Artificial Food Dyes: Boycott Kelloggs
At Food Integrity Now we are tired of so many of the corporations putting our children at risk and their blatant disregard for our health and the health of our children. This time, it is artificial food dyes, and Kelloggs is the culprit! I know that most of you do not eat sugary processed cereals, but I am sure you know people who do. This is so important so please share this article with everyone you know! Here is why we are boycotting Kelloggs.
By Mary Chantler
Recently, California has signed legislation into effect to become the first state in the United States to prohibit 6 artificial food dyes in our children’s school lunches. This will actually not fully take effect until late 2027. This is a good move forward for the health of our children, especially children who consume their main meals in a school setting. But why is this such a slow process? And why is the United States so late to the party when it comes to banning harmful food additives?
Just yesterday, a large group of protesters led by Vani Hari took to the steps of Kellogg’s Headquarters to hand deliver a petition with approximately 417,000 signatures of concerned citizens and parents, asking them to make good on their 2018 promise to remove artificial food dyes and the harmful additive BHT from their breakfast cereals, which are aggressively marketed to children. The response from Kellogg’s was not surprisingly avoidant…claiming that their cereals are safe for consumption and its ingredients meet the standards of the FDA.
They have taken these ingredients out of the cereal they sell in Germany, United Kingdom and Australia, because the governments have actually banned the ingredients. Essentially, even though they promised to protect our children by taking these additives out…they now claim that since they are still legal…they are keeping them in. Let me clarify here that it is actually illegal to put known carcinogens into food. Seems that based on loads of valid scientific studies, reports and papers (that you can actually access yourself on PubMed and other similar websites…here’s one!), they know that food dyes are carcinogenic, and I am not sure what the problem is here.
And so, the ball of accountability just keeps rolling back and forth between corporate greed and governmental ignorance (fueled by food industry and pharmaceutical conflicts of interest).
These companies will continue to use cheap toxic ingredients to make their food more visually attractive, tastier and more addictive, and the general public will continue buying it based on their ultimate trust that the government wouldn’t intentionally allow food onto the market that would hurt us, unless we uncover the truth of what is actually happening…and stop participating in it.
Interestingly, when you go to YouTube and search “food dyes FDA” the very first video that pops up (at the time this article is being written) is a CBS News clip called “FDA Looking into Food Dye, ADHD Link”. It’s a good video that features the experience of a mom who saw a difference in her child after cutting out these dyes and talks about an upcoming review of food dyes at the FDA. Guess how old this video is? It’s 13 years old.
Guess how long this battle has been going on regardless of all the evidence that proves these ingredients are harmful?
Decades.
Red 3 for example…has been shown to cause cancer in lab animals, and the FDA had finally banned it in cosmetics and drugs…but not food. The rest of the story is that the FDA has known since the 1980s that Red 3 causes cancer, but it wasn’t delisted for use in cosmetics and drugs until 1990. They have since promised to take it out of the food supply, but they were met with resistance from the maraschino cherry industry, and it’s been decades since that promise was made. Red 3 is banned in foods in Japan, China, New Zealand, Australia and United Kingdom. California has also implemented a state-level ban of Red 3.
So, you may be thinking, “What is the big deal about a tiny bit of food dye in our food?” The biggest problem with that mindset is that the reality of our food supply situation shows that these dyes are in a lot more of our food than we realize. As we go about our day… a bowl of Froot Loops here, a handful of Doritos there, a bit of colorful candy, dressing laced with dyes and added sugars on our salad, a cupcake with red frosting, or some “healthy” Del Monte Fruit Cocktail…we have taken in compounded doses of harmful dyes which can cause a myriad of health issues.
American Children are the ones who are being targeted by companies like Kellogg’s and they are at the highest risk of neurological damage from these dyes. It has become pretty important to educate ourselves and help our loved ones understand that this is not an issue of vanity or body shaming or guilt over poor food choices, it is a question of keeping our future generations healthy and disrupting the broken systems that are making us all sick.
To learn more about the damaging effects of petroleum-based food dyes, how to avoid them, and what the government isn’t regulating, see this article from the Center for Science in the Public Interest: Synthetic Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks. This website is a great resource for educating yourself about Food Supply additives and the latest findings.
Also, See EWG’s Food Scores section to find out if your favorite foods contain these dyes.
Thank you our guest blogger, Mary Chantler of Divine Integration, for this informative article.
Thank you for sharing this article with others! Let’s Boycott Kelloggs! Sign the Petition here.
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