salmon feed industry
|
| Seriously?
|
| Alternatively, if we stopped dyeing fish, a year later
| people will have totally recalibrated what they think
| fresh, healthy fish looks like.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| For fun, you could grow your own seasoning (besides herbs,
| easy too) for those potatoes. I recently learned about the
| plant Salicornia - you can dehydrate them and grind them to
| make a green salt. I'm going to try to grow some this year.
| bityard wrote:
| The problem with that premise is that almost every substance
| has a remote chance of causing cancer in some way or another.
| Just ask the state of California. So you would have to ban
| everything if that is really your stance.
|
| The correct (and scientifically valid) thing to do is to only
| take action when there is actual evidence and proof of harm
| being done. Otherwise, anyone can simply say X is harmful and
| pass regulations to get their pet bogeyman pulled off the
| market, and that is basically what is happening here.
| ninininino wrote:
| No, you assign a risk score as well as a cost score to all
| the industrial inputs that you can use. In this case, there
| are readily available red food dyes (eg cochineal from
| industrially farmed insects) that have much lower risk
| scores (as they are from plant and animal sources) and not
| significantly different cost scores.
|
| You also need to ask, what is the cost of not having this
| substance? In this case, the cost would be - you have food
| that isn't red. Is that a substantial problem for society?
|
| To treat these as irrelevant and boil it down to "prove it
| is harmful or shut up" is needlessly reductive.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Have those other been proven safe? Is it possible they
| too cause cancer?
|
| I'd like to point out that eating charred meat has a
| clear link with colon cancer, so we can't simply appeal
| to nature for safety.
| parineum wrote:
| > that have much lower risk scores (as they are from
| plant and animal sources)
|
| This is a fallacy. If anything, there's more reason to
| expect that a substance evolved to serve a biological
| function (that happens to be red) would have biological
| effects in humans than a substance developed specifically
| to be red and be biologically inert.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > only take action when there is actual evidence and proof
| of harm being done
|
| I agree with most of what you are saying. However, I think
| it's valid to also apply heavy scrutiny on new chemicals
| being added to the food chain. The default being to not
| allow it if it's not proven safe.
|
| Red dye 3 probably shouldn't have been added to the food
| supply chain with that criteria but since it's already been
| there for decades with no strong link to negative outcomes
| there's little reason to ban it now.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > The correct (and scientifically valid) thing to do is to
| only take action when there is actual evidence and proof of
| harm being done.
|
| Because we're talking about food I would actually like to
| see the opposite. Provide peer reviewed, gold standard
| studies showing that what you want to put in food is in
| fact safe.
| timr wrote:
| There is no such thing as proving something "safe". Go
| back and re-read the parent comment. The important point
| you are missing is that basically anything can be
| "linked" to cancer, and if you adopt the argument you are
| making, there would be nothing left.
|
| Proving something safe is logically equivalent to proving
| that it is _not unsafe_ , which is the same thing as
| proving a negative, which cannot be done. I cannot prove
| there is _not_ a teapot circling Mars, and I cannot prove
| that even the most inert ingredient, _at some dose_ ,
| will _not_ harm you.
|
| Anyone who has lived in California knows this absurdity
| more intuitively than most people, because California's
| stupid laws adopt the logic you are proposing, and
| basically everything in daily life is labeled as cancer-
| causing.
| tw04 wrote:
| >There is no such thing as proving something "safe". Go
| back and re-read the parent comment. The important point
| you are missing is that basically anything can be
| "linked" to cancer, and if you adopt the argument you are
| making, there would be nothing left.
|
| Really? You have some studies linking wheat and whole
| grains to cancer? And I don't mean wheat crops sprayed
| with glyphosate, just straight up wheat? Raspberries?
| Strawberries?
|
| The reality is, very little of the actual natural food in
| our food chain is directly linked to cancer. All the
| additives we pile on top, on the other hand, are.
|
| I would argue if we can't show a direct benefit to the
| consumer, it shouldn't be in the food chain. So, what is
| the direct benefit to a human consuming red-5? "It looks
| better on store shelves" isn't a direct benefit.
|
| A shelf stabilizer? Sure, plenty of instances that makes
| a lot of sense. Food coloring that happens to be cheaper
| than natural alternatives? Just... no.
| whodev wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
| rimunroe wrote:
| > The reality is, very little of the actual natural food
| in our food chain is directly linked to cancer.
|
| Natural things aren't inherently safer. Are alcohol and
| red meat both considered natural? Alcohol is a group 1
| carcinogen (same as tobacco and asbestos) and red meat is
| group 2A (probably linked to cancer). A cursory search
| shows some studies linking fish consumption to cancer,
| though I have no idea how accurate those studies are.
| tw04 wrote:
| I'll ignore for a second you completely avoided the point
| to move the goal posts.
|
| Alcohol isn't a natural food, it's a result of food
| rotting. Much like rotten meat, you can naturally assume
| negative side effects
|
| Red meat has positive benefits from its consumption, as
| does fish.
|
| What is the benefit of red5? If aren't going to address
| that, I'll assume you aren't interested in anything but
| whataboutism and aren't actually engaging in a good faith
| discussion.
| rimunroe wrote:
| > I'll ignore for a second you completely avoided the
| point to move the goal posts.
