Food companies agree to remove synthetic dyes, in Win for Maha

Food manufacturers will eliminate eight synthetic dyes from all American products by the end of 2026, the federal government has announced today which reflects the growing scope of the Make America Healthy Again movement.

The denunciation of the “toxic soup of synthetic chemicals” in the food supply of Americans, the head of the Food and Drug Administration Marty Makary said that the elimination of food colors as well as drugs is part of the broader effort of the Trump administration to combat the underlying and avoidable causes of chronic diseases, in particular in children. “ADHD is not a genetic problem and our obesity epidemic is not a problem of will, it is something that adults have done to children,” he said during the event in Washington, DC

Food companies have voluntarily agreed to get rid of artificial dyes, said Makary, but there is currently no official agreement or ban. “I believe in love, and let’s start in a friendly way and see if we can do it without any statutory or regulatory change,” he said.

Six of the colors affected by the measure are common ingredients in bright -colored foods like M&M, Froot Loops and Gatorade, as well as more unexpected products such as pickles, chocolate milkshakes and packed potatoes. These are blue n ° 1, blue n ° 2, green n ° 3, red n ° 40, yellow n ° 5, yellow n ° 6. The other two are less common: orange B, approved for use in the sausage boxes and red citrus fruits 2, used to color orange peels.

“For companies that currently use the red oil -based color, try watermelon juice,” said Makary, highlighting the availability of natural coloring that companies like Mars and Kellogg are already using in the versions of their products sold in other countries. (The eight colors affected by the new measure are based on oil.)

The FDA also plans to accelerate the authorization of four natural colors in the coming weeks and to ask companies to accelerate the abolition of red dye n ° 3, which was prohibited by the Biden administration in January of food supply. Makary said the FDA will work with the National Institutes of Health on additional research on food additives on children’s health.

Research has found links between synthetic food colors and behavioral problems in children, and some studies have also identified potential associations between certain dyes and cancer in animals. California has launched American repression of food colors with a 2023 law which prohibited four food additives, including the carcinogenic red dye n ° 3.

Makary also suggested Tuesday that the bright colors that characterize certain ultra-transformed foods can encourage children to eat more, contributing to health problems such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The reactions of food security defenders for consumers and nutrition experts have been mixed.

“It is certainly a good thing for consumers and public health, but it does not solve the underlying problem, which is the FDA system for the regulation of food chemicals,” said Thomas Galligan, main scientist for additives and food supplements at the center for food in food. “What we would like to see the passage of the Maha towards the fight against these failures in terms of systems.”

Nutritionist Marion Nestlé told Podcast’s conversations on health care that, even if it was quite to get rid of artificial colors additives, improving American diets will require “changing the food system into a system that focuses on public health rather than the health of the company” and the introduction of more regulations on the way food companies market children.

Many States have bills at various stages of legislation which target dyes and other additives. The Consumer Brands Association, which represents the manufacturers of packaged products on Tuesday, thanked the Trump administration in a statement on Tuesday for providing national councils to its members rather than having them navigate in a “state patchwork”. But the president and chief executive officer of the ABC, Melissa Hockstad, also said that the ingredients currently used were safe. “While we are increasing the use of alternative ingredients, food and drinking companies will not sacrifice the science or security of our products,” she said.

Some food manufacturers have already put themselves forward on Tuesday. International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) said its members would eliminate the use of seven artificial coloring in milk, yogurt and other dairy products sold to lunch and breakfast school programs by July 2026.

Makary told journalists after the event that he was optimistic that food companies would comply with.

“We had very positive conversations this week,” he said. “They want to do it, they have offered deadlines by which they can do it. We therefore congratulate ourselves. “

But all food companies do not seem enthusiastic about removing artificial dyes. Speaking in March shortly after Virginia-Western prohibited most food colors by 2028, Merideth Potter of the American Beverage Association said that companies would comply with such laws, but believed that it could take five years to develop the chain of supply of natural dyes and declared that they cost five to 10 times more than the most synthetic. “You don’t need to be an economist to understand what it would do at grocery prices,” she said.

The international association of color manufacturers echoes this concern in a statement on Tuesday. “Need reformulation by the end of 2026 ignores scientific evidence and underestimate the complexity of food production,” said the group. “This process is neither simple nor immediate, and the disturbances of the resulting offer will limit access to familiar and affordable grocery articles.”

Makary, however, said on Tuesday that the change would not lead to an increase in food prices. “We know that other countries have already transitioned,” he said.

The other speakers of the event included the health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Family Maha faces like the food blogger Vani Hari, the doctor Mark Hyman and the health entrepreneur Calley Means. The governor of Virginia-Western Patrick Morrissey, who signed a law in March prohibiting most of the artificial dyes in food, spoke of action at the level of the state. Kennedy framed the coloring of the coloring as the start of efforts to improve food Eat the Americans.

“We are going to get rid of the dyes, then one by one, we will get rid of each ingredient and additive that we can legally approach,” he said.

Means previously described the strategy aimed at combating fruit with low collection such as artificial dyes in order to build popular support for the Maha movement.

The deeper solutions requested by CSPI would involve closing the fault known as fat, or “generally recognized as safe”, which allows food companies to add new chemicals to their products without government examination. “Then you have to clean the mess,” said Galligan-that is, create a system for the FDA to assess the safety of the thousands of chemicals that have already been introduced into food supply, including some who suggest that research can be harmful to health. The massive endowment cuts at the FDA do not increase well for these efforts, said Galligan.

“The realization of rigorous scientific assessments of food chemical security requires expertise, that is to say that it requires people-good scientists, good staff and other resources,” he said. “If the Trump administration continues to make the FDA cuts, it will be the hamstrings and prevent them from repairing this broken system.”

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