The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved three new natural food dyes last week in the latest effort to support “Making America Healthy Again” (MAHA).
“Today we take a major step to Make America Healthy Again,” said Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “For too long, our food system has relied on synthetic, petroleum-based dyes that offer no nutritional value and pose unnecessary health risks. We’re removing these dyes and approving safe, natural alternatives—to protect families and support healthier choices.”
The natural food dyes include Galdieria extract blue, butterfly pea flower extract, and calcium phosphate. Galdieria is a color derived from the red algae Galdieria sulphuraria, to be used in beverages, coatings, and dessert products; butterfly pea flower extract is a blue color is to be used in beverages, dairy products, tea, potato chips, and snack mixes; and calcium phosphate is a white color to be used in chicken products, candy, and sugar coatings.
FDA Commissioner Martin Makary said he is “pleased to report that promises made, have been promises kept.”
“FDA staff have been moving quickly to expedite the publication of these decisions, underscoring our serious intent to transition away from petroleum-based dyes in the food supply and provide new colors from natural sources,” he said.
Kennedy and Makary announced in April that HHS and the FDA were phasing out petroleum-based synthetic dyes in the U.S. food supply.
“For too long, some food producers have been feeding Americans petroleum-based chemicals without their knowledge or consent,” Kennedy said at the time. “These poisonous compounds offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers to our children’s health and development. That era is coming to an end. We’re restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public’s trust. And we’re doing it by working with industry to get these toxic dyes out of the foods our families eat every day.”
