>In the past, companies were generally only able to make such [no artificial color] claims when their products had no added color whatsoever — whether derived from natural sources or otherwise
So what is the word "artificial" doing here? Apparently it applies to the addition of color itself, not the source of the color?
This is extra confusing because on ingredients lists they distinguish between "natural colors" and "artificial colors." But apparently that's not the same sense that they're using "artificial" as when they say "no artificial colors??"
Seems like this move is just fixing a confusing situation -- so confusing I didn't even know I was confused until just now!
The label "no artificial color" meant that there was no color added to the product. This was a useful label. It meant you could expect the food looked like it should. It meant the food was not adulterated.
Now, "No artificial color" simply means that the chemists involved in producing this food product do not work for the petrochemical industry.
Granted, this labeling was in direct contrast with the ingredient listing. You could have only "natural color" on the ingredients and be unable to claim "No artificial color". This change "fixes" that by making "No artificial color" as meaningless as "Natural" vs "Artificial" color.
As petrochemical and plant feedstock processes produce chemically identical substances that your body is incapable of distinguishing, this takes a label that had some actual value, telling you how adulterated your food was, and replaces it with a label that means nothing. Yay.
However, labeling around "natural" vs "artificial" ends up being a huge educational issue. The FDA's rules are pretty straightforward, but you will never be able to get people who think education is a liberal scam to actually learn them. It also wasn't obvious what they really meant. There's room for improving the names and labeling, but that is not at all what this administration wants to do. They do not respect the sanctity and power and value of labeling regulation.
FDA food labeling regulations are wonderful and trusted and provide immense value. Them being toyed with by morons with a grudge scares me.
"No artificial color" meant that food had the color it really had, without additional coloring.
Natural banana does not have little green ponies on red background. If you color it with green and red, you have banana that does not have its natural color. Banana in artificial color.
Right, I got it now. But for literally the entire time I've seen that (now obsolete) label, I've misunderstood it as "no artificial colors" not "no artificially added colors." I can't be the only one!
It's unclear why they didn't say "no added colors" from the beginning, since apparently that's what they meant all along.
To mean this would be like saying furniture companies can claim their products are made of 'solid wood' when it is in fact just particle board, mdf, and cardboard because those are all made from wood and are all solids.
So, they went from mildly confusing to less regulated overall. Not really an improvement, as now a company can add potentially harmful colors without notice.
>Are they safer? Possibly, but they are not as well studied or regulated. According to Time,
>> …their natural sources of color do not necessarily mean that they are safer or free of potentially harmful compounds. Natural sources may be treated with pesticides and herbicides, and are also prone to contamination with bacteria and other pathogens…To strip natural products of these contaminants, manufacturers process them with various solvents—some of which could remain in the final coloring and contribute to negative health effects…[and] it generally takes more natural color than synthetic color to make the same shade in a final food.
I agree with the sentiment that "natural" doesn't imply something is healthy and consumers should be skeptical of it, but all of the objections exist for both naturally derived dyes (eg. beetroot red) and the underlying natural product (eg. beetroots), so it's hard to make a principled argument against allowing the natural label for the latter but not the former.
>This is a debate about what kind of paint is acceptable in marketing ultra processed products that would look gross if you did not paint them.
We can debate all about what level of processing is "acceptable" or whatever, but arbitrarily gatekeeping the term "natural" just because naturally derived dyes are adjacent to UPF (which you hate) is a terrible way of setting public policy.
I think I would just as soon drop the natural label entirely because it's meant to sound healthier without actually being any healthier. It seems like the only two states that matter are did you add coloring to the product, or not. Same thing with flavorings too.
I assume this will allow carmine red (cochineal) to be considered as "natural", since it's just "crushing thousands of bugs".
Unfortunately, a few cases of negative reactions to cochineal have been documented, and if the coloring is not even indicated in the ingredients, it might make it much harder for people to find out if that turns out to be the cause.
> and the underlying natural product (eg. beetroots)
Ah, I'm reading that as the process of extracting the color—and not also extracting the pesticides and herbicides-requires processing that may itself be similar to what happens with the 'artificial' dyes.
That seems defensible, and it's a process that only occurs for the dye and not the associated natural product.
Enjoy our new smokes with 20% more all-natural nicotine while you’re lining your attic with—also ours—all-natural asbestos! Choose All-Natural WonderTeck products every day!
