Alabama grocery shoppers have been hearing a lot about what goes into what they eat. The Trump administration is taking aim at artificial dyes that are used to make what goes on U.S. dinner plates more appealing. That’s expected to change in about two years when those chemical additives will be banned. APR talked to dieticians and heard some disagreement on what this action may mean….
“And so it was just a top, top priority for me to go ahead and change that out,” said Rachel Breyers.
She's the owner and CEO of Mason Dixon bakery. Breyers took the step of removing all the artificial dyes from cakes and cookies she sells in the Rocket City. She says she wanted to make a point.
“So that we could say that we're our treats are colored by vegetables, not chemicals. Somebody could come in, see a beautiful blue cupcake and feel great about their their child looking at that and saying, you know, Mom, I want that, and me knowing that that didn't have any artificial dyes in it,” she said.
Breyers says her opposition to food dyes goes beyond what winds up on her store shelves. She's a grocery store customer as well, and that left her wondering what she was putting in her shopping cart every week.
“Now, why do vitamins have dyes? Why do medicines have dyes? And so, you know, I was very passionate and motivated to make sure that everything we had on our shelves were things that I would want my own children to be able to eat,” she contended.
Breyer says her move to stop using artificial dyes was in anticipation of the ban being pushed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
“We made the decision months and months ago. I knew in my heart and mind that I wanted to get rid of all food dyes in September of last year, when I stepped in as the new owner,” Beryer said.
“They're created in a lab, using like coal,” said Julia pace, a registered dietitian nutritionist and founder of Core Nutrition Health and Wellness located in Tuscaloosa.
“And they're made from petroleum based chemicals, or crude oil, like petroleum turned into powder,” she added.
Pace says food dyes may make grocery store items more marketable. It's what happens afterward, that's the issue.
“So we don't know the long term effects of these dyes. And like I mentioned, most of these you know, dyes and artificial colors that are in foods are extremely processed foods already, so you're just adding, you know, extra unnecessary potential harm to kids foods by adding those dyes,” said Pace.
Pace says that these dyes are added to processed food which are considered less healthy. Adding these dyes make a greater negative effect, since there are no proven positive effects.
“It's the same if the food dyes, there's very little research,” said Marion Nestle, a retired professor at New York University. Her area of expertise is Nutrition, Food Studies and public health. She's referring to what's called processed foods, and something that may be worse.
“All foods are processed. So it's not processing that we're concerned about. It's what is now called Ultra processing, a specific category of processing that is done industrially, that uses basic culinary ingredients in large amounts, and usually uses a lot of additives to it, and these would be color, flavor, and texture additives, and preservatives.
Nestle says that the research on the effects of dyes, preservatives and processed foods is a hard study. That's because people tend to eat various foods over time, and everyone eats differently. This makes research tough.
“Can't do these studies in humans, because people consume these things in such small amounts that it would take forever to be able to get a study that would look at health effects, and people eat lots of other food, this research is really, really difficult to do,” said Nestle
And one particular audience could be children, and what they may turn their noses up to.
“I think it's going to take a little bit of both,” said Julia Pace, who we met earlier in our story.
“Color is very appealing to children, and so they're really not thinking about the nutrition aspect of it. When they see something on the shelf and it looks cool and, you know, brightly colored, they're just wanting to try it because it looks, you know, appealing,” she said.
“A food company market their products specifically to children,” and Dr Mariel Nestle says that's when marketing food comes in.
“I think if the Make America healthy Again Movement really wants to have an enormous, enormous beneficial effect on health. The first thing they should do is stop companies from marketing to children,” she contended.
And for some people we talked to for this story, this isn't theoretical.
“I remember sitting with one of my kids and we were at a baseball game,” recalled Rachel briars, the owner of Mason Dixon bakery.
“This is years ago, and they ran off and sent their allowance on something from the concession stand, you know, like, oh, and as they were sitting there eating this chemical product that, you know, a food, like substance that was bright red, I observed her emotions changing right before my eye,” she recalled.
“And you know, I don't need a double blind study to tell me what happened right then with my child, I know what happened. And so how great do I feel about Wow, we have a red velvet cupcake without that nasty junk in it,”: she contended.
Breyers is also a mother to five children, and she chose to remove these dyes after experiencing the negative effects they had on her family. And she's not alone. National companies Smuckers and Nestle have announced their efforts to phase out artificial dyes.