The FDA recently moved to ban Red Dye No. 3, an artificial food coloring commonly used in food products. While it's one of the more minor ones, it's still present in a lot of foods people (but probably not you) eat. Red Dye No. 40 is probably the most popular.
A lot of alternative health advocates are applauding this move, suggesting it’s evidence that the FDA is finally coming to its senses. Some even think it’s a preemptive step ahead of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stated goal to scrutinize artificial food dyes.
I’m no fan of artificial food coloring. For many good reasons, these additives are already banned in other countries whose food quality we often champion and envy. But this particular ruling has nothing to do with the most common and, in my opinion, best-supported reasons for avoiding food dyes: their potential effects on behavior in children and susceptible adults, especially those with ADHD.
The FDA banned Red Dye No. 3 because of a petition submitted in 2022 citing a pair of studies in male rats. These studies found that abnormally high doses of Red Dye No. 3 induced cancer. According to the Delaney Clause, which has been in place since 1938, the FDA must revoke allowances for any food or food component that has been conclusively shown to cause cancer in animals or humans. The dose doesn’t matter. Even if it’s a dose people would never encounter in real life, the Delaney Clause forces their hand.
So while I think banning this dye—and potentially others in the future—is a good outcome, it’s happening for the wrong reasons. It’s based on studies that used ridiculously high levels of the compound, levels that are almost guaranteed to produce the results the researchers were looking for.
That said, I also don’t think food dyes are the biggest fish to fry, not even the ones shown to exacerbate hyperactivity in kids and adults with ADHD. One study found that giving ADHD adults 225 mg of artificial food coloring in a single dose hidden in a cookie increased hyperactivity symptoms. The control group also had ADHD and got the same cookie but without the hidden dye. For context, 225 mg is a huge dose, especially all at once. Most processed foods containing artificial dyes have about 5 to 30 mg per serving. Unless you’re eating dozens of servings, you’re generally not going to come close to that kind of dosage.
It gets more concerning, however, when we’re talking about kids, who are smaller and more vulnerable to these effects. A recent analysis found that commonly consumed doses of food colorings in processed food probably have a negative effect on behavior in children. The authors discuss challenge studies, where kids are "challenged" by a realistic dose of the dyes in question to see how their behavior is affected. Over half of the studied challenge trials found significant effects on behavior.
It's this type of data that the FDA should be responding to, not gargantuan doses of isolated dye in lab rats. Live, living humans in realistic scenarios paint a more relevant picture.
Ultimately, I think this serves as a lesson in reserving judgment, not jumping to conclusions, and really reading what you’re responding to. Headlines make it sound like we’re “winning,” like real food is ascendant and artificial additives are being tossed out. But this particular decision has been a long time coming—almost three years, in fact—and it doesn’t actually relate to the most commonly cited reasons for avoiding food dyes.