|
| Which goal posts did I move? Directly addressing a
| foundational claim isn't moving goal posts. You said that
| very few natural foods are directly linked to cancer.
| That's demonstrably false, as red meat almost certainly
| is. To your next point:
|
| > Alcohol isn't a natural food, it's a result of food
| rotting.
|
| I genuinely have no idea what you mean by natural then.
| At what point does something become unnatural? Alcohol
| certainly occurs in nature quite a bit, and I don't know
| that I'd call all the instances "rotting". Leavening
| bread with yeast produces noticeable amounts of alcohol.
| Orange juice famously contains a surprisingly high level
| of alcohol.
|
| > Red meat has positive benefits from its consumption, as
| does fish.
|
| Of course they do and that's why I never claimed they
| didn't. I would assume all foods have health benefits
| (beyond the obvious one of course). However, you claimed
| that most natural foods don't have links to _cancer_ in
| particular.
|
| > What is the benefit of red5?
|
| I only just realized you said "red 5" earlier. I assume
| you're referring to red 3 (erythrosine), though I don't
| think the specific dye matters here.
|
| > If aren't going to address that, I'll assume you aren't
| interested in anything but whataboutism and aren't
| actually engaging in a good faith discussion.
|
| I'm not an expert on the dye in question and know little
| about it so I _purposely didn 't comment on it_. I don't
| think I need to do so in order to address your central
| claim, which seems to be--and correct me if I'm wrong--
| that to lower our cancer risk we shouldn't add things to
| our food chain which aren't naturally in our food chain.
| That claim relies on 1) being able to distinguish what is
| natural to our food chain, and 2) for natural things
| being less likely to cause cancer than unnatural things.
| I believe 2 is flawed for the reasons I already gave. 1
| is a famously thorny subject. Even pre-history human
| diets were varied enough for adaptations for different
| regions to evolve.
|
| Anyway, I'm an idiot on the subject of dyes but if you
| want my argument: adding regulations isn't a zero-cost
| thing. We shouldn't add them without solid justification.
| I don't have enough knowledge about this subject to know
| whether or not such justification exists for the red dye
| in question here. However, your proposed alternative
| doesn't sound well-defined enough to be argued without
| you being clearer about what you mean.
| sneak wrote:
| It's impossible to prove a negative.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Why wouldn't you be able to prove a negative link?
| sneak wrote:
| It is logically and practically impossible to prove
| things to be untrue. We can only prove things that are
| true.
|
| The thing we could prove is "no detectable increase
| versus control, in our test data". There is no way to
| prove "x does not cause cancer" any more than there is a
| way to prove "x does not cause meteors" or "x does not
| cause spontaneous human resurrections" or "x does not
| cause humans to turn into unicorns".
| HWR_14 wrote:
| How does "no detectable increase versus control, in our
| test data" not prove there is no connection (errors in
| the study aside). And why does that not prove anything,
| but "yes detectable increase versus control, in our test
| data" does?
|
| Because, sure there can be errors either way. But a study
| produces new knowledge, not just knowledge or "just as
| much a mystery"
| bmicraft wrote:
| It is certainly possible to show that there is no
| positive correlation with a certain statistical
| significance. Pretending we're talking about such high
| standards as "no human future or presently alive could
| ever be harmed by any quantity of x" completely misses
| the point and borders on bad faith.
|
| Let's set workable standards for when something can be
| called safe and enforce them.
| constantcrying wrote:
| There is no way to establish a food as "safe".
|
| Health outcomes are noisy, especially if taken over a
| long time. Peer reviewed studies are often flawed in
| various ways and most scientific studies lack the
| statistical power to be inconclusive.
|
| The fear based approach to human diets can not work. We
| have to accept risks in our lives if we want to eat at
| all.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Just ask the state of California
|
| I've see the labels at Starbucks, by the chocolate at the
| grocery store, and by the balsamic vinegar.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I'm not really pro-bureaucrat, but perhaps the standard for
| food should be slightly different. Just maybe, (novel) food
| (additives/preservatives/ingredients) should first be
| proven safe, rather than waiting until they're proven
| unsafe to prohibit them. It's not as if this was a
| substance humans regularly ingested for centuries and
| people are only now wigging out... look at the wikipedia
| entry for this. The only halogen that's not part of this
| thing is apparently bromine, the IUPAC name for the
| chemical's about as long as my comment here.
| stvltvs wrote:
| Proven safe against what though?
|
| I'm a big proponent of food safety regulation, but we
| have to acknowledge that there's no way to prove
| something is safe against all possible harms it might do.
| There will always be a risk in food. The question is how
| much risk will we tolerate?
| jacobgkau wrote:
| > The correct (and scientifically valid) thing to do is to
| only take action when there is actual evidence and proof of
| harm being done.
|
| How about only put things in food that are contributing to
| the actual food? It's not just nutritional value, it's
| absolutely taste and texture as well. But visuals? Surely
| you can agree the balance of "is it worth it" is different
| for the _color_ of a fruity loop than for nutritional value
| and taste.
|
| You're correct that the "acceptable" line needs to be
| somewhere because risk isn't absolute, but that line can be
| in different places for different purposes. (And you can't
| just write off _all_ cancer concerns because some of them
| probably aren 't legitimate.)
| threeseed wrote:
| > The problem with that premise is that almost every
| substance has a remote chance of causing cancer in some way
| or another.
