Protecting families from contaminated food and water
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Protecting families from contaminated food and water
Posted in Our Blog on June 24, 2026
No artificial colors; something that is seen more and more every single day when it comes to food shopping. Candy, chips, gummy bears, you name it and there is generally a “clean” version of it. Recently we found ourselves trying the Doritos that include no artificial colors. It led me to looking up what this means. Obviously these chips still had some color, they had flavor, but where did it all come from?
The Food and Drug Administration recently announced that it is redefining the label claim “no artificial colors” on food packaging. The policy change is part of an agency’s effort to incentivize food companies to move away from using what many refer to as “petroleum-based” dyes or certified color additives—such as FD&C Blue No. 2 and Yellow No. 5—and toward colors from natural sources.
Under the current administration, the FDA has approved six such color options. These additives differ from FD&C (food, drug, and cosmetic) certified dyes used to make thousands of food and drink products more brightly colored and visually appealing. Last year, more than 20 state legislatures introduced bills to ban the use of certified color additives or require products containing them to carry a warning label, following research linking their consumption to adverse neurobehavioral effects in some children.
Under longstanding FDA policy, all color additives have been considered artificial for labeling purposes, regardless of the source, meaning that only products with no added colors could be said to be free of artificial dyes. But in a letter to manufacturers on Thursday, the agency said companies can use the term “no artificial colors” on labels of products that contain any coloring agents, except for the FD&C certified colors.
“On the surface, it may sound like a good plan,” says Michael Hansen, PhD, a senior staff scientist at Consumer Reports. “But the policy will make it even more challenging for people to understand what’s in their food. It’s really just giving the industry another way to confuse consumers.”
Dozens of other color additives fall outside the policy’s scope, including titanium dioxide—a synthetically produced white pigment banned as a food additive in the European Union over genotoxicity concerns—chemically synthesized beta-carotene, and colors produced using genetically engineered yeast or bacteria, such as soy leghemoglobin.
“The policy is too broad and could be abused in ways that mislead or confuse consumers, many of whom will assume that ‘no artificial colors’ means either no color at all or that the food was colored only with plant- and animal-derived colorings,” says Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The FDA’s announcement follows the administration’s April 2025 pledge to phase out certified color additives from the U.S. food supply by the end of 2026—a commitment that has yet to be backed up by any regulatory directive and relies largely on voluntary industry cooperation.
The timeline already appears to be slipping: On its website tracking industry pledges, the FDA now states that it is working to eliminate six certified color additives from the food supply by the end of 2027, a full year past the administration’s original target.
“People forget that the administration’s initiative on certified food dyes was not mandated and that it relied on voluntary action by the industry,” says Brian Ronholm, CR’s director of food policy.
In the absence of binding federal action, states have moved aggressively to restrict certified food dyes on their own. A California law that goes into effect at the end of 2027 bans six synthetic dyes from food served in the state’s public schools. Even more ambitious legislation passed by West Virginia targets seven dyes in school meals and aims to prohibit the sale of food containing those dyes statewide in 2028. Other states, including Arizona, Utah, and Virginia, have enacted similar restrictions, many with enforcement mechanisms and civil penalties that go well beyond anything the federal government has proposed. Consumer Reports’ advocacy arm has supported several of those efforts, including California’s landmark Food Safety Act.
The FDA’s labeling change reshapes how one of the most familiar front-of-package claims is used. Here’s how “no artificial colors” should be read now when you’re scanning shelves.
So, while we are looking for alternatives to those pesky colors we now have to make sure that our eyes are peeled even more to the labels as we don’t want more chemicals added to our foods. I personally love the idea of the natural sourced colors including beets instead of Red 40, but everyone has their own opinions.
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