Let’s get one thing straight about the Food and Drug Administration hearing on artificial food coloring. The FDA – an agency that has again and again confirmed the safety of food dyes – is doing nothing more than pandering to the food-nanny friends of the first lady who are dead-set on regulating the food industry.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (the same organization behind dozens of frivolous lawsuits, the latest filed against McDonalds by one spineless mother who can’t muster the strength to say no to her fast-food-loving kid) is pushing this effort. To the CSPI, everything is a danger: artificial sweeteners, soda pop, caffeine, fat, trans-fat, restaurant meals, candy, movie theater popcorn, calories, fun. The study they love to cite that they say proves food coloring causes hyperactivity in children has one small problem. It studied children already suffering from hyperactivity. The study concluded that – hold on to your seat for this astonishing example of scientific discovery – if you give a hyper kid a Twinkie or a fruit loop or some colorful surgery drink, he might get more hyper. Wow! Something tells me a government grant paid for this research.
To counteract the so-called “dangers” of food coloring, food activists want the FDA to require warning labels on foods containing artificial coloring which will only add to the cost of production – a cost ultimately passed on to the consumer.
One would hope that especially at a time of high unemployment, stagnant wages, and skyrocketing food costs the FDA would forgo costly regulations that require food manufacturers to tell us what we already know: sugar makes kids a little crazy.