Food colouring
If you knew that the vivid hue of fruit snacks came from petroleum - yes the same stuff that fuels your car-would it still look more appetizing than real fruit? Other food colours are made from formaldehyde, and some are even still made from coal tar.
The bright red colour of an apple comes from all the healthy vitamins and nutrients packed into its skin. The bright yellow in gummy worms is called Yellow#5, and it’s made in a lab from toxic petroleum-based chemicals.
Not only are these colours synthetic, they are linked to some serious health conditions, including cancer, allergies, and behavioural disorders. Yellow#5, or tartrazine, alone has been linked to ADD, ADHD, and autism. We’re quick to blame hyperactivity on sugary treat, but it’s about time artificial colours shoulder their share of guilt.
Studies show that 30% of kids with hyperactivity show a complete recovery in just a few weeks when they cut out food colouring. To give you a few examples, Yellow#5 is in Mountain Dew, Doritos, Kraft Dinner, corn flakes, popcorn, ice cream, cotton candy, Gummy bears, chewing gum, Kool Aid, mustard, JELL-O, and it’s fed to chickens to make egg yolks yellower. And here’s a shocker, Yellow#5 is even in Ritalin, the very medicine meant to treat ADD and ADHD! No wonder kids never seem to get better on these drugs.
There’s more: Citrus Red#2 causes organ tumours, but you can still find it brushed onto the skin of Florida oranges. Caramel which was a burnt sugar confection, is now made from corn syrup and is a World Health Organization (WHO) Known Human Heakth Risk. If you drink more than one soda in a day, you have exceeded your safe limit. Lead is banned as a food additive in every country except Canada and the US, where it is used to bind colours in children’s snacks, vitamins, and medicines. At least CarmineRed#40, used to colour yogurt, canned fruit, ketchup, soft drinks, lipstick, frozen fish, alcohol, candy, canned soup, and energy drinks. It is made by desiccating and grinding up tropical cochineal beetles-it takes 70,000 bugs to make a pound of colour. CarmineRed#40 has been linked to all sorts of reactions, including anaphylactic shock, asthma, and digestive upset.
If artificial colours are so dangerous, then why do we need them in our food? We don’t- food colouring doesn’t have any nutritious value. The vibrant natural colours of fruits and vegetables are lost in processing, so fake colours are added back in to making the product look nutritious and more appealing. Those tongue-twisting ingredients are there to trick you into thinking the food is “real”.
