Artificial coloring is poison and foods that contain it are garbage! Now, I realize that if you willfully consume brightly colored death and feed it to your family on a daily basis as part of the standard American diet (S.A.D.) you will reflexively defend your choices by immediately labeling that statement extreme. Extreme or not, it’s true. I know its hard, but try to resist your ego’s urge to protect itself by dismissing this proven fact by thinking, “If it’s being allowed in our food it must be safe!” and running away. You’re wrong. I assure you its not the first time you’ve been wrong and it won’t be the last.

Don’t believe me? Research it yourself. Here is a very easy first step. Review some of the other industrialized nations’ approach to food coloring. A quick search and you will find that a lot of brands use artificial coloring in America, and natural food coloring in say, England. Why is that? Cultural taste preferences? Afraid not. It’s because after extensive scientific studies in the early 2000s, the EU urged companies to stop using them. In 2010, they started requiring warning labels. As you can imagine, having a label that says “MAY CAUSE CANCER” isn’t a good look for a rainbow colored food marketed to children! So, now those same brands that happily sell Americans food laced with harmful chemicals, use natural alternatives in Europe. Weird right? Why would they do that? Why wouldn’t they just stop using it, period? But, I digress.

If you love scarfing down brightly colored frankenfood, you’re probably feeling your ego building a wall around this destructive idea to protect itself. If so, fight it! Instead, continue reading and learn about the consequences of ingesting colors created in a laboratory and see if you can correlate doing so to symptoms you may be encountering in your day-to-day life. The most commonly discussed risk is the link to hyperactivity. The US has a massive number of kids (and adults) labeled as ADHD and that number is astronomically higher than it was 50 years ago. Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1 and Blue 2 are all linked to hyperactivity. These colors alone and mixed together, have been shown in studies to “cause hyperactivity and other behavioral impairments in children” (Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks). If hyperactivity is something you or your child struggles with, try removing artificial food dyes from your diet. Maybe it’s not “just the way they are” or “due to a mental ailment”. Maybe, it’s the brightly colored death.

Now onto the heavier more life changing side effects. ALL of the artificial food colors we use in the US have been linked to some type of cancer or tumor. My favorite visual is this one from Deep Roots at Home. Cancer, tumors, chromosomal damage and asthma are all listed as possible side effects. In the EU these were reasons enough to course correct, but not in the USA. Here they are still everywhere. “They may cause cancer? No way. My doctor would tell me that instead of just signing me up for expensive chemo!”. Would they now? Do you know how much a nice set of golf clubs and a day on the links costs?

Hopefully, you are at least considering that this could be true and you are concerned and wondering how to make a change. Organic foods do not allow artificial food coloring so that’s an easy, albeit more expensive option, typically.  For cereal, organic is the best option. For candies there are tons of alternatives, just search for brands that use natural colors. Now you know. Don’t say you weren’t warned!

Citations and Deeper Reading on this Topic:

https://deeprootsathome.com/artificial-food-dyes-target-kids-colors-were-dying-for/

https://www.cspinet.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/resource/food-dyes-rainbow-of-risks.pdf