Lifestyle

RFK's plan to phase out synthetic food dyes could face industry pushback

Published

8 months ago

April 23, 2025

RFK's plan to phase out synthetic food dyes could face industry pushback

Jonathan Knowles/Digital Vision/Getty Images

The Trump administration announced its intention to phase out synthetic dyes used to enhance color in common foods like candy and cereals.

At a press conference Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said his agency is making the move as a first step to improve the nation’s food supply and address chronic disease.

“We are going to get rid of the dyes and then one by one, we’re going to get rid of every ingredient and additive in food that we can legally address,” he said.

The Food and Drug Administration will take several actions aimed at phasing out synthetic dyes. FDA commissioner Marty Makary announced that the agency will work with the industry to voluntarily eliminate six commonly used dyes by the end of next year. It will also start the process of banning two other colorants, Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B; and it’s asking food companies to speed up the timeline for removing the previously banned colorant Red No. 3.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which brought the petition to ban Red dye No. 3, wants the FDA to require warning labels on food products containing other synthetic dyes.

“For the last 50 years, American children have increasingly been living in a toxic soup of synthetic chemicals,” said Makary, citing studies that have linked synthetic dyes with ADHD and other health conditions. “Taking petroleum-based food dyes out of the food supply is not a silver bullet that will instantly make America’s children healthy, but it is one important step,” he said.

There’s no mandate for the food industry to comply with the phase-out of the six synthetic colorants, but Kennedy said “the industry has voluntarily agreed.” He said that a number of states have passed laws banning some food ingredients, and food companies have told him they want national leadership in this area. “They want clear guidelines,” he said.

Melissa Hockstad, president and CEO of the Consumer Brands Association, which represents U.S. packaged food manufacturers, defended the industry’s current ingredients:

“The ingredients used in America’s food supply have been rigorously studied … and have been demonstrated to be safe,” she said in a statement.

She added that her group appreciates that federal health agencies have “reasserted their leadership in response to the myriad of state activity in the food regulation space.”

She did not specify whether the group’s members would comply with the administration’s new proposal, but she noted the industry is increasing use of alternatives to synthetic colorants.

Studies have linked food dyes to behavioral and cognitive problems in children. When California’s Environmental Protection Agency reviewed the body of research on synthetic dyes back in 2021, it found evidence that the dyes consumed in food can negatively impact children’s behavior.

The watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest has pushed for bans on synthetic dyes for years. Thomas Galligan, principal scientist at CSPI said he had hoped the FDA’s Tuesday announcement would be a ban on synthetic dyes, not a voluntary agreement to get the food industry to cooperate.

“The FDA has the authority to ban them outright if they wanted to,” he told NPR. “So it’s a bit of a strange announcement.”

Galligan warns voluntary agreements have fallen apart before. “It’s worth pointing out that food companies have made promises like this before. They’ve claimed they’re going to get rid of these food dyes or other additives within a certain timeframe, and then they have consistently reneged on those promises.”

He notes the two dyes that will be banned, Citrus Red 2 and Orange B, are “very, very rarely used. They’ve essentially been abandoned by the food industry.”

The FDA also announced it will authorize four new “natural color additives” in the coming weeks and partner with the National Institutes of Health on new research into food additives’ impact on children’s health.

The industry group, the International Association of Color Manufacturers, pushed back against the characterization that currently used dyes are unsafe.

“Color additives have been rigorously reviewed by global health authorities, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Food Safety Authority, and the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, with no safety concerns,” the group said in a statement.

The push to eliminate synthetic dyes is one of the Trump administration’s first health policy moves, since initiating several rounds of deep cuts to both staffing and funding for contracts at all the federal health agencies.

Kennedy cited rising rates of various childhood illnesses and chronic diseases that may be linked to how we eat: “This is existential for our country and we have to address it,” he said, adding, “industry is making money on keeping us sick.”

Many of his remarks were met by applause from an audience at the press event that included MAHA supporters. Some attendees carried signs reading, “Make America Healthy Again” and “MAHA Moms.”

Lifestyle

Sunday Puzzle: BE-D with two words

Published

8 hours ago

December 21, 2025

Press Room

On-air challenge

Every answer today is a familiar two-word phrase or name in which the first word starts BE- and the second word start D- (as in “bed”). (Ex. Sauce often served with tortilla chips –> BEAN DIP)

1. Sinuous Mideast entertainer who may have a navel decoration

2. Oscar category won multiple times by Frank Capra and Steven Spielberg

3. While it’s still light at the end of the day

4. Obstruction in a stream made by animals that gnaw

5. Actress who starred in “Now, Voyager” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”

6. Two-time Conservative prime minister of Great Britain in the 19th century

7. Italian for “beautiful woman”

8. Patron at an Oktoberfest, e.g.

9. Dim sum dish made with ground meat and fillings wrapped in a wonton and steamed

10. [Fill in the blank:] Something that is past its prime has seen ___

11. Like the engine room and sleeping quarters on a ship

Last week’s challenge

Last week’s challenge came from Robert Flood, of Allen, Texas. Name a famous female singer of the past (five letters in the first name, seven letters in the last name). Remove the last letter of her first name and you can rearrange all the remaining letters to name the capital of a country (six letters) and a food product that its nation is famous for (five letters).

