The Giant Asterisk to MAHA's Food-Dye Crackdown

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Last month, America's top health officials gathered in downtown Washington for an ice-cream party. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—joined by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins—hunched over a cooler and served himself a scoop. Off to the side, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary licked a cone. There was a reason to celebrate: The dairy industry, like many of America's largest food makers, had acquiesced to the 'Make America Healthy Again' movement's crackdown on synthetic food dyes. The International Dairy Foods Association, a lobbying group, announced that more than 40 major ice-cream companies would begin phasing out several dyes that RFK Jr. has blamed for a slew of chronic-health problems, especially in children. 'I'm very grateful for this industry for stepping up,' Kennedy told onlookers.
By the end of 2027, Hershey's birthday-cake ice cream won't have Yellow 5 or Red 40, nor will its 'blue moon' flavor have Blue 1. But your ice cream might still come with one particular artificial food dye: titanium dioxide, a chemical that turns food white and isn't included in the International Dairy Foods Association's 'Ice Cream Commitment.' (Yes, the milk in ice cream already is white to begin with, but titanium dioxide helps keep some ice cream with added ingredients from looking like the muddied leftover milk in a bowl of cereal.) Titanium dioxide is added to many other foods, too, including salad dressings, low-fat milks, and soups. So far, the chemical seems to be largely surviving the food-dye purge. Many companies—including Kraft Heinz and General Mills—don't mention titanium dioxide in their promises to replace similar dyes. (Neither company responded to multiple requests for comment.)
You might be eating more titanium dioxide than you think. Even food that isn't white might contain it. The chemical is commonly used as a base layer—kind of like primer on a