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Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

corporate.walmart.com

111–120 of 153 posts

Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

#111
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in awe at the number of people that will go to bat for things like artificial dyes in food, only because the policy is coming from the present administration. It's just common sense. We don't need to be ingesting this shit. It's cosmetic and not needed for nutrition. Why are you feeding your child Fruit Loops and not Cheerios? I personally have known people who develop migraines after eating food with artificial…

I want these decisions to be bases on scientific and medical data, not on gut feeling or unfounded personal belief. I have no issue with regulating specific dyes or additives in food, or groups of related chemicals. And your anecdote is not scientific data. You cannot draw any conclusions from that.

> scientific and medical data,

which has never been been manipulated by funding.

Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

#112
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in awe at the number of people that will go to bat for things like artificial dyes in food, only because the policy is coming from the present administration. It's just common sense. We don't need to be ingesting this shit. It's cosmetic and not needed for nutrition. Why are you feeding your child Fruit Loops and not Cheerios? I personally have known people who develop migraines after eating food with artificial…

I want these decisions to be bases on scientific and medical data, not on gut feeling or unfounded personal belief. I have no issue with regulating specific dyes or additives in food, or groups of related chemicals. And your anecdote is not scientific data. You cannot draw any conclusions from that.

There is no scientific framework that can tell you the correct amount of non-food material to intentionally add to your otherwise fine food.

Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

#113
This is good but the effects are also highly marginal. The key change would be if the U.S. moved to the EU system where a new food needs to be proven to be safe before it can be sold as opposed to the current system where a new food is assumed to be safe until proven otherwise.

That is the systemic shift that’s actually important and would have automatically handled the dyes issue as well.

Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

#114
post #74
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We don’t make decisions to ban foodstuffs based on whether they are “necessary to sustain life.”

Maybe we should. Ideally we should ban ingredients that are not on a whitelist instead of banning ingredients on a blacklist.

Why are we as a society allowing these paperclip maximizing companies to experiment on hundreds of millions of people for their own profits..

Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

#115
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t recall the exact number, but well over half that have been in common use were eventually banned. Edit Prior to this administration: Butter yellow, Green 1, Green 2, Orange 1, Orange 2, Orange B, Red 1, Red 2, Red 4, Red 32, Sudan 1, Violet 1, Yellow 1, Yellow 2, Yellow 3, Yellow 4 + some more in the really early days. EU had a longer list including Titanium dioxide.

Titanium dioxide is naturally occurring.

So is arsenic.

Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

#116
post #77
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in awe at the number of people that will go to bat for things like artificial dyes in food, only because the policy is coming from the present administration. It's just common sense. We don't need to be ingesting this shit. It's cosmetic and not needed for nutrition. Why are you feeding your child Fruit Loops and not Cheerios? I personally have known people who develop migraines after eating food with artificial…

If I want to eat fruit loops, why are you getting involved? We have options and can make our own decisions about what to eat.

Your unhealthy habits should not be normalized but unfortunately it is via mass advertising.

Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

#117
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of nerd-snark that makes normal people not trust anything from the mouths of "experts." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM

The point is it's totally possible for some artificial dyes to potentially be harmful and need to be regulated, but eliminating them all just because they're "artificial" is woo-woo nonsense on the same order as my deliberately parodic example. Know what else is artificial? Insulin and penicillin.

It’s not. The one who controls the null hypothesis rules the world.. Should a new dye be banned until it is proven safe, or should a new dye be banned only when it has been proven unsafe?

The answer to the above question is not a scientific one. It has to do with how we want to operate as a society, it’s a political or social issue.

Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it "the perfume industry" is a half truth. It's the flavoring industry, but it so happens that there's a lot of overlap between perfume and flavoring in terms of raw materials. However, flavoring is a distinct profession. Besides that, very few novel compounds are allowed in food compared to fragrance. If any flavoring is synthetic in origin (which is not the same thing as novel, to be clear) then the product…

I appreciate the nuance! My intention was to show that there's a surprising amount of correction for flavor and taste necessary even for one-ingredient "natural" foods.

Primarily in bulk operations, none of that bullshit is needed if you just juice some fresh oranges into a glass and drink it…

Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

#119
post #5

My understanding is that there are somewhat more restrictive regulations on food dyes in the EU compared to the US. But that overall there isn't a big concern about the majority of these dyes. There also isn't a fundamental difference between a synthetic and a natural dye. Okay, humans are more likely to have encountered a natural dye during their evolution and adapted to ingesting them. But that is unlikely to matte…

But this is likely also an attempt to market to people who think things like "but I don't want to be exposed to chemicals" while not realizing water is a chemical.

Middle school level argument.. Good luck on making better arguments I guess.

Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods

#120
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t make decisions to ban foodstuffs based on whether they are “necessary to sustain life.”

Maybe we should. Ideally we should ban ingredients that are not on a whitelist instead of banning ingredients on a blacklist. Why are we as a society allowing these paperclip maximizing companies to experiment on hundreds of millions of people for their own profits..

Bingo; should have to prove something is safe rather than the opposite
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