|
| What is the scientific basis of this claim ?
|
| It's pretty extraordinary that every single thing we eat is
| carcinogenic.
| sabareesh wrote:
| I would rather go other direction. When introducing new
| chemical or additive it has to be proven that is not
| harmful to humans before using it
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I suppose it boils down to freedom of expression. Analog is a
| type of red plastic does nothing to humans, but can cause
| cancer if rats eat it. Do we ban it? What if we're actually
| trying to kill rats in our area?
| galleywest200 wrote:
| Humans do not eat plastic, this argument doesn't make
| sense.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Humans constantly consume microplastic. This is a bad
| faith argument.
| freedomben wrote:
| Just because an argument is wrong (and in this case gp is
| very wrong), does not mean it is in bad faith. Arguing in
| bad faith requires intent. I see no evidence of intent in
| gp's message. Ironically, if it didn't then one could say
| that dismissing arguments as bad faith (without evidence)
| of such is itself a form of bad faith, meaning your
| dismissal would be in bad faith. However, I see no
| evidence that you intended to argue in bad faith.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I will disagree. Stating an obviously empirically false,
| easily observed statement immediately does set the table
| for a bad faith argument IMHO.
| freedomben wrote:
| Yes, of course. Humans do not directly eat plastic. At
| least nobody I know chews on plastic plates or cups.
|
| But that does not mean that humans don't eat _any_
| plastic. Tiny pieces of plastic gets transferred to the
| food by contact with plastic containers. Some processes
| like microwave ovens, radically increase the amount
| transferred as well. Previously it was thought that these
| microplastics would just be eliminated from the body
| through typical waste functions, but evidence is
| increasingly mounting that The microplastics actually
| stay in the body long term and destroy cells they come in
| contact with. Given we have found nontrivial levels of
| microplastics in all of our vital organs (including
| testicals!), that 's a scary proposition.
|
| A crude analogy might be germs. Humans don't eat germs
| directly either, but by nature of their size and
| invisibility to us, we end up consuming plenty of them.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Don't forget about drinking it. Plastic water bottles are
| insanely profitable. And nobody really knows how many
| people daily a _hot_ coffee that came from a Keurig pod
| and went into a styrofoam cup.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Seems more like a problem with uneven application of bans.
|
| Red dye 3 might cause cancer (maybe) but it's admittedly such
| a weak effect that studies aren't finding a link in humans.
|
| Meanwhile, there are carcinogenic things like alcohol which
| anyone can buy (over 21).
|
| Heck, we can't even mandate that alcohol must contain B12,
| which would absolutely save lives and prevent some of the
| serious injuries of alcoholism.
|
| But we can ban this dye that may or may not in some very
| small percentage of people cause cancer.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yeah, B12 AND B1 in alchohol alike. There are lots of
| people around age 50 who get admitted to social home and
| have irreversible B1 deficiency, labeled as "alcohol-
| induced B1 deficiency".
| hattmall wrote:
| But red dye has little to no value to consumers and there
| are equally viable alternatives. No one is going to start
| bootlegging red dye 3 if it is banned. Alcohol has huge
| value and is basically impossible to ban.
|
| What does B12 in alcohol do?
| cogman10 wrote:
| B1 and B12 it should be.
|
| As for what that does [1], wet brain.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernicke_encephalopathy
|
| If someone you know is an alcoholic, try and get them to
| take b vitamins.
| johnisgood wrote:
| If you are asking what would putting B12 (or B1) in
| alcohol do: prevent serious irreversible deficiencies
| that are not only horrible for the person themselves, but
| people as a whole, one way or another.
|
| Call it risk reduction.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| But have those dye alternatives been proven safe assuming
| an equally rigour test of "well, this might cause cancer
| but we can't actually prove it"?
| jchw wrote:
| Well, we did TRY banning alcohol, but it didn't go that
| well. We do at least generally attempt to prevent children
| from consuming alcohol, though.
|
| Should we ban alcohol? I think people should stop drinking
| it, but in general I don't think the sale of things that
| may be harmful in some ways should be entirely prohibited,
| it would just be good if we minimized the amount of
| potentially harmful ingredients in our general food supply.
| e.g. if someone wanted to buy/sell Red Dye No. 3 on its own
| I don't think that would be a big concern.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Both alcohol and tobacco are regulated by the ATF. The FDA
| would ban cigarettes if they had the authority.
| modeless wrote:
| Alcohol causes cancer, should we reenact prohibition? Water
| is poisonous in large enough doses. Should we ban water?
|
| Nothing in this world is truly free of all risk. We have to
| make judgement calls with every single substance. Yes,
| coloring food is a legitimate use with real benefits that we
| need to weigh against the risks. And we also need to consider
| the very real costs of enforcement and burden of compliance.
| Bans are an extreme option that does not come without costs
| for the government and society.
| roboror wrote:
| Obviously the problem is that Red no3 is so prevalent and
| completely unregulated. Alcohol is sold separately and ID
| is needed to purchase and isn't added to children's food.
| If the dye was only sold separately in bottles this debate
| wouldn't be happening.
|
| The water thing is even more unserious so I'll ignore it.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| Follow-on serious question: who gets to decide what risk is
| too much and what reward isn't enough for me and my body? Why
| should that be anyone other than me?
