Are you ready for Skittles Brown?

Unless you have a habit of reading closely the nutritional tags – or see Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s YouTube Youtube channel – may not realize the amount of scree you eat. Kennedy, the United States Health Secretary, is set with the chemical, also known as Yellow 5. Many North -Americans eat without knowing -and other “poisons”, he warned in a YouTube video released last fall. The tone of the yellow lemon color, both eating junk and skittles and mountain dew; It is also found in Chicken Bouillon, Pancake Mix and Pickles. In Europe, products that contain yellow 5 have a tag warning that “it can have a negative effect on activity and care for children.” But for two decades, the FDA has refused to ban the dye, citing conclusive evidence.

Today, the FDA has announced that it will be relocated to the supply of 5 yellow foods and other synthetic food dyes, such as Red 40, Blue 1 and Green 3 at the end of next year. It is not a ban: Kennedy, who oversees the FDA as Secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a press conference that he has reached an “understanding” with food companies to eliminate these dyes, although he provided scarce details about the details. (A HHS secretary did not immediately respond to a comment request.)

Today’s action was, in many ways, a victory for RFK Jr. Democrats. Food companies have not been fonic for a long time for the loaded versions of American chemicals of products such as Doritos and Foot Loops while selling versions of additives in other countries. The “Make America Healthy Again” movement by RFK Jr. He has also brought Republicans on board. In October 2023, California became the first state to ban an artificial food coloring, red 3; Since then, Western Virginia has been added, which banned seven dyes this March. By 2025, more than half of the 50 states have introduced similar invoices, in some cases calling for Maha.

Falling on food dyes is a refreshing and modest incremental step to reform the United States food system. There is real evidence that these dyes are harmful, especially for children. A 2021 review found that “synthetic food coloring is associated with adverse neurobehadeal purposes, such as neglect, hyperactivity and restlessness in sensitive children.” Many children not Affected by these care concerns, to be clear, and it is also difficult to identify a dye as worse than another, because they are often studied together. But, as opponents of dyes have argued, it does not seem that the proportion of children to neurobahavior problems is not worth having bright red skittles.

Far from synthetic dyes would be a monumental change for food companies, but they also have a reason to encourage current news. Since states began to take on the issue of food tincture, the industry has complained that the different state laws of food coloring would make it difficult to manage their businesses. In a statement, the Association of Consumer Marques, which represents companies such as Nestlé, Pepsico and General Mills, said that a “state patchwork of different laws creates confusion for consumers, limits access to everyday goods, and increases the costs in the grocery store”, but that the group maintained that the additives that use “have been studied rigorously from a process of evaluation. Objective sciences have been shown to have been shown to be shown to be proven to be proven to be proven to be proven to be proven to be proven to be proven in a risk -based evaluation process and have been shown in a risk -based evaluation process. That the FDA, at least right now, is not implementing a ban of common dyes such as Yellow 5. “I believe in love,” said FDA’s commissioner Marty Makary today. “And let’s start in a friendly way and check if we can do it without any legal or regulatory change.” He added that food companies can use natural dyes such as beets, carrot and watermelon juice to color their products instead of artificial dyes.

If Kennedy’s alleged understanding with the food industry falls and companies move, Kennedy and Makary’s jobs will become more complicated.

The FDA has historically taken years to formally ban a single food ingredient. The FDA took almost three years to act in a request to ban red 3 in food, despite the fact that scientific studies have shown decades ago that the dye caused cancer in rats. At least part of this slowness is by design. Regulators must document legitimate damage caused by these products and this process can take years. The FDA’s work has also become even more difficult to light from the massive layoffs that have been played during the first days of Donald Trump’s second presidency. Among the 89 Employees of the FDA Food Center are nine people specifically responsible for reviewing additives in Foods, according to Jim Jones, an old head of the center. (He resigned from the protest of the shootings in February.)

Either way, the speed at which the food industry triumphs these dyes should not be seen as the true measure of the success of RFK Jr. Falling on food dyes has become a major platform on the Maha platform, but chemicals are not close to the largest impediment to re -making in the United States. The real test will be like Kennedy and its movement deals with the challenges much more pressing and intractable in the North -American Diet. Even without synthetic dyes in our foods, Americans will still be overwhelmingly eating ultra-processed foods loaded with excess sodium and sugar. It does not appear to be a lost point for Kennedy, who has been severely notified that “sugar is poison”. However, he has not articulated any plan to eliminate the ingredient of our food. Treading food coloring is easy, at least compared to larger problems. The true test of the Maha movement will not be if you can remove the red coloring of skittles, but if you can convince the North -Americans to leave the Skittles completely.