[HN Gopher] Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes acros...
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Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private
brand foods
Author : prossercj
Score : 76 points
Date : 2025-10-01 16:54 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (corporate.walmart.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (corporate.walmart.com)
| robotnikman wrote:
| Good, there is a reason why just about every other country
| outlaws these.
| sensen wrote:
| Can you clearly state what that reason is? The only reason
| stated in the article is that this move "is in line with
| evolving customer preferences and in support of a more
| transparent food system".
| 4d4m wrote:
| They're mainly petrochemicals and were dubiously granted
| protected status. Lots of colors are poisions, read "A
| Rainbow of Risks" - great paper on documented problems with
| these
| fabian2k wrote:
| My understanding is that there are somewhat more restrictive
| regulations on food dyes in the EU compared to the US. But that
| overall there isn't a big concern about the majority of these
| dyes.
|
| There also isn't a fundamental difference between a synthetic and
| a natural dye. Okay, humans are more likely to have encountered a
| natural dye during their evolution and adapted to ingesting them.
| But that is unlikely to matter to all kinds of dyes, and also
| wouldn't filter out any health effects that don't affect
| reproductive fitness.
|
| Treating a whole category of molecules this way does not make
| sense. It makes sense to evaluate the health effects of
| individual dyes. But that is not unique to synthetic dyes.
| themafia wrote:
| > It makes sense to evaluate the health effects of individual
| dyes
|
| I wonder if changing the color of food is actually that
| important.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Ah, yes. The "I don't think anyone needs to do this,
| therefore no one needs to do this" argument.
| themafia wrote:
| Hardly. I'm openly wondering. If you _need_ to do this,
| then please, by all means, share that with us here now.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I was looking at this paper which seems to have a bunch of
| citations. Different colors are associated with different
| flavors in certain countries.
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13411-015-0031-3#.
| ..
|
| But yes I think the food color is ultimately important to
| succeeding in the marketplace and we aren't going to be
| getting rid of food dyes in manufactured food anytime soon.
| hollerith wrote:
| >the food color is ultimately important to succeeding in
| the marketplace
|
| The decision-makers at Walmart seem to believe artificial
| colors are no longer important to succeeding with Walmart's
| customers and prospective customers.
|
| And clearly they're not important to succeeding at Whole
| Foods, where all artificial colors have been disallowed for
| many years.
| bagful wrote:
| Artificial colorants make it easier to design visually
| hyperstimulating foods without having to compromise on
| flavor. What could the upside for the consumer be, to disrupt
| our evolved associations between appearance and flavor?
| psunavy03 wrote:
| But this is likely also an attempt to market to people who
| think things like "but I don't want to be exposed to chemicals"
| while not realizing water is a chemical.
| rovr138 wrote:
| they might not drink water
| dmix wrote:
| Most likely so if they buy their food at walmart.
| pfexec wrote:
| It's extremely presumptuous of you to assume that
| everyone who shops at Walmart are uneducated simpletons.
|
| Maybe they're smarter than you with money. The same box
| of cereal that costs less than $2 at Walmart is almost $6
| at Whole Foods.
| alrs wrote:
| This is the kind of nerd-snark that makes normal people not
| trust anything from the mouths of "experts."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM
| vel0city wrote:
| The thing is, there are many chemicals which are safe to
| drink in reasonable amounts, and many chemicals that are
| not safe to drink in any amount. People deciding not to eat
| something because "it has chemicals in it" is a pretty
| ignorant take.
| TheFreim wrote:
| > People deciding not to eat something because "it has
| chemicals in it" is a pretty ignorant take.
|
| When people say this they are _obviously_ not referring
| the the definition of "chemical" that a chemist would
| use. Pretending otherwise is exactly the "nerd-snark"
| mentioned above which makes people distrust experts
| because they clearly aren't intending to use the term
| "chemical" in a sense that would include substances like
| water.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Right, just like the town that banned dihydrogen
| monoxide.
| macNchz wrote:
| There are too many food (and personal care and clothing
| etc) chemical additives for the average person to
| remotely be able to keep up with the details of each,
| especially given not all products even need to disclose
| them-the charitable, or simply non snarky, reading of
| that kind of comment is more like "I don't want to eat
| food with unnecessary/under-studied additives in it."
| psunavy03 wrote:
| The point is it's totally possible for some artificial dyes
| to potentially be harmful and need to be regulated, but
| eliminating them all just because they're "artificial" is
| woo-woo nonsense on the same order as my deliberately
| parodic example.