Challenge answer

Sarah Vaughan, Havana, Sugar.

Winner

Josh McIntyre of Raleigh, N.C.

This week’s challenge (something different)

I was at a library. On the shelf was a volume whose spine said “OUT TO SEA.” When I opened the volume, I found the contents has nothing to do with sailing or the sea in any sense. It wasn’t a book of fiction either. What was in the volume?

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Wednesday, December 24 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.

Lifestyle

JoJo Siwa’s Boyfriend Chris Hughes Says He Plans to Propose When Least Expected

Published

9 hours ago

December 21, 2025

Press Room

JoJo Siwa’s Boyfriend Chris Hughes Says He Plans to Propose When Least Expected

JoJo Siwa
Boyfriend Chris Hughes Reveals Engagement Plans …
Gotta Take Her By Surprise!!!

Published
December 21, 2025
5:48 PM PST

JoJo Siwa and her man Chris Hughes have clearly discussed engagement details … because Hughes dished on a few specifics about a potential proposal.

The singer and beau gave The Sun an update on their relationship Sunday … and, the conversation turned to all things engagement — including the right and wrong time to pop the question.

Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.

In the clip, Hughes says he’s against getting engaged on an obvious milestone day like Christmas for example … claiming it takes away the surprise from the proposal.

JS seemed into the idea … joking that Chris is trying to keep her guessing — though she did give it some thought before stamping the idea with a seal of approval.

jojo-siwa-Chris-Hughes-sub-getty-1

However, one nontraditional engagement practice the two won’t participate in is Siwa popping the question to Hughes … because he says he wants to buy the ring and ask her to marry him.

JoJo won’t wait forever though … telling Hughes he’s got seven years to ask her — or she’ll ask him. Clock’s ticking down to 2032!

JoJo Siwa And Chris Hughes Together

Anyhoo … keep your head on a swivel, JoJo — because a surprise engagement could be right around the corner!

Lifestyle

When a loved one dies, where do they go? A new kids’ book suggests ‘They Walk On’

Published

20 hours ago

December 21, 2025

Press Room

When a loved one dies, where do they go? A new kids’ book suggests ‘They Walk On’

Rafael López / Roaring Brook Press

A couple of years ago, after his mom died, Fry Bread author Kevin Maillard found himself wondering, “but where did she go?”

“I was really thinking about this a lot when I was cleaning her house out,” Maillard remembers. “She has all of her objects there and there’s like hair that’s still in the brush or there is an impression of her lipstick on a glass.” It was almost like she was there and gone at the same time.

Maillard found it confusing, so he decided to write about it. His new children’s book is And They Walk On, about a little boy whose grandma has died. “When someone walks on, where do they go?” The little boy wonders. “Did they go to the market to thump green melons and sail shopping carts in the sea of aisles? Perhaps they’re in the garden watering a jungle of herbs or turning saplings into great sequoias.”

Rafael López / Roaring Brook Press

Maillard grew up in Oklahoma. His mother was an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation. He says many people in native communities use the phrase “walked on” when someone dies. It’s a different way of thinking about death. “It’s still sad,” Maillard says, “but then you can also see their continuing influence on everything you do, even when they’re not around.”

Rafael López / Roaring Brook Press

And They Walk On was illustrated by Mexican artist Rafael López, who connected to the story on a cultural and personal level. “‘Walking on’ reminds me so much of the Day of the Dead,” says López, who lost his dad 35 years ago. “My mom continues to celebrate my dad. We talk about something funny that he said. We play his favorite music. So he walks with us every day, wherever we go.”

It was López who decided that the story would be about a little boy: a young Kevin Maillard. “I thought, we need to have Kevin because, you know, he’s pretty darn cute,” he explains. López began the illustrations with pencil sketches and worked digitally, but he created all of the textures by hand. “I use acrylics and I use watercolors and I use ink. And then I distressed the textures with rags and rollers and, you know, dried out brushes,” he says. “I look for the harshest brush that I neglected to clean, and I decide this is going to be the perfect tool to create this rock.”

The illustrations at the beginning of the story are very muted, with neutral colors. Then, as the little boy starts to remember his grandmother, the colors become brighter and more vivid, with lots of purples and lavender. “In Mexico we celebrate things very much with color,” López explains, “whether you’re eating very colorful food or you’re buying a very colorful dress or you go to the market, the color explodes in your face. So I think we use color a lot to express our emotions.”

Rafael López / Roaring Brook Press

On one page, the little boy and his parents are packing up the grandmother’s house. The scene is very earthy and green-toned except for grandma’s brightly-colored apron, hanging on a hook in the kitchen. “I want people to start noticing those things,” says López, “to really think about what color means and where he is finding this connection with grandma.”

Kevin Maillard says when he first got the book in the mail, he couldn’t open it for two months. “I couldn’t look at it,” he says, voice breaking. What surprised him, he said, was how much warmth Raphael López’s illustrations brought to the subject of death. “He’s very magical realist in his illustrations,” explains Maillard. And the illustrations, if not exactly joyful, are fanciful and almost playful. And they offer hope. “There’s this promise that these people, they don’t go away,” says Maillard. “They’re still with us… and we can see that their lives had meaning because they touched another person.”