Study: Petroleum-Based Additives Are Being Heavily Used In Popular Children’s Foods & Candy
The Facts: A study published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics outlines the prevalence of artificial food coloring in a high percentage of foods sold at a conventional grocery store.
Reflect On: How often do you take the time to read food labels? In this day and age, if you want to be more health conscious it’s a necessary step to take.
Parents who wish to eliminate AFCs from their children’s diets face a challenge, as the current research found that about 4 in 10 packaged items in grocery store products marketed to children contain at least one AFC. Moreover, in some food categories almost all of the products contain AFCs, making it difficult for families to purchase those products without AFCs. Clinicians can educate parents about reading ingredient lists and avoiding certain products or categories, at least until companies implement policies to limit marketing of products containing AFCs. More effective, however, would be for the government to eliminate AFCs from all foods or, at the very least, require a warning notice on packages.
That’s the conclusion of a study that was published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics that examined artificial food colors in food. The study found these chemicals, which are dangerous to human health for short and long term health, in 96.3 percent of candies, 94 percent of fruit-flavoured snacks and 89.7 percent of drink mixes and powders. 43.2 percent of children’s and adult foods combined actually contain artificial colors, and fresh produce was the only food category not made with artificial colors, which means that some meat, dairy and baked products also contain fake color.
Shockingly, this may be the only study to document the percentage of child-oriented products with AFCs.
As CancerNews points out,
The most egregious class of additives is certainly artificial colors, for which a strong body of evidence exists linking them to direct harm to children’s nervous systems. Evidence that artificial colors can produce hyperactive behavior in children has already led European countries to require warning labels on foods containing these ingredients. In fact, the same companies that use artificial colors in children’s products in the U.S. typically use naturally based colors for the same products in Europe.
On food labels, watch out for anything labeled a “dye” — a synthetic, petroleum-based coloring chemical, or a “lake” — the same color, but reformulated to be water-insoluble for use in dry or fatty foods. According to Center for Science in the Public Interest, the best policy is to avoid all foods made with artificial colors, not just because of the potential for health risks, but because artificially colored foods are typically low in nutritional value.
In fact, AFCs were originally manufactured from coal tar, which comes from coal. Early critics of artificial food colorings were quick to point this out. Today, most synthetic food dyes are derived from petroleum, or crude oil. Some critics will argue that eating oil is no better than eating coal. (source)
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/2015-2016/october-2015/food-colorings.html
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0009922816651621
https://www.naturalblaze.com/2020/01/study-petroleum-based-additives-are-being-heavily-used-in-popular-childrens-foods-candy.html