In January of this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned Red Dye No. 3, a synthetic food additive, under the Biden Administration. The FDA is now pushing to ban more dyes with support from the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) campaign.
To understand why the ban was enacted, it is first necessary to understand what Red Dye No. 3 is and the health impacts it may have. This specific dye has been banned in the European Union, New Zealand, and Australia after studies linking the dye to cancer were released, according to Zeina Mohammed. For UVAToday, she published her article “FDA Bans Red Dye No. 3 in Food, Decades After Banning It in Cosmetics” on Jan. 21. According to that article,
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of red dye No. 3 in foods, more than three decades after researchers discovered its link to cancer …and to worsened attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders.”
Since the Red Dye No. 3 ban, many people believe that other synthetic dyes will also be banned, most notably, Red Dye No. 40 (more commonly known as Red 40). CNN author Kristen Rogers wrote in her article, “Red dye No. 3 is now banned in the U.S,” on January 17, 2025, that Red 40 will possibly be banned soon because of a recent study linking the dye to health problems in rodents.
Since these studies have been made public, there has been an increased movement towards banning artificial dyes on both the national and state levels. Locally, some families in Idaho have given up foods containing dyes and believe it has improved their overall well-being.
Troy Oppie of Boise State Public Radio interviewed a Meridian mom named Heather (her last name was not disclosed for privacy). She said that her daughter’s emotions and mood were drastically improved after giving up synthetic dyes.
“We had been dye-free, I think, for two months, and my daughter was just having a really, really tough time when she got home from school,” Heather said in the interview. “And I asked her, ‘What did you have for lunch today?’ And she kind of broke down and said, ‘I had a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos.’…Once that was out of her system, things were back on track.”
However, not just Idahoans have been pushing away from food dyes. Despite running on significantly different platforms, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have made efforts to ban the dye in America, according to Swapna Ramaswamy, a reporter for USAToday.
“Under the Biden administration, the FDA had already mandated by January 15, 2027, a ban on Red Dye No. 3,… the Trump administration is requesting food companies move that deadline forward.”
With as much attention as this subject has been receiving nationwide, it seems very logical that banning the dye will be beneficial to America and may even be overdue. Until then, a list of common foods containing red dye No. 3 can be found on the Fortune Well website.