|
| Know what else is artificial? Insulin and penicillin.
| dlivingston wrote:
| Very funny, but also flippant and glib.
|
| When people -- myself included -- say they have a problem
| with chemicals in food, they of course mean artificial
| chemicals: that is, compounds, preservatives, dyes, and
| flavors that are non-naturally present for that particular
| food item and were added for their shelf life, taste,
| aesthetic, or addictive properties.
|
| Next time you visit your grocery store, go read the
| ingredients list of a few different boxed and frozen items.
| It's not uncommon to see three- or four- dozen ingredients on
| items that should have less than 10.
|
| While all of these compounds may have FDA approval and
| studies verifying their safety for ingestion, please keep
| several things in mind:
|
| 1. Studies use large, population-based sample sizes and their
| effects are based on their statistical significance on these
| populations. In other words, "side effects" are a population-
| level phenomenon, not an individual phenomenon. It is
| plausible that individual side effects are hidden as
| statistical noise. This is a problem with pharmacological
| studies as well and there is no easy solution to it AFAIK.
|
| 2. We have a massive obesity crisis in this country (and
| increasingly globally). Sedentary lifestyles and increased
| caloric intake is no doubt part of this, but it is blindingly
| obvious (to me, at least) that the meat of the problem is
| environmental, primarily diets, and these compounds are
| wreaking havoc on the endocrine systems of the population
| causing a massive uptick in obesity and diabetes.
| hgomersall wrote:
| 3. Long term effects are very hard to study and tease out.
|
| 4. Interactions are even harder to establish, since the
| possible different cocktails and biologies combinatorially
| explode. This is the primary reason for a precautionary
| principle in introducing new compounds into our diets.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| That comment is right up there with deliberately
| misunderstanding "Organic" food labeling for anything carbon-
| based.
| Retric wrote:
| The sheer percentage of artificial food dyes that have been
| banned suggests otherwise. There's a long pattern of banning
| something once enough evidence builds up only to be replaced by
| something that's then eventually banded.
|
| If there where significant value that might be different, but
| there isn't a great argument for experimenting on millions of
| people here.
| fabian2k wrote:
| How many artificial food dyes have been actually banned? I
| mean in the time where we actually had some regulations, the
| old days were quite wild in terms of safety in all areas, so
| I don't think that would be a useful comparison.
| Retric wrote:
| I don't recall the exact number, but well over half that
| have been in common use were eventually banned.
|
| Edit Prior to this administration: Butter yellow, Green 1,
| Green 2, Orange 1, Orange 2, Orange B, Red 1, Red 2, Red 4,
| Red 32, Sudan 1, Violet 1, Yellow 1, Yellow 2, Yellow 3,
| Yellow 4 + some more in the really early days.
|
| EU had a longer list including Titanium dioxide.
| greygoo222 wrote:
| Titanium dioxide is naturally occurring.
| Retric wrote:
| The poster was using the phrase natural dye.
|
| It's a naturally occurring non organic molecule, but it's
| not naturally a white pigment. It takes a lot of
| processing to get that brilliant white powder and as such
| it's not something our ancestors dealt with.
| hollerith wrote:
| It is not naturally occurring in the human diet.
| pfexec wrote:
| I'm in awe at the number of people that will go to bat for
| things like artificial dyes in food, only because the
| policy is coming from the present administration. It's just
| common sense. We don't need to be ingesting this shit. It's
| cosmetic and not needed for nutrition. Why are you feeding
| your child Fruit Loops and not Cheerios?
|
| I personally have known people who develop migraines after
| eating food with artificial dyes. We can sit here and snipe
| and play semantics and argue over pointless details but why
| bother? Just get rid of them all.
| 4d4m wrote:
| +1. G.R.A.S. (generally recognized as safe) is long
| overdue for reform
| fabian2k wrote:
| I want these decisions to be bases on scientific and
| medical data, not on gut feeling or unfounded personal
| belief. I have no issue with regulating specific dyes or
| additives in food, or groups of related chemicals.
|
| And your anecdote is not scientific data. You cannot draw
| any conclusions from that.
| pfexec wrote:
| Again with this, you are simply proving my point further.
