California, Virginia, and West Virginia have handed payments to ban synthetic dyes and different meals components. Extra states are contemplating related laws.
A longtime motion to eradicate synthetic dyes from meals is producing momentum, with some well being advocates invoking Secretary of Well being and Human Companies Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Wholesome Once more platform.
A number of state Legislatures have launched payments designed to ban synthetic dyes and different meals components.
In October 2023, California’s Legislature banned Pink No. 3. Final August, it additionally handed a measure to take away six different frequent dyes from use at school meals.
Virginia handed an identical measure in March.
The transfer will ban seven artificial dyes and two preservatives from meals and drinks offered within the state.
Starting Aug. 1, Pink Dye No. 3, Pink Dye No. 40, Yellow Dye No. 5, Yellow Dye No. 6, Blue Dye No. 1, Blue Dye No. 2, and Inexperienced Dye No. 3 can’t be utilized in faculty lunches, the invoice says.
Below the measure, these dyes may even be banned from meals merchandise offered in West Virginia beginning Jan. 1, 2028, in line with the invoice. Artificial chemical preservatives propylparaben and butylated hydroxyanisole may even be barred, the governor’s workplace stated in an announcement.
“By eliminating dangerous chemical substances from our meals, we’re taking steps towards enhancing the well being of our residents and defending our youngsters from vital long-term well being and studying challenges.”
President Donald Trump speaks to the press earlier than signing an govt order, alongside Secretary of Well being and Human Companies Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (L) and Secretary of Commerce nominee Howard Lutnick (R), on the Oval Workplace of the White Home on Feb. 25, 2025. Jim Watson/AFP through Getty Photographs
Business teams spoke in opposition to West Virginia’s laws.
“We stand against this pointless laws. This matter ought to be determined individually, via product transparency and client selection,” the West Virginia Beverage Affiliation posted on social media platform X on March 18.
The Nationwide Confectioners Affiliation—a commerce group for sellers of chocolate, sweet, gum, and mints—stated that new rules will enhance meals costs and make them much less accessible on cabinets.
The group stated in an announcement that there’s a function for state legislators to play within the U.S. meals system, and that the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) is the “rightful nationwide regulatory resolution maker and chief in meals security.”
All shade components should achieve FDA approval earlier than they’re utilized in meals offered in america. Presently, the FDA has authorized 36 shade components, together with 9 artificial dyes.
The European Union, Australia, and Japan, amongst different nations, have banned or restricted the usage of sure meals dyes over potential well being dangers.
Bins of Kellogg’s Froot Loops cereal are displayed in a Goal retailer in Pittsburgh on Nov. 16, 2022. Gene J. Puskar/File/AP Picture
Kennedy has identified how the U.S. model of Froot Loops comprises extra synthetic colours and components than variations offered in different nations.
Final October, protesters gathered exterior the WK Kellogg Co. headquarters in Michigan demanding that the corporate take away synthetic dyes from cereals, together with Froot Loops.
Kellogg beforehand introduced it might eradicate synthetic colours and substances from its U.S. merchandise by 2018, which by no means occurred. The corporate made the change in different nations, together with Canada, the place Froot Loops are coloured with blueberry juice, concentrated carrot juice, and watermelon juice.
“We have now discovered that client expectations concerning colours in meals differ broadly throughout markets and classes,” the corporate stated.
“So what’s inflicting all this struggling? I’ll identify two culprits. First and the worst is ultra-processed meals. … The second perpetrator is poisonous chemical substances in our meals, our medication, and the environment,” he stated.
He stated these ultra-processed meals have chemical substances that didn’t exist a century in the past, and that they’re partly accountable for the rise in illness. Although many of those chemical substances are banned in Europe, he famous, they’re ubiquitous in American meals.
“We are actually poisoning our youngsters systematically for revenue,” he stated throughout a September 2024, roundtable hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). “Pesticides, meals components, pharmaceutical medication, and poisonous waste permeate each cell in our our bodies.”