Borderline off-topic but I'm miffed about all the products in grocery stores lately that loudly proclaim "Zero Sugar" yet their first ingredient is high fructose corn syrup.
Okay, it may be technically true, but practically speaking, anyone you ask would call it a lie.
It makes sense, for example, if you use turmeric in a rice dish, would you say it is artificially colored? In a sense rice isn’t yellow, but it is a natural dye.
That is not what this is about. You've always been able to advertise rice with turmeric as free from artificial colors. Here, the FDA is allowing for so-called natural dyes which are just chemicals that have been extracted from plants (usually through solvents). Imagine taking the turmeric, soaking it in gasoline, then distilling the color back out of the gasoline. The only requirement is that the color itself is not petroleum-derived.
>Here, the FDA is allowing for so-called natural dyes which are just chemicals that have been extracted from plants (usually through solvents). Imagine taking the turmeric, soaking it in gasoline, then distilling the color back out of the gasoline.
That's basically what's done for vegetable oils so should vegetable oils be called "artificial" as well? Is there a principled way of defining what amount of scary chemical involvement is needed for something natural to lose its "natural" designation? Are pretzels at risk because they're dipped in lye (ie. drain cleaners)?
Tumeric is a chemical that has been extracted from plants!
Your scenario holds for any part of any food processing, not just food colours. The issue is that the definition of "natural" when applied to food is impossible to pin down. Can we process using solvents? What if those solvents were brewed? At what point does heat and pressure treatment become "unnatural"? Can I use an acid for processing? Can I use vinegar?
The various vegetable, seed and nut oils that form the basis for so many food products are very problematic if you want "natural" food.
Where's the boundary between "natural" and "artificial"? If we're allowing processing in the definition of "natural" (e.g. extracting a chemical from a plant using a solvent) then everything is natural: it's all ultimately derived from something that naturally occurred on Earth.
2. you don't add the turmeric just to get the color
What this is about is if a company things their rice + turmeric isn't "popping" enough in color they can extract colors from other food or even non eatable plants and then say "no artificial colors" while the color of the end product is very well artificial/not natural.
Add in that "natural sourced" doesn't mean healthy but many people think it does this is pretty deceptive. (E.g. one of the worst pesticides, banned decades ago, was neurotoxin extracted from plants, _and then highly concentrated_. But 100% natural sourced so the FDA would treat it as not "artificial" even if the concentration of it and separation from the plant is not natural at all.)
My thing is why not just spell it out as "Color due to x, not due to some artificial dye" or something reasonable? It should just be descriptive enough, I feel like I've seen similar messaging on some foods.
I'm torn - the anti-UPF crowd is increasingly tying themselves up in knots with this kind of thing. Potentially this causes even more public confusion and avoidance of yet more perfectly healthy things because they're understandably lost trying to navigate what the orchestrators of the moral panic around UPFs, artificial colours, non-organic foods etc claim they should eat. I see people swapping wholemeal UPF bread in favour of homemade white bread on social media all the time already!
In an ideal world IMO this would lead to people getting fed up and going back to the dietary heuristics we had before this fad (HFSS, etc). Unfortunately I suspect this will _actually_ result in increasing distrust/refusal to engage with dietary guidelines entirely, and if we do ever identify a novel mechanism by which certain UPFs cause harm that we weren't aware of, no one will engage with it because they're totally exhausted from the current debacle.
Readit News
This is extra confusing because on ingredients lists they distinguish between "natural colors" and "artificial colors." But apparently that's not the same sense that they're using "artificial" as when they say "no artificial colors??"
Seems like this move is just fixing a confusing situation -- so confusing I didn't even know I was confused until just now!
It makes sense in other industries, like calling vinyl wrap an artificial cosmetic change on cars compared to painting.
But makes less sense in this situation
Now, "No artificial color" simply means that the chemists involved in producing this food product do not work for the petrochemical industry.
Granted, this labeling was in direct contrast with the ingredient listing. You could have only "natural color" on the ingredients and be unable to claim "No artificial color". This change "fixes" that by making "No artificial color" as meaningless as "Natural" vs "Artificial" color.
As petrochemical and plant feedstock processes produce chemically identical substances that your body is incapable of distinguishing, this takes a label that had some actual value, telling you how adulterated your food was, and replaces it with a label that means nothing. Yay.
