Label the Rainbow: Group Wants Food Companies to I.D. Artificial Colors

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to surmise that the garish colors in a bowl of Fruity Pebbles are created with food coloring. But did you know that bread, salad dressing, and even mayonnaise sometimes get the same artificial treatment? The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) thinks it's high time you did.

CSPI—which has thrown challenge flags at the safety of food coloring in the past—recently filed a regulatory petition with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), urging the feds to require front-of-label disclosure on products that use food dyes.

Currently, manufacturers are only required to list synthetic color additives and two allergenic colorings—carmine and cochineal extract—by name in ingredient lists.

CSPI says the information isn't visible enough. The group wants "Artificially Colored" declared loud and proud next to the product name where customers can see it easily.

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The watchdog group has previously fought food coloring on the grounds that the dyes haven't been proven safe. In the latest petition submitted to the FDA, the group added one more reason to disclose the dyes: the American public is being duped.

"First, consumers who wish to eat healthfully may purchase food that appears to contain wholesome ingredients, but instead contains different, less-nutritious ingredients masked by a color additive," says the group's petition.

"Second, color additives have the tendency and capacity to mislead consumers into believing that a product contains healthful ingredients that it does not contain, thus making the product appear to be of higher quality or nutritional value than it actually is."

CSPI points to Betty Crocker Carrot Cake Mix, which contains no carrots at all. In lieu of Vitamin A-packed root veggies, the mix uses "carrot flavored pieces"—a combo of corn syrup, flour, corn cereal, partially hydrogenated cottonseed and/or soybean oil, a small amount of "carrot powder," unspecified artificial color, and Yellow 6 and Red 40.

For CSPI, it's a matter of consumers having the information to make an informed choice. A 2010 CSPI survey shows that consumers want that choice. Three-fourths of 1,000 respondents said they favored mandatory front-of-label disclosure.

"Betty Crocker is certainly free to make virtually carrotless carrot cake, and Tropicana is free to make berryless and cherryless juice," says CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "But consumers shouldn't have to turn the package over and scrutinize the fine print to know that the color in what are mostly junk foods comes from cheap added colorings."