| bityard wrote:
| It's the old "better safe than sorry" routine. Very popular
| with politicians and managers, who are incentivized to take
| action on extremely minor issues and hold them up as heroic
| accomplishments while avoiding all the work and mess involved
| with fixing _actual_ systemic and cultural problems.
| robotnikman wrote:
| If a food additive is banned in the EU, it should be banned
| here IMO. The EU has a good track record on what should or
| should not be included in food
| rsynnott wrote:
| Strictly speaking it isn't banned in the EU, it is banned in
| the EU _with the exception of processed cherries_. Quite why
| the cocktail cherry industry was considered so critical that
| it received a specific exception is unclear.
| parineum wrote:
| By what measurement is their track record good?
| whodev wrote:
| You do know the US bans more food colors then the EU, right?
| You can't just say LGTM and go with what the EU does.
| bmicraft wrote:
| I don't know whether that's literally true, but I can
| certainly tell you that there is no point in banning stuff
| nobody in the EU is thinking of using anyway. US companies
| are way more "adventurous" with their additives, which
| makes regulation here even more important.
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| It's not a technicality, it's the law.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Banning all chemical that does exactly nothing except to absorb
| spectrum of light and make fake food look more like the real
| analog
| 9283409232 wrote:
| The Biden admin is trying to take the few sane things the
| incoming Trump administration wants to do and do them first which
| has been funny to watch.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Harris blatantly copying the No Tax on Tips was particularly
| funny this election season. You could see on her face that she
| didn't believe in it at all.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| I don't think she really has beliefs other than her career.
| EasyMark wrote:
| that is 99% of all politicians though. Her policies were
| generally much better aligned with the health and well
| being of the average American vs the average billionaire.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I think that Trump doesn't care one way or another about food
| coloring or Americans getting cancer, and as such his
| administration will likely leave such things alone and
| untouched for the most part unless the food lobby asks him to
| cancel or defund the FDA for campaign contributions or similar.
| bgro wrote:
| Why's there no avenue for receiving risk appropriate compensation
| funds for having increased personal risk of death by consuming
| something a reasonable expert in the industry could consider
| dangerous?
|
| If I skirt the law on technicalities to cause harm to an employer
| for example, such as knowingly implementing trivial security
| encryption on critical transactions, I feel I could be liable for
| damages. Why is this a game of spot the problem and then get off
| with a warning before going to the next preplanned technicality
| workaround that usually also causes cancer but will buy them a
| few years until the process repeats?
|
| Shouldn't mass risk of life be considered a terror level charge?
| Or rather, instead of saying no to that question because it
| didn't appear to meet X criteria, why aren't we finding ways it
| could meet that criteria? For example if it needs a political
| reason, we should ask how this could be a politically motivated
| decision rather than saying this doesn't appear to meet any
| political agenda. That's how the laws are always completely one
| sided abused against normal people anyway in a more extreme
| stretch than my example. I think it's reasonable to do a
| reasonable-amount of application back.
| ixtli wrote:
| It would set a precedent that is unpalatable to people who sell
| this stuff.
| csallen wrote:
| Because the people en masse have not successfully come together
| to demand this.
|
| What makes companies more powerful than the people is not that
| companies actually have more power. They don't. It's that they
| concentrate the power they do have into the hands of a small
| group of decision-makers, which allows it to be deployed
| effectively. By comparison, the people are divided, disjointed,
| disorganized, and distracted, and as such typically fail to
| come together to demand specific changes they agree on.
| nucleogenesis wrote:
| Idk I think there is a ton of overlap between industry and the
| highest levels of government. They wouldn't want pesky things
| like human well-being to get in the way of profit so they get
| their hands on some of the levers of power and mitigate their
| liability one way or the other. It'd probably take a class
| action lawsuit in the kind of case you describe to be brought
| to justice.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Most people wont like this, but the answer is because courts
| care about if the harm actually occurred in fact, not if there
| is risk that harm might occur.
|
| You cant sue another driver because they risked crashing into
| your car.
| airstrike wrote:
| Great. Hopefully in 50 years we'll have banned most of today's
| children's cereals.
| Separo wrote:
| Do libertarians support this kind of move?
| EasyMark wrote:
| No libertarians feel that people will likely get sick or die
| from bad products, and will sue the company/quit buying the
| product; aka let the market and survival of the fittest decide
| what people put in their bodies.
| zeristor wrote:
| Cancer is a very wide category, I assume that it may induce a
| sub-group of all cancers. I believe the article mentions Thyroid
| cancer specifically.
| legitster wrote:
| It's specifically a type of cancer in rats with no human
| equivalent. But the FDA rules state they can ban an ingredient
| if it causes cancer in humans _or_ animals.
| gigatree wrote:
| According to Claude w/ regard to all the "food-grade" artificial
| dyes: > These base chemicals are all derived from the fractional
| distillation of crude oil, where different hydrocarbons are
| separated based on their boiling points. The relevant fractions
| are then further processed through various chemical reactions to
| create the needed starting materials for dye synthesis. It blows
| my mind that more people don't talk about this instead of just
| jumping to conclusions based on which studies have been done.
