Can someone please explain to me why people are so hostile to this? Like even if you don't care, why would people be against putting less chemicals in food?
Agreed. We must eliminate dangerous chemicals like dihydrogen monoxide from our food!
Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods
131–140 of 153 posts
Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very funny, but also flippant and glib. When people -- myself included -- say they have a problem with chemicals in food, they of course mean artificial chemicals: that is, compounds, preservatives, dyes, and flavors that are non-naturally present for that particular food item and were added for their shelf life, taste, aesthetic, or addictive properties. Next time you visit your grocery store, go read the ingredient…
>1. Studies use large, population-based sample sizes and their effects are based on their statistical significance on these populations. In other words, "side effects" are a population-level phenomenon, not an individual phenomenon. It is plausible that individual side effects are hidden as statistical noise. This is a problem with pharmacological studies as well and there is no easy solution to it AFAIK. I don't get…
What level of evidence is acceptable before stopping things entering our food chain? Is it anything that doesn't have positive evidence of harm ok? Presumably a little bit of study is required... So how much? How many interactions should be studied? Is there a benefit trade off (I'm actually struggling here, so if you think so, perhaps you can clarify what benefits would lead to a a higher risk of harm)?
Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/topic/qualified-presump...
Its a risk assessment not a measure of absolute certainty.
Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It makes sense to evaluate the health effects of individual dyes I wonder if changing the color of food is actually that important.
Artificial colorants make it easier to design visually hyperstimulating foods without having to compromise on flavor. What could the upside for the consumer be, to disrupt our evolved associations between appearance and flavor?
Inquiring minds want to know: have experiments been done on the perception of (say) totally monochromatic Froot Loops, or monochromatic Lucky Charms ?
At one point NASA tried out things like blue ham.
Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods
#135Synthetic and “natural” is so hazy. What’s the difference between a dye that’s synthetically made and one where we crush up bugs and extract the same exact chemical (real thing.). Why don’t we just eliminate most dyes overall…
Yeah, the line between "natural" and "synthetic" is mostly vibes at this point
Wikipedia says about carmine …
> To prepare carmine, the powdered insect bodies are boiled in ammonia or a sodium carbonate solution, the insoluble matter is removed by filtering, and alum is added to the clear salt solution of carminic acid to precipitate the red aluminium salt. Purity of color is ensured by the absence of iron. Stannous chloride, citric acid, borax, or gelatin may be added to regulate the formation of the precipitate. For shades of purple, lime is added to the alum.
At this point how natural is it?
Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods
#136Earlier 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…
Not wanting multi-billion dollar conglomerates putting poison in everyone's food is a far-right position now, didn't you get the memo?
It's weird being a 90s/2000s anti-war, anti-globalization, and pro-labor Democrat in a 2025 world.
Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are under Exxx codes. Not even safer sounding they are just listed by their technical codes.
Thank you that’s it. I had remember some folks comparing products debunking those claims “see red #5 is not in the European version”
Red 5 is not allowed in Europe and doesn't have an E number, so in this case they are right.
Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Very funny, but also flippant and glib. When people -- myself included -- say they have a problem with chemicals in food, they of course mean artificial chemicals: that is, compounds, preservatives, dyes, and flavors that are non-naturally present for that particular food item and were added for their shelf life, taste, aesthetic, or addictive properties. Next time you visit your grocery store, go read the ingredient…
The type of people you’re replying to would wait until their experiment was done to agree to ban things that are obviously bad even if by the time they said “ok guys I agree to ban it I have the data now!” all of humanity is next to them in a dead pile. Prior to that they would argue ad infinitum that there’s no proof x y and z are bad. People do that on this very forum with ingestion of microplastics. I don’t have patience for people like this anymore.
Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Because you'll feed them to your kids who do not make their own decisions, other than if they'll pay to remove cancers off their anus or die at home at 25. 2. Because a massive food industry would gladly lie about how unsafe their product is just like tobacco companies and they have far more money than you to befuddle the research.
This is a little dramatic Tobacco still isn't illegal. We're all free to smoke. Were given information and we're free to do what we want with it.
All... give your kids some cigs and see what happens.
Re: Walmart U.S. moves to eliminate synthetic dyes across all private brand foods
#140My 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…
> My understanding is that there are somewhat more restrictive regulations on food dyes in the EU compared to the US. There isn't. The US's FDA allows fewer of them than the EU's EFSA.
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