| I don't need a panel of credentialed scientists to tell
| me if this stuff is okay or not. It's unnecessary to
| sustain life and provides no nutrition whatsoever. There
| is literally zero reason to add it to food. Your kid can
| eat white or chocolate icing on birthday cakes. Get rid
| of it. The end.
| speff wrote:
| Food presentation has an effect on taste. This is why the
| dyes are used. Frankly, I wouldn't want to live in a
| world where the only food we're allowed to eat has to
| demonstrate that it's only made of ingredients necessary
| to sustain life and be nutritional.
| dcrazy wrote:
| We don't make decisions to ban foodstuffs based on
| whether they are "necessary to sustain life."
| ethersteeds wrote:
| I know this feels cut and dry to you, but what you're
| kicking is a fundamental pillar of the industrial food
| system. Many food products emerge from processing a dull
| or unappetizing color. Food needs to last as long as
| possible and still look like food. It's tempting to say
| that food should all be made with love in home kitchens,
| but that's untenable for feeding 8 billion people.
|
| My favorite example of this is orange juice. OJ is kept
| in long term storage to stretch a seasonal crop into
| year-round availability. What comes out is brown and
| flavorless! This brown mush is restored to something a
| person would drink with the addition of "flavor packs"
| made by the perfume industry. This has the added benefit
| of giving brands a consistent and repeatable flavor.
| Regulatory bodies in their wisdom allow this product to
| be called "100% juice".
|
| You might say well get rid of that too. I'm not arguing
| this is the ideal food system. But it has to be said,
| this goes a lot deeper than the easy ones like frosting
| and fruit loops.
| Clamchop wrote:
| Calling it "the perfume industry" is a half truth. It's
| the flavoring industry, but it so happens that there's a
| lot of overlap between perfume and flavoring in terms of
| raw materials.
|
| However, flavoring is a distinct profession. Besides
| that, very few novel compounds are allowed in food
| compared to fragrance. If any flavoring is synthetic in
| origin (which is not the same thing as novel, to be
| clear) then the product must be labeled as artificially
| flavored. If they call the product 100% juice and added
| flavoring is used, then that flavoring in turn has to
| have been sourced from the fruit.
|
| In other words, they're using extracts from real oranges
| to reconstitute the flavor lost during pasteurization.
| They can further adjust which parts of the extract they
| use (called fractions and isolates) to dial in a
| particular flavor.
| ethersteeds wrote:
| I appreciate the nuance! My intention was to show that
| there's a surprising amount of correction for flavor and
| taste necessary even for one-ingredient "natural" foods.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Fluoride in communal drinking water is another thing I
| notice strange ingroup outgroup thinking in ...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I personally have known people who develop migraines
| after eating food with artificial dyes
|
| Yeah, my mom was the same way when she had food with MSG
| in it. But only when she _knew_ there was MSG in it.
| hollerith wrote:
| When your mom eats something that is bad for her and her
| brain can tell it is bad for her, then if that experience
| is repeated a lot, then every time it encounters that
| thing or even thinks about that thing, her brain will
| tend to cause a defensive reaction, which itself is
| unpleasant and can affect your mom's behavior. None of
| this need be conscious or deliberate.
| tayo42 wrote:
| If I want to eat fruit loops, why are you getting
| involved?
|
| We have options and can make our own decisions about what
| to eat.
| pixl97 wrote:
| 1. Because you'll feed them to your kids who do not make
| their own decisions, other than if they'll pay to remove
| cancers off their anus or die at home at 25.
|
| 2. Because a massive food industry would gladly lie about
| how unsafe their product is just like tobacco companies
| and they have far more money than you to befuddle the
| research.
| greygoo222 wrote:
| You can live your life how you want. What the rest of us
| eat isn't your business.
| colpabar wrote:
| Not wanting multi-billion dollar conglomerates putting
| poison in everyone's food is a far-right position now,
| didn't you get the memo?
| wnevets wrote:
| > My understanding is that there are somewhat more restrictive
| regulations on food dyes in the EU compared to the US.
|
| There isn't. The US's FDA allows fewer of them than the EU's
| EFSA.
| infecto wrote:
| I could not find my reference but I thought it was something
| more along the lines that either they don't need to be
| disclosed in the EU or they go under different safer sounding
| names.
| watwut wrote:
| They are under Exxx codes. Not even safer sounding they are
| just listed by their technical codes.
| infecto wrote:
| Thank you that's it. I had remember some folks comparing
| products debunking those claims "see red #5 is not in the
| European version"
| colechristensen wrote:
| There are people with allergies to some naturally derived dyes.