| Studies can and are manipulated by entities that stand to gain
| the most from their conclusions, but a sprinkle of logic could
| tell you that constantly eating things that the body isn't
| intended to process, that no humans in history have ever eaten is
| a bad bad bad idea. And it isn't just chemical-processed coal
| tar. That's a drop in the bucket. We've been systematically
| betrayed on every front by our government agencies, media, and
| institutions to believe that actually it's okay, the reason we're
| so much sicker than we were 50 years ago is because we don't
| exercise enough. I anticipate more and more of the general public
| are going to start peeling back the curtain, and what they find
| is going to appall them. These people are ignorant at best and
| intentionally trying to kill us at worst (remember all that
| population control talk?) - once you realize that you realize
| that the grocery store, the doctors office, etc. are de facto
| hostile places where you can't take anything for granted. Our
| grandparents may have had the luxury of letting their guard down
| and happily putting something in their cart or taking the
| doctor's advice without understanding it, we don't.
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| You have some valid points, but this mostly reads as
| exasperated defeatism that doesn't offer any actionable
| solutions.
| pc86 wrote:
| It'd be great if people stopped just copy-pasting stuff from
| LLMs and then responding to _that_ instead of other real human
| people.
|
| It's not a foregone conclusion that just because people haven't
| ingested things before doesn't inherently mean that ingesting
| them is bad. Saying it is is itself a pretty obvious logical
| fallacy. Now I'm not saying at all that ingesting oil, even
| byproducts after multiple rounds of synthesis, is a good idea.
| But it's not impossible to synthesize something edible out of
| something inedible, so the fact that oil is inedible doesn't
| mean that all oil derivatives are as well.
| greenavocado wrote:
| FD&C Red 40 (Allura Red AC): Linked to hyperactivity in
| children in some studies, although evidence is mixed.
| Theoretical concerns regarding disruption of cell membrane
| integrity, potentially leading to increased permeability and
| toxicity.
|
| FD&C Yellow 5 (Tartrazine): Some in vitro studies suggest
| potential neurotoxic effects, though human evidence is lacking.
| Theoretical concerns regarding modulation of neurotransmitters,
| potentially leading to behavioral changes.
|
| FD&C Yellow 6 (Sunset Yellow FCF): Similar to Yellow 5, some in
| vitro studies raise concerns, but human evidence is limited.
| Theoretical concerns regarding binding to DNA, potentially
| leading to mutagenic effects.
|
| FD&C Blue 1 (Brilliant Blue FCF): Theoretical concerns
| regarding exacerbation of respiratory conditions like asthma.
| Theoretical concerns regarding increased cell membrane
| permeability, potentially leading to toxicity.
|
| FD&C Blue 2 (Indigo Carmine): Limited human studies, but some
| animal research suggests potential neurological impacts.
| Theoretical concerns regarding triggering or exacerbating
| immunological reactions.
|
| Read food labels.
| pigeons wrote:
| "according to claude" makes it hard for my mind to give much
| credence to the post in a way very different from "according to
| Wikipedia" with a link. I intend this politely, but if I wanted
| to know what claude would output I would ask it myself, during
| the phase of the moon when the way I've chosen to word the
| prompt has the best chance of working.
| paradox242 wrote:
| The credibility of the food industry is so low that I think
| people would support bans on most additives on general principle.
| We look back at things like putting lead and radium in paint or
| using asbestos in insulation and say "they should have known
| better, how could they be so stupid". Well, good additives have a
| lengthy history of containing harmful additives and I think
| future generations will say the same about many of these
| currently in use. What's interesting is that from our current
| time we can see just how easily it happens, even with the amount
| of information available to average person.
| rcpt wrote:
| Labeling is the big one imo.
| BroodPlatypus wrote:
| What gets tracked gets improved. I think we need to update
| the ingredient requirements for food (wtf is seasoning) but
| also update the fields on Nutritional Facts.
|
| Having a drink like Oreo Coca-Cola read 0's down the board is
| illustrative of my point. There's lots of crap in our food
| but it's been selected specifically for its ability to not be
| captured in the dozen or so categories deemed important back
| when legislation passed on food transparency.
| gigatree wrote:
| I realized a long time ago that lack of information isn't the
| problem. We're basically living in a Brave New World now; most
| people are too distracted to realize they're being poisoned and
| would only accept it if the very institutions doing it told
| them they were doing it. But IMO it's more of an emotional
| thing - once you realize it it's hard to go back to the comfy
| world of "actually the bureaucrats and shareholders are looking
| out for my well-being".
| ipython wrote:
| Great, now ban Red 40 and the other synthetic dyes. You can't
| avoid them in anything marketed toward children. I have children
| and I know others who also have children that are highly
| sensitive to these dyes, causing major behavioral issues that
| last for 5-7 days after ingesting food/medicine/drinks that
| contain these dyes.
| parineum wrote:
| That's been proven in double blinded studies, I assume.
| ipython wrote:
| Never been asked to participate in one. I am a huge proponent
| of the scientific method. This argument always interests me,
| though. (by the way, just a quick search on pubmed:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3441937/;
| https://www.cspinet.org/page/synthetic-food-dyes-health-
| risk... the EU bans some of these synthetic dyes:
| https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/food-colours).
| Also reference the famous "Southampton six" study in 2007
| which triggered evaluation of food dyes across Europe: https:
| //www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
|
| As a parent, if I notice a correlation between an action and
| subsequent behavior, are you saying that my lived experience
| is irrelevant because... nobody bothered to include me in a
| specific double blind study? How many things do you do every
| day that have not been studied through exhaustive scientific
| research?
