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On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it had approved three new “natural” food colorings to be used in foods and drinks like candies, smoothies, potato chips and breakfast cereals.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health secretary, has implied that these dyes are safer alternatives to synthetic dyes, like Blue No. 1 and Blue No. 2, which limited research has linked to behavioral issues in some children.
Just because a product is natural doesn’t mean it’s safer, said Susan Mayne, an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and a former director at the F.D.A. who was focused on food safety.
Still, the agency typically uses a rigorous process to vet new color additives, she said. And there’s nothing to indicate that these additives are harmful, Dr. Mayne and other experts we spoke with said.
Here is what we know.
What the Evidence Shows About the New Dyes
There’s a “pretty good body of literature” suggesting that these three new color additives — called Galdieria extract blue, butterfly pea flower extract and calcium phosphate — should be safe, especially in the small amounts used to dye foods, said Jamie K. Alan, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University.
Calcium phosphate, which exists naturally in milk, has been widely used in the United States for decades, in products like calcium supplements, packaged breads and fortified plant milks and fruit juices, said Alireza Abbaspourrad, an associate professor of food chemistry and ingredient technology at Cornell. Now, it can be used as a white coloring for ready-to-eat chicken products, doughnut sugar and certain candies.
Research does not show any safety issues with calcium phosphate used to color foods, said Katherine Thompson-Witrick, an assistant professor of food science at the University of Florida. Though, because calcium phosphate adds calcium to foods, some adults with kidney stones may want to limit their consumption of products that contain it, said Monica Giusti, a professor of food science at the Ohio State University who has studied natural colorants.
Butterfly pea extract, which is derived from the dried flower petals of the butterfly pea plant, has also been approved to be used in the United States to turn some juices, candies, alcoholic drinks and other products a vivid blue, green or purple, since 2021. The butterfly pea flower has been used in parts of Asia to color foods for centuries, and there do not seem to be safety issues with the extract, she added.
The additive can now be used in more foods, like breakfast cereals and snacks, including plain potato, corn and tortilla chips and pretzels.
The third additive, Galdieria extract blue, is derived from a type of algae. It is now approved to turn foods and drinks like smoothies, chewing gums, flavored frostings, breakfast cereals, ice creams and custards blue.
It does contain the same pigment protein as spirulina extract, which is made from a type of blue-green algae and was approved as a color additive by the F.D.A. in 2013, Dr. Abbaspourrad said. After analyzing the best available research, the F.D.A. concluded that Galdieria extract blue is safe.
For food manufacturers looking to switch from artificial to natural dyes, the new approvals will give them more options, Dr. Abbaspourrad said. However, he added, it’s not always easy for them to make those types of changes, since natural colors can fade more easily than synthetic ones. They can also be more expensive and may work well in some products but not others, he said, so we may not see these new dyes in products right away.
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