On March 10, Kennedy met with executives from Kraft Heinz, Kellogg, Normal Mills, Tyson Meals, Smucker’s, and PepsiCo “on advancing meals security and radical transparency to guard the well being of all People, particularly our youngsters.”
“We’ll strengthen client belief by getting toxins out of our meals,” he stated within the put up on X.
“For a lot too lengthy, ingredient producers and sponsors have exploited a loophole that has allowed new substances and chemical substances, typically with unknown security information, to be launched into the U.S. meals provide with out notification to the FDA or the general public.”
In an electronic mail despatched after the assembly and considered by The Epoch Occasions, the meals firm commerce group Shopper Manufacturers Affiliation said that Kennedy needed to work with the business in a collaborative and non-adversarial trend.
The well being secretary additionally communicated the Trump administration’s need to take away synthetic dyes reminiscent of FD&C Blue No. 1 from the meals provide, labeling it as an pressing precedence to be accomplished earlier than he exits workplace.
Kennedy was quoted within the electronic mail as saying that he expects “actual and transformative” change by “getting the worst substances” out of meals.
A view of the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS) constructing, after it was reported that the HHS is chopping about 10,000 full-time jobs and shutting half of its regional places of work, a serious overhaul of the division beneath Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in Washington on March 27, 2025.
Instantly after Kennedy was sworn in on Feb. 13, he was tasked with heading up a fee primarily targeted on childhood well being.
The fee directs govt departments and federal businesses to primarily advise the president on easy methods to “handle the childhood continual illness disaster.”
It’s tasked to discover contributing causes to childhood continual ailments reminiscent of “the American weight-reduction plan, absorption of poisonous materials, medical therapies, life-style, environmental elements, authorities insurance policies, meals manufacturing strategies, electromagnetic radiation, and company affect or cronyism.”
Inside 100 days—by Might 22—the fee will ship an preliminary evaluation of potential elements that contribute to the continual illness epidemic, the order states. A nationwide Make Our Youngsters Wholesome Once more technique shall be introduced inside 180 days.
In January, within the ultimate days of the Biden administration, the FDA banned Pink No. 3 from America’s meals provide and established a 2027 deadline for producers to take away it from their merchandise.
Corporations that make cough syrups and different ingested medication have till January 2028 to conform.
Pink No. 3, which is made with petroleum, was authorized for meals in 1907.
“The FDA can not authorize a meals additive or shade additive if it has been discovered to trigger most cancers in human or animals,” Jim Jones, the FDA’s deputy director for human meals, stated in an announcement after the announcement. “Proof exhibits most cancers in laboratory male rats uncovered to excessive ranges of FD&C Pink No. 3.”
Del Bigtree, communications director for Kennedy’s presidential marketing campaign and founding father of the MAHA Motion PAC, instructed The Epoch Occasions that he believes Kennedy and the MAHA motion began enjoying a big function even earlier than the present administration took over.
“The Biden administration knew that America’s well being departments had been about to bear a change, and so they needed to do one thing earlier than leaving,” stated Bigtree.
“With out the motion, and Bobby turning into Secretary of Well being and Human Companies, there would nonetheless be speak about getting chemical substances out of our meals provide, however that’s all it might be—simply speak,” Bigtree stated.
Samantha Rayburn, a 40-year-old mom of two teenage sons, stated Kennedy’s give attention to addressing the continual illness epidemic in America is lengthy overdue.
“Eradicating meals dyes alone has a strong affect on a toddler in a constructive manner. I do know that from private expertise,“ Rayburn instructed The Epoch Occasions. ”While you go to the grocery retailer and have a look at the substances in many of the gadgets on the cabinets, it’s not wholesome,” she stated.
“These chemical substances are contributing to so many well being issues. I’m glad that steps are lastly being taken to present us more healthy choices,” she stated. “There’s a lengthy street forward and it’ll probably take a couple of years for substantial progress to be made, however what occurred in West Virginia, and all of those payments within the different states, is a promising begin.”
Zachary Stieber, Jack Phillips, and The Related Press contributed to this report.