Red 3 Is Gone. The Other Dyes Remain.

In January 2025, the Food and Drug Administration banned a synthetic dye that had been part of the American food supply since the 1907 Pure Food and Drug Act. Seven others — made through the same industrial process and derived from the same source material — remain permitted. The Loot Standard excludes all of them. Here's why.

If you grew up in the United States, you have eaten synthetic food dyes.

They are in cake mixes and frostings, candies and gummies, cereals and yogurts marketed to children. They appear in sports drinks, maraschino cherries, pickle relishes, salad dressings, premade pasta sauces, sausages, and even pet foods. By adulthood, most Americans have consumed pounds of synthetic coloring without ever consciously choosing to.

Food dyes serve no nutritional purpose. They preserve nothing. They are not flavorings, stabilizers, or thickeners. Their role is singular: to make food appear more visually appealing than it naturally would.

For most of the twentieth century, this was considered uncontroversial. The American food industry treated color as part of the product itself. Brighter reds, more saturated yellows, and perfectly consistent greens became synonymous with freshness, flavor, and familiarity. Consumers learned to expect a certain shade of red in a maraschino cherry, a certain yellow in American cheese, a certain neon green in sour candy — even though none of those colors existed before dyes were added.

A Small Moment in January

On January 15, 2025, the FDA announced that Red 3 — also known as erythrosine — would no longer be permitted in foods, dietary supplements, or ingested drugs sold in the United States. Manufacturers were given until 2027 to remove it from foods and until 2028 for ingested drugs.

The decision was not based on new science.

Red 3 had been linked to thyroid tumors in laboratory rats in studies published in the late 1980s. Under the Delaney Clause — a section of federal food law dating to 1958 — the FDA is required to prohibit additives shown to cause cancer in humans or animals. By the technical standards of that law, Red 3 arguably should have been removed decades earlier. In fact, it was banned from cosmetics and topical drugs in 1990 for the same reason.

Yet it remained in food for another thirty-five years.

The delay was bureaucratic rather than scientific. The 2025 ban followed a 2022 petition from consumer advocacy groups, processed slowly through the agency's rulemaking pipeline. The petition's argument was simple: the underlying science had already been established.

Eventually, the FDA agreed.

Red 3 is now gone — or soon will be. What remains is more interesting.

Where These Colors Come From

The synthetic dyes still permitted in American food are Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, and Orange B.

All are produced through the same general industrial process. All are ultimately derived from petroleum.

That fact surprises many people, but it is worth stating plainly. The raw material used to create synthetic food dyes is the same raw material used to manufacture plastics, motor oil, and synthetic textiles. Aromatic hydrocarbons from crude oil are isolated, refined, and chemically transformed into the compounds that appear on ingredient labels.

Historically, these substances were known as "coal-tar dyes" because the earliest versions were derived from coal tar, a byproduct of coke production. Modern manufacturing shifted to petroleum, but the chemistry remains fundamentally similar.

These molecules do not exist naturally in food. They are engineered in laboratories, manufactured in chemical plants, tested within regulator-defined exposure limits, and approved for use at specified concentrations. Their commercial value lies in their consistency: Yellow 5 produces the same yellow every time. Saffron does not.

The Transatlantic Divide

In 2007, researchers at the University of Southampton published a study in The Lancet linking several common synthetic dyes to increased hyperactivity in children. The dyes studied included Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Red 40, among others.

The findings were debated, but they were significant enough for European regulators to respond.

By 2010, the European Union required foods containing those dyes to carry the following warning label:

May have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.

Rather than print the warning, many manufacturers reformulated their products using natural color sources.

Skittles sold in the United Kingdom are colored with annatto, paprika extract, and beet juice. Skittles sold in the United States still contain Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Red 40, Blue 1, and Blue 2.

The same company manufactures both products. The reformulation is possible. It has already been done.

The decision not to do it in the American market is commercial, not technical.

The same product crosses a border and suddenly contains different ingredients.

What the Dyes Are Actually Doing

The argument for synthetic food dyes is straightforward: they make food look like what consumers expect it to look like.

A strawberry yogurt should be pink. A lemon cake should be yellow. Birthday frosting should be bright green or blue. Synthetic dyes deliver those expectations cheaply and consistently at industrial scale.

But the argument against them is more fundamental: those expectations themselves were created by the dyes.

A yogurt made with real strawberries is often pale and slightly off-white with small flecks of red. A lemon cake made with butter and lemon zest is only faintly yellow. Frosting colored with botanical ingredients is muted rather than electric.

The vivid colors many Americans associate with food are not the food itself. They are industrial overlays.

The Loot Standard accepts color derived from real ingredients. Annatto in cheddar cheese — a centuries-old practice in English cheesemaking — is permitted. Beet juice is permitted. Turmeric in mustard is permitted. Paprika in spice blends is permitted.

The principle is the same one that runs through the rest of the Standard: real food, honestly made, with nothing hidden.

Why the Loot Standard Excludes Them

The Loot Standard excludes Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Orange B, and any other artificial dye.

It also excludes caramel color in all classes, including the ammonia-process caramel coloring commonly used in colas. It excludes titanium dioxide, often used to whiten candy coatings and powdered products. It excludes vague label language such as "color added," which conceals the specific compounds being used.

Part of this standard is philosophical.

"Nothing hidden" means the color of a food should come from the food itself — not from a petroleum-derived additive layered on top of it.

Part of it is practical.

The scientific concerns surrounding synthetic dyes have accumulated for decades, and the direction of global regulation has moved steadily one way: Europe imposed warnings in 2010. The United States banned Red 3 in 2025.

And part of it is simpler than either of those arguments.

The dyes are performing a job the food does not actually need them to do.

A yogurt that must be artificially colored to resemble strawberry yogurt is, in some sense, no longer the food the label implies it is.

What to Look For

Read ingredient labels carefully.

Synthetic dyes are usually listed near the end of the ingredient panel. Look for color names followed by numbers: Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1.

Look for "caramel color," which is broad and often industrially produced. Look for "color added" or "artificial colors," which disclose little about the source.

Products colored with real ingredients typically say so directly:

"Colored with annatto."
"Beet juice for color."
"Turmeric."
"Paprika extract."

These are the color sources the Loot Standard accepts without hesitation. They represent what food coloring looked like for thousands of years before petroleum chemistry entered the grocery aisle.

The eight have become seven.

Real food was here the entire time.