Petrochemicals, Carcinogens Brought to You by Betty Crocker

Many of this past month's celebrations were filled with brightly colored desserts. It seemed impossible to avoid frostings of all hues and candies in shades usually reserved for crayons. And now, you'll find bags and boxes of the processed, seasonal goodies stacked up sky-high and on discount in the supermarket.

There's a grocery list of reasons to avoid processed, rainbow-colored sweets. You'll almost always find the usual suspects in their ingredient lists: high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, preservatives, massive sugar contents, etc. But how often do we make it to the bottom of the ingredient list to scrutinize the coloring used in our foods?

It's ironic that synthetic food dyes are oftentimes used to make food look more natural (like when they step in for fruit in a cereal bar), but responding to the color of your food is much more ingrained in your psyche than you might think. A Harvard student asserts that early man learned to avoid spoiled foods through color. Thus, we tend to still avoid blue-ish foods. Unless, of course, they are colored blue for fun. When marketed to children and even to adults, bright, unexpected colors in processed foods seem novel and cute-sy.

As has been covered on Change.org, consumers have reason to be concerned with the artificial dyes they and their children consume. Studies have linked food dyes with hyperactivity and allergic reactions, and some of the synthetic dyes used most commonly in the U.S. contain cancer-causing compounds. Children may be the group most susceptible to adverse reactions to commonly used synthetic food dyes. According to Michael F. Jacobson, executive director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, kids consume more artificial dyes than adults and are likely more sensitive to carcinogens.

It's good to be wary of all artificial food dyes, but one of the most concerning is Red 3, a known carcinogen still in commercial use in kids' foods and baked goods. Back in 1983, the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) acting commissioner admitted that Red 3 can induce cancer, yet manufacturers continue to put 200,000 pounds of the dye into products every year. Many Betty Crocker products (like frosting and other baked good decorations) still include this dangerous, synthetic dye. The British government is now phasing out potentially harmful synthetic food dyes, but the U.S. is lagging embarrassingly far behind.

Artificial color is tricky to avoid in the supermarket, especially in food marketed toward kids. Try to find foods that are dyed using natural ingredients. Some safe natural dyes include fruit and vegetable extracts from beets, pumpkins, annatto, etc. You can also check out which foods contain food dyes through the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's (IATP) food coloring database.

While avoiding synthetic food dyes is a solid stop-gap measure, what we really need is for food manufacturers to stop using these synthetic colors. Tell Betty Crocker that carcinogens don't belong anywhere near our food, particularly in products marketed towards children. Sign our petition urging Betty Crocker to eliminate the use of Red 3 in its foods.

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Photo credit: WordRidden via Flickr