|
| From my own lived experience, when one of my my kids eats a
| red velvet cake or a bag of Skittles or M&Ms that he's
| violent and crazy for a week, but if he has a few Oreos he's
| fine. If one of my other kids does the same thing, she
| doesn't have the same reaction. If I knew the exact chemical
| pathway that made this happen, I'd be thrilled. I am just
| living my life trying to parent kids in this world, and you
| know what, stupid bright dyes that do nothing other than make
| food appear unnaturally incandescent are practically
| impossible to avoid. So it's just one more thing that's piled
| on as a parent that you have to deal with.
|
| If you ask me, this aggressive "well, you're stupid and you
| shouldn't trust your own eyes because science" attitude that
| has triggered the strong anti-authority sentiments globally.
| It's why objectively crazy people like RFK Jr get huge
| followings- I vehemently disagree with 99% of his rhetoric,
| especially his anti-vax viewpoints, but I totally agree with
| his stance on food additives such as these synthetic dyes.
|
| I see the effects with my own eyes. Telling me I'm stupid
| doesn't help science, it just serves to further diminish the
| trust in the very institutions we need more now than ever.
| pitaj wrote:
| The EU allows 11 [1] synthetic food dyes while the US only
| allows 9 [2]
|
| [1] https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/food-colours
|
| [2] https://www.fda.gov/food/color-additives-information-
| consume...
|
| > As a parent, if I notice a correlation between an action
| and subsequent behavior, are you saying that my lived
| experience is irrelevant because... nobody bothered to
| include me in a specific double blind study? How many
| things do you do every day that have not been studied
| through exhaustive scientific research?
|
| "Noticing a correlation" could very well just be
| confirmation bias. For decades, parents thought that giving
| kids sugar made them more energetic, but the scientific
| consensus is that there is no link between the two.
| drewg123 wrote:
| There is growing evidence that Red 40 causes IBD:
| https://www.uhhospitals.org/blog/articles/2023/02/can-red-fo...
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I remember the concern about and ban of Red No. 2 when I was a
| kid. I've always been a little suspicous of colored food since
| then.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaranth_(dye)
| Dig1t wrote:
| According to Google:
|
| >Red 3 dye has been banned in the European Union for food use
| since 1994
|
| Seems pretty reasonable to me.
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| What other things does the US need to ban to catch up with
| Europe? Who is "right vs wrong" here? Is Europe wrong for having
| too many things banned, is US wrong for not having parity with
| what is banned in Europe?
|
| Is Europe being overly cautious, is America being unsafe?
| PHGamer wrote:
| this is merely a money grab by moneyd interests to ban dyes that
| are not patented and to force us onto something that is patented.
| whodev wrote:
| My goodness, for a website full of techincal individuals a lot of
| you are falling for the appeal to nature fallacy hard. Also, it
| looks like no one here knows how to defer to experts. I don't
| know much about food safety standards, chemical compositions,
| additives, etc. so I've talked with people who are experts
| instead. And from what I have gotten, most people are freaking
| out because they lack an understanding of what is really safe or
| not. People believe that since a certain scary sounding chemical
| was added that the food is now less safe when that's not the
| case.
| BytesAndGears wrote:
| I think an important note is that regulatory agencies in other
| countries have cracked down on some of those scary-sounding
| chemicals, due to them being unnecessary for food with no real
| benefit for the person eating it, and possible evidence of
| negative affects.
|
| I mentioned this in another comment, but as someone who has
| lived for multiple years in the US and Europe, it is a drastic
| difference in food quality between the two. Much easier to eat
| foods made of whole ingredients where I lived in Europe - even
| many prepackaged foods that we'd buy at the grocery store.
|
| I came across this link yesterday[1] on a health-focused HN
| thread[2]. The study split a group of overweight people up into
| low-carb and low-fat diets, to see which produced better weight
| loss. The group that lost the most weight was actually neither
| - it was just whoever ended up eating less processed foods and
| more whole foods.
|
| [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/health/to-lose-weight-
| focus...
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42668123
| whodev wrote:
| > other countries have cracked down on some of those scary-
| sounding chemicals, due to them being unnecessary for food
| with no real benefit for the person eating it, and possible
| evidence of negative affects
|
| Just because another country bans something does not make
| that thing harmful. Politicians banning food products and
| additives with no real scientific evidence is not unusual.
| They bend to public will, they are politicians after all.
| Also, studies that show "possible evidence of negative
| affects" in mice ingested at higher dosages then a human
| would ever eat or drink does not show they are harmful in
| humans. Humans are not mice after all.
|
| > as someone who has lived for multiple years in the US and
| Europe, it is a drastic difference in food quality between
| the two
|
| This is purely subjective, I've been to Europe and the Middle
| East, both have great food. But food in America is no worse
| in quality. The main difference is when I visited those
| area's I mostly ate out, at nicer restaurants where food
| would of course feel/taste/look better then the average meal
| at home or from fast food. But when eating at friends homes,
| the food quality (vegetables, fruits, meats) was no different
| than what I could get here in America.
|
| > it was just whoever ended up eating less processed foods
| and more whole foods
|
| I'm not arguing that we don't eat more ultra-processed foods.