| Annatto (from tree seeds) and carmine (from bugs) in
| particular.
|
| A small number of people get anaphylaxis from carmine.
| KolibriFly wrote:
| I think Walmart's move probably isn't about toxicology as much
| as it is about consumer perception
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Probably. It's still interesting that Walmart perceives
| consumer perception to be shifting against synthetic dyes.
| dboreham wrote:
| As someone who has an allergic reaction to one of these dyes, I
| support their banning.
|
| I'm allergic to Yellow #5 (Tartrazine), but not to Tumeric
| which seems to do just as good as job of making things
| yellow/orange.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Yeah, Yellow dye #6 may cause testicular cancer, but I can't
| stand boring looking pastries. Sure people could use saffron,
| but that's expensive and we have to have cheap and good
| looking, right?
|
| Ban 'em all. If it isn't already in the foods we eat, it
| doesn't belong.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Synthetic and "natural" is so hazy. What's the difference between
| a dye that's synthetically made and one where we crush up bugs
| and extract the same exact chemical (real thing.). Why don't we
| just eliminate most dyes overall...
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| You will eat the bugs...
| syntaxing wrote:
| I have some bad news for you if that bothers you
| https://www.livescience.com/36292-red-food-dye-bugs-
| cochinea.... That's where "natural" dye comes from
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Interesting read! At least it's not cockroaches. The bugs
| look like raspberries funnily enough.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Eh. Being honest with dyes there's a pretty strong distinction
| between "natural" dyes going through several extraction and
| purification steps but remaining more or less the same intact
| molecule found in something alive.
|
| "Synthetic" dyes being the result of a long chain of steps and
| intermediate molecules which are usually ultimately sourced
| from things like air, petroleum, and seawater.
|
| Science literacy is bad so people have problems articulating
| the issue of concern which is "it is fair to have concerns
| about novel chemicals making their way into the food supply
| which evolution has not had a chance to address", not that
| something not found in nature is automatically bad but that
| such things need to be introduced carefully.
|
| People don't know science though so everything is turning into
| "if it's not found in nature it is a monster and unclean",
| which to be honest is fair to a degree for people who don't
| know being forced to accept things blindly and asked to trust
| that everything is fine from people who would gladly disregard
| dangers in exchange for a fraction of a cent in profit margin.
|
| That doesn't mean they're making good decisions just that their
| fear is justified.
| KolibriFly wrote:
| Yeah, the line between "natural" and "synthetic" is mostly
| vibes at this point
| j45 wrote:
| Hope this spreads to other countries.
| krunck wrote:
| If RFK gets his way there will certainly be things spreading to
| other countries.
| timeinput wrote:
| Which other countries?
|
| I'm sure I'm simplifying things, but I think this ban is common
| practice at this point in most of the EU, Canada.
|
| Where else is hypercouloring cereal common?
| j45 wrote:
| The food additive laws vary a great deal between countries,
| even US/Canada/UK/EU/Japan. It's pretty eye opening.
|
| A side effect is these substances may continue to be
| distributed in other countries.
| brynet wrote:
| I participated in some consumer testing when Kellogg's Canada was
| switching their breakfast cereals to natural colours. Beyond some
| muted colours, the cereal tasted exactly the same. Seemed like a
| no brainer, really.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| IIRC they switched to natural dyes in 2017, but sales fell
| because average people are "shiny object" driven. So they
| reverted it.
| brynet wrote:
| Not that I'm aware of.. The product I tested was after 2017
| is still advertised here in Canada with natural colours, made
| with fruit juices.
|
| The US parent company is also committing to it as well.
|
| https://www.wkkellogg.com/our-impact/make-eating-well-
| easy/q...