However, labeling around "natural" vs "artificial" ends up being a huge educational issue. The FDA's rules are pretty straightforward, but you will never be able to get people who think education is a liberal scam to actually learn them. It also wasn't obvious what they really meant. There's room for improving the names and labeling, but that is not at all what this administration wants to do. They do not respect the sanctity and power and value of labeling regulation.
FDA food labeling regulations are wonderful and trusted and provide immense value. Them being toyed with by morons with a grudge scares me.
Natural banana does not have little green ponies on red background. If you color it with green and red, you have banana that does not have its natural color. Banana in artificial color.
It's unclear why they didn't say "no added colors" from the beginning, since apparently that's what they meant all along.
>Are they safer? Possibly, but they are not as well studied or regulated. According to Time,
>> …their natural sources of color do not necessarily mean that they are safer or free of potentially harmful compounds. Natural sources may be treated with pesticides and herbicides, and are also prone to contamination with bacteria and other pathogens…To strip natural products of these contaminants, manufacturers process them with various solvents—some of which could remain in the final coloring and contribute to negative health effects…[and] it generally takes more natural color than synthetic color to make the same shade in a final food.
I agree with the sentiment that "natural" doesn't imply something is healthy and consumers should be skeptical of it, but all of the objections exist for both naturally derived dyes (eg. beetroot red) and the underlying natural product (eg. beetroots), so it's hard to make a principled argument against allowing the natural label for the latter but not the former.
Food does not require dyes. You do not need to paint a banana.
This is a debate about what kind of paint is acceptable in marketing ultra processed products that would look gross if you did not paint them.
This is entirely harmless from a scientific point of view, but treads on food purity folk religion.
We can debate all about what level of processing is "acceptable" or whatever, but arbitrarily gatekeeping the term "natural" just because naturally derived dyes are adjacent to UPF (which you hate) is a terrible way of setting public policy.
That may be the extreme example, but there are many processes that involve processing chemicals without any "petrochemicals" being involved...
Unfortunately, a few cases of negative reactions to cochineal have been documented, and if the coloring is not even indicated in the ingredients, it might make it much harder for people to find out if that turns out to be the cause.
Ah, I'm reading that as the process of extracting the color—and not also extracting the pesticides and herbicides-requires processing that may itself be similar to what happens with the 'artificial' dyes.
That seems defensible, and it's a process that only occurs for the dye and not the associated natural product.
>I agree with the sentiment that "natural" doesn't imply something is healthy and consumers should be skeptical of it
Okay, it may be technically true, but practically speaking, anyone you ask would call it a lie.
Example?
This means that TicTacs, a product which is a sugar tablet with some flavor, can be "Zero Sugar"
Dead Comment
That's basically what's done for vegetable oils so should vegetable oils be called "artificial" as well? Is there a principled way of defining what amount of scary chemical involvement is needed for something natural to lose its "natural" designation? Are pretzels at risk because they're dipped in lye (ie. drain cleaners)?
Your scenario holds for any part of any food processing, not just food colours. The issue is that the definition of "natural" when applied to food is impossible to pin down. Can we process using solvents? What if those solvents were brewed? At what point does heat and pressure treatment become "unnatural"? Can I use an acid for processing? Can I use vinegar?
The various vegetable, seed and nut oils that form the basis for so many food products are very problematic if you want "natural" food.
1. add turmeric not color extracted from turmeric
2. you don't add the turmeric just to get the color
What this is about is if a company things their rice + turmeric isn't "popping" enough in color they can extract colors from other food or even non eatable plants and then say "no artificial colors" while the color of the end product is very well artificial/not natural.
Add in that "natural sourced" doesn't mean healthy but many people think it does this is pretty deceptive. (E.g. one of the worst pesticides, banned decades ago, was neurotoxin extracted from plants, _and then highly concentrated_. But 100% natural sourced so the FDA would treat it as not "artificial" even if the concentration of it and separation from the plant is not natural at all.)
Also: that's a completely different issue to "describing its presence as 'artificial'". Needs a new thread.
In an ideal world IMO this would lead to people getting fed up and going back to the dietary heuristics we had before this fad (HFSS, etc). Unfortunately I suspect this will _actually_ result in increasing distrust/refusal to engage with dietary guidelines entirely, and if we do ever identify a novel mechanism by which certain UPFs cause harm that we weren't aware of, no one will engage with it because they're totally exhausted from the current debacle.
is an article that doesn't just quote the press release and actually discusses the previous policy as well as critiquing the change.