| We do eat too many highly refined foods with little
| nutritional value. My argument is against blaming food
| additives, dyes, GMOs, HFCS, etc... Eating more whole foods,
| vegetables, and fruits would make you healthier, but that's
| due to the nutritional value, fiber, feeling more full for
| longer leading to reduced caloric intake, etc... Not because
| you got rid of food dyes.
| ipython wrote:
| Or, maybe some of us have lived experience where artificial
| food dyes have detrimental effects to our children. I don't
| need science to tell me what my own two eyes and lived
| experience says. Do I really need a double blind study to tell
| me that when one of my kids eats food laced with these dyes,
| he's crazy for a week, but when he eats candy w/o these dyes,
| he just is a normal kid with a sugar rush?
|
| My sibling comment goes into more detail, but claiming that
| anyone who has a lived experience is stupid (aka, falling for a
| logical fallacy) is just accelerating the distrust of
| "authority" at a time when we need it most.
| bmicraft wrote:
| Someone with one (1) anecdote is not an authority and
| shouldn't be trusted like one. Eroding trust in authorities
| by equating actual experts with somebody who has a half baked
| opinion based on an anecdote seems like the real issue to me.
|
| Going around and assuming every opinion is based on objective
| reality instead of subjective experience filtered through
| human perception with all it's quirks is not a good way to
| arrive at truth.
| ipython wrote:
| I'm not asking to be treated or trusted like an authority.
| I'm just asking not to treat people, when sharing a lived
| experience shared with others (making this n>1), is told
| that their experience is "half baked". My lived experience
| is _by definition my objective reality_.
|
| Arguing with me that I could not possibly have experienced
| a cause and effect because some people didn't hold enough
| large enough placebo controlled double blind studies (I say
| this because double blind studies have studied this exact
| phenomenon, and triggered the retraction of some of these
| dyes in other countries) is just insulting after a while.
|
| We know _so little_ about nutrition and how different
| individuals process different nutrients that the scientific
| consensus on healthy food habits, weight loss, etc have
| shifted dramatically over the years. We are facing an
| obesity epidemic in the US. A little humility would be nice
| in the face of what clearly is not working for the majority
| of the population.
|
| I mean, it's just food dye for God's sake, what's the
| "scientific" argument that foods _must_ contain artificial
| colors?
| bmicraft wrote:
| Please don't misunderstand me, I'm against unnecessary
| additives too. But you surely agree that anecdotes are
| bad source to inform your understanding on a subject
| where countless actual experts are available.
| ipython wrote:
| What can the actual experts tell me about my child's
| reaction to the food dye? One of my children has an
| adverse reaction to the dyes, my other children do not.
| What is the expert going to tell me? How does one get
| access to one of these experts? What about the studies
| that do show a link between behavior issues and
| artificial dyes? Are those studies not to be trusted?
|
| Edit: curious about your first sentence: what makes you
| against unnecessary food additives? Is it a double blind
| study? If so, can you name it or an expert opinion on the
| matter that you trust?
| yongjik wrote:
| > Do I really need a double blind study to tell me that when
| one of my kids eats food laced with these dyes, he's crazy
| for a week, but when he eats candy w/o these dyes, he just is
| a normal kid with a sugar rush?
|
| TBH this sounds like exactly the kind of things double blind
| studies are invented for.
| ipython wrote:
| Ok - here's one.
| https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2007/09/hyperactivity-
| in-...
|
| But even if there were none that showed a link, I should
| just continue to feed my child something that would cause
| adverse reactions?
|
| What's crazy to me is ... we are talking about a totally
| unnecessary food additive. It's not like I'm arguing
| against some critical public health intervention to prevent
| a deadly virus. It's a dye to make food turn a color.
| scoofy wrote:
| This isn't even that surprising. It's been a controversial food
| additive banned in various countries basically my entire life,
| and I'm in my 40s.
| gigatree wrote:
| Have you considered that those experts might have perverse
| incentives? It's not a secret that the very regulators whose
| job it is to make sure we don't eat poison are the same people
| who sell the food. But sure feel free to "trust the experts",
| I'll be over here doing my best to not eat things made out of
| coal tar (even if someone in a lab coat says it's okie dokie).
| hakunin wrote:
| Every single thing in our society has perverse incentives.
| Every single person who ever sells you something has
| incentive to sell you as little as possible for as much money
| as possible. Every single employer has incentive to pay you
| as little as possible for as much labor as possible. But
| that's not how things end up happening, because other forces
| are at play.
|
| People who worked their entire life in an industry and became
| experts on it, then become regulators for the same industry,
| have incentives to favor their industry, sure. But who else
| should be regulating the industry if not the expert in that
| industry? If you get someone who is not an insider, wouldn't
| they just fail at regulating, because they have no idea how
| it works? Also, the people who put someone in that position,
| isn't there a chain of accountability there? There are many
| people working side by side with the "evil person trying to
| enrich themselves". Bad acts come out. Incentives tend to
| balance each other out. It's not wrong that part of a
| regulator's job is to find a balance as to not destroy an
| industry while regulating it.
| gigatree wrote:
| > But that's not how things end up happening, because other
| forces are at play.