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Sorry, it was actually general mills who did this.
|
| https://www.fooddive.com/news/silly-general-mills-
| artificial...
| Freedom2 wrote:
| Was it just the US who enjoyed brighter, shinier and
| arguably "faker" things, or did other countries also
| experience sales drops when other brands removed
| artificial coloring?
|
| I'm curious (as in HN curious discussion) whether this
| points to something greater about US culture.
| allears wrote:
| Generally, I tend to eat natural foods. I have for decades. They
| just taste better. Dyes are mostly used in processed foods,
| because otherwise they would look unappealing next to fresh
| natural food. And for a very good reason.
|
| All that is to say, doesn't much matter to me what they regulate,
| I eat hardly any of that stuff anyway.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| If China stops buying our soybeans, we can start planting other
| things. Aren't natural food dyes just a great way to encourage
| diversity in domestic agriculture?
|
| I am not an expert in synthetic vs. natural, but I feel like this
| decision isn't actually about health (I don't see any reason to
| believe why Wal-Mart cares at all about the health of Americans)
| but rather some larger macroeconomic reality.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Ugh.
|
| THE SAME NUMBER OF SOYBEANS ARE GETTING CONSUMED.
|
| If China is buying South American soybeans instead of US
| soybeans than whoever was buying from South America is going to
| buy from the US because it's not like 8 million tons of
| soybeans per month are magically getting created in Brazil.
|
| It's not that there will be no market effect but it's pretty
| close to a zero sum game because the global production and
| consumption of soy really isn't changing that much.
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| Disclaimer: numbers are from memory
|
| > china
|
| China imports only 21% of it's soy from america. Down from 40%
| 5y back.
|
| America consistently exports only half of its soy output. The
| other half is all used domestically.
|
| To be clear, almost all soy in the world is used for animal
| feed, not for humans to consume. My exact knowledge of poultry
| is limited, but I believe broiler chickens are made possible
| (3kg in 50 days) only because of a diet consisting of a certain
| kind of corn and certain kind of soy.
|
| > We can start planting other things
|
| American farms and the entire supply chain is pretty hardwired
| to corn and soy, for the same reasons punjab/haryana farms are
| hardwired to rice (even tho it's arid land, rice isn't even
| native, thus uses up groundwater too fast).
|
| Government-set/subsidized price floors, insurance, storage
| programs specifically for 4 program crops, of which one was
| corn, and to which soy was a later addition. India has the same
| thing for rice etc.
|
| Soy/corn rotation also caused extreme lock-in, since soy leaves
| a lot of nitrogen in the soil after harvest, and corn needs a
| lot of nitrogen.
|
| There are many other factors, but essentially, the entire farm
| supply chain is locked in to corn/soy in most American farmland
| similar to how most punjab/haryana supply chain is stuck in
| rice/wheat alternation and resulting farmland/aquifer overuse.
|
| In america too corn soy are not native. And the excess nitrogen
| goes down the rivers and causes hypoxia in the gulf of
| (mexico|america). Very symmetric problem.
|
| It's extremely expensive to get them to grow anything
| different. For starters, removing the price floors and such is
| electoral suicide. Most of the farmers (that remain) depend on
| these things heavily. You can complete the rest...
|
| More random stats: 40% of us corn goes to animal feed, 40% goes
| to ethanol (for blending with petrol among other things), and
| the rest is other stuff.
|
| Even more: 70% of soy goes to animal feed, primarily broiler
| chicken, 15% goes to oil. Margarine, processed crap, lots of
| fried goods, all use this. I think you can even make plastic
| with it. I forgot what the other 15% was... And the people
| actually eating tofu, soy milk, etc are a tiny percentage and
| don't even register.
| 4d4m wrote:
| What a HUGE win for everyone's health. Kudos.
| rapjr9 wrote:
| Indeed. So what is missing from the list? Perhaps emulsifiers?
| ck2 wrote:
| it's already easy to eat and drink things without any dyes or
| even artificial flavoring
|
| (except OTC medication always has that nonsense, but now my advil
| is also dye-free)
|
| but Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the life-expectancy of people
| back when everything was natural and organic
|
| https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMpuL2GMQSd/embed/
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| We are exposed to so much anti-customer behavior thanks to HN.
| But this move is a shining example of alignment between customers
| and a commercial entity.
|
| Businesses doing things in line with customer preferences is
| exciting to see.
| KolibriFly wrote:
| I'll be curious to see how they define "synthetic" and what
| ingredients make the cut or get quietly swapped in
| kipchak wrote:
| Aldi US did the same back in 2015.
| li2uR3ce wrote:
| We should use lead pipes because they are made from naturally
| occurring lead. Synthetic PEX pipes have to go because:
| synthetic.
| bobby_mcbrown wrote:
| Truth be told they both probably leech chemicals into the water
| supply.
| bobby_mcbrown wrote:
| Can someone please explain to me why people are so hostile to
| this? Like even if you don't care, why would people be _against_
| putting less chemicals in food?
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