A pickled pepper maker knows exactly how difficult it is to switch to natural colors

The Trump administration makes America again healthy effort hope to eliminate potentially harmful synthetic dyes of the food supply.

Manufacturers use those dyes to make food, drinks and medicines in vibrant colors, but the government claims that those cosmetic additives are both harmful and easy to replace.

Dr. Marty Makary, the new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, dealt with the issue at a recent event attended by a contingent of “Maha Moms” next to media. Makary told food and drinking companies that switch to completely natural dyes must be easy.

“Try watermelon juice,” Makary suggested while holding a series of small pots of liquid while the audience laughed, “or beet juice.”

Experiments and costs

But how easy is it to switch to completely natural dyes?

Mark Oliveria, owner of Oliveria Peppers Located in Clarksburg, W. Va., Discover about five years ago for themselves, when his buyers of supermarkets pointed to more completely natural products on a greater consumer question. They asked Oliveria if he could remove the yellow dye no. 5 that he had used in his bright yellow recipe for banana pepper.

So Oliveria ran kitchen experiments, initially using ground turmeric root, the powdered herb that makes Curry so easy clothing.

“It took me for a while to get the color exactly, because within six to eight weeks in the pot it would start to alleviate,” he says. “So the first year we had a bit of a difficult time, and it was mainly because we used the powder form, which did not keep his color that long.”

Oliveria then found a liquid version of the turmeric that was more expensive and needed more quantity but worked perfectly and not faded. And although he says that yellow dye no. 5 still remains approved to use in foodHe is now happy that he can remove it from his ingredients.

That relocation five Years ago Oliveria placed in front of the curve.

Europe Since then, has forbidden more synthetic dyes and required manufacturers to include warning labels about the dyes in their food products. Canada imposed limits on the amount of dye that can be used in food and requires that dyes are stated on labels.

Government actions

In the US, the BIDEN -Administration Red Dye no. 3 forbade in January just before he left the office. Last month, the Trump administration said it wants to go further, so that food, drink and pharmaceutical industry wants to eliminate all dyes on the petroleum-based dyes on the end of next year. The FDA too Recently approved Three new completely natural dyes for manufacturers to use.

For Oliveria, who relied on only one dye, finding an alternative was relatively simple, but he says that this will probably not be the case for other companies that are more dependent on petroleum -based dyes such as Red No. 40, or Blue No. 1 or Blue No. 5 in more of their products.

“I think they will have more difficult in the snack industry in the drink industry,” he says.

Indeed, Rep. Chuck FleischmannR-tenn., The worries of the snack industry last week during a Hearing of the House Credit Housing where health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. witnessed. Fleischmann said he represents many snack companies Have factories in his district in Oost -Tennessee.

“Handy, I think these dyes are safe,” Fleischmann said, referring to synthetic dyes. He also noted that the current dyes have been used for many years, and manufacturers see costs five to 10 times higher for the natural substitutes.

A lot of red cabbage is needed

A cost river is that extracting large amounts of color from natural sources is much more complex than mixing chemical dyes, says Melissa Wright, an expert in the field of food safety at Virginia Tech University.

“If you use red cabbage extract instead of Red 40, you must have to plant and harvest and extract raw material to distract that natural color material,” says Wright. And finding enough quantity is a problem.

She says that some colors are more difficult than others to reproduce, because some, such as yellow, have many common natural alternatives – including turmeric, bell pepper and Annatto. Not so with blue.

“Blues are becoming very difficult,” says Wright. “Blue, there are not many natural sources. The offer is limited and that will make a difference about the costs, in terms of reformulation.”

And because green is a mix of both blue and yellow, it can also be expensive and difficult to find.

Two of the recently approved natural dyes produce blue. One comes out Galdieria Sulthuraria, An algae, and the other is a butterfly peal flower extract that can make purples and greens, in addition to blue, according to one press release from the Ministry of Health and Human Services.

Warmth, sour and the way people ‘eat with their eyes’

Wright says that the cooking process can contribute to the complexity.

“These naturally derived colors are usually not that stable, especially with warmth or sour,” which means that they can break down or change color when they are added to a sour soft drink or if they are baked like a cookie.

“Products that you have to heat, it will be a problem because they simply will not be as lively as the customer is used to,” says Wright.

Loyal consumers can revolt vocally when cherry flavors suddenly become boring purple – as they did when general mills Trix Breakfast Cereals are briefly changed For completely natural dyes nine years ago or when cheese nacks corpses more rust-colored than yellow of safety tape.

Those consumer habits and preferences are difficult to break, says Wright. Consumers may think that the new product is defective, poor or just less pleasant: “If I eat Doritos and Cheetos, I have that orange fabric on my fingers, right? And if I don’t have that, is that really a Doritos-eating experience?”

Mark Oliveria, the invested pepper maker, also sees that preference in his product line. The cauliflower that it colors with turmeric sells much better than his Giardiniera -GROEM mix, in which it contains no colorant at all.

“So people love that color,” concludes Oliveria. “Ninety percent of people eat with their eyes. And I think ninety percent of people don’t read and I don’t care what’s in that pot.”