|
| Is it really not how things end up happening? We must be
| living in two different realities. The greater the power,
| the higher the likelihood it becomes corrupted. With such a
| high incentive to give into corruption, you can't just
| hand-wave it away with "but I'm sure it gets balanced out
| by something". Your local family doctor might be a good
| enough person to help you get better without expensive
| drugs, but the head of a large institution? Fat chance.
| hakunin wrote:
| That feeling you just expressed of higher trust to your
| local doctor than to a head of a large institution: it
| came from having a pretty good idea what your local
| doctor does, and no idea what a head of an institution
| does. The growing problem with cynicism in our society is
| not because there's evidence of corruption, it's because
| nobody knows how anything works, but everybody gets fed
| "look at these bad incentives" by pundits (especially
| alternative media ones) all day. Everything is complex.
| Just because it is doesn't make it nefarious.
|
| An institution's whole point is to be a system where you
| don't have to trust individuals. It's a way to deal with
| complex nature of our reality. People should really learn
| what institutions are, how they function, what
| accountability mechanisms they contain, instead of
| blaming them based on conjecture. "Look, this bad thing
| happened. And this person has this bad incentive. Now we
| know the whole story." We don't.
| gigatree wrote:
| No not really, trust in my local doctor comes from having
| a personal relationship with him and trusting his
| character enough to trust his word. There are things that
| are going to be beyond my understanding, but if I can
| trust his character enough to believe he'd rather see me
| healthy even at the expense of a bigger paycheck, then
| I'll do it. How people place that same trust in faceless
| institutions is beyond me. Again - what forces exist to
| prevent them from being corrupted? Absolutely the growing
| cynicism in institutions is because of evidence of
| corruption. We gave them undeserved trust, they abused
| it, and now we see the effect of that.
| theferalrobot wrote:
| > appeal to nature fallacy
|
| Appeal to nature isn't a fallacy, it is a rhetorical device and
| can be a completely logical razor.
|
| The appeal is to have a diet more in line with our evolutionary
| past. If we want a yellow food dye should we:
|
| A) derive it from something humans have been eating for
| hundreds of thousands of years and that a couple studies have
| confirmed is probably safe...
|
| B) derive it from petroleum (as current US yellow food dye is)
| that a couple studies say is probably safe.
|
| Who the hell would take B? Unless we believe that our studies
| are infallible, all encompassing and perfectly established and
| executed the first will always be a better option. Time and
| time again we see that things previously thought safe are not
| but I would argue it is far far rarer to see that on the more
| naturally derived side of food.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| I also talked with people who are experts, and they assured me
| banning Red Dye 3, among other things, is necessary and it will
| improve population health in the long term.
|
| See, I can also make shit up.
| hfourm wrote:
| My Doritos will never be the same
| exmadscientist wrote:
| For anyone wondering why it takes so long to actually switch this
| stuff out, and the available alternatives to Red 3, I thought
| this piece from a food dyes company (no relation) was
| fascinating:
| https://na.sensientfoodcolors.com/confection/replacing-red-3...
|
| You have to figure that if these guys had a drop-in replacement,
| they'd be offering it for sale at a high price, so this probably
| is the best you can do. The process changes and requalification
| looks like no fun at all. But it also looks pretty doable for a
| company in this line of business, so maybe you won't see too many
| color changes on the shelf with this ban.
| jpk2f2 wrote:
| Thanks, that article was fascinating. I wasn't aware of how
| complex swapping it out could be, its continued use makes a lot
| more sense now.
|
| I'm very curious on what's going to happen with cocktail
| cherries - I believe they use Red #3 (it's one of the only
| permitted uses in the UK).
| VanillaCafe wrote:
| > For anyone wondering why it takes so long to actually switch
| this stuff out
|
| One counterpoint is do we really NEED to have brightly colored
| foods? It's a hard problem if you need a food to be bright red.
| But, that has to boil down to strictly to improving sales,
| right? Hypothetically, if all the artificial food dyes were
| banned, then all food companies would be on the same level
| playing field.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Color is definitely something that catches a person's eye, so
| if you have a "food product" that needs extra to convince
| someone to buy it, color is a way to do it. You can't taste
| it before purchasing. You can see and smell it, so they push
| those levers as much as they can.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Visuals have a pretty big impact on food. I wonder how many
| foods would just look disgusting without any food dyes.
| Reminds me of butter companies trying to pass legislation to
| make margerine companies unable to dye their product to look
| like butter
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| Fun fact - this is how blue raspberry was created as a flavor.
| Raspberry flavored things were purple, made from a combination of
| red and blue dye. The red dye (red no 2) was banned. So companies
| making raspberry flavored stuff just left the red dye out and
| said "raspberry is blue now" and we all went "shit yeah it is,
| always has been! why would raspberry be anything other than
| blue?"
| bagels wrote:
| Do raspberries not taste like raspberries?
|
| What product has "blue raspberry"?
|
| I can only think of one raspberry product I buy, and it doesn't
| have any dye, and is deep red colored (from the raspberries)
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| Jolly rancher
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Blue raspberry is a candy only flavor. It doesn't really
| taste like raspberry. Its pretty common as a flavor in the us
| at least, it's one of my favorite candy flavors.
| ProofHouse wrote:
| For anyone that pushes back on the government currently elected,
| well, far from optimal imagine that so many before them allowed a
| cancerous substance like this to be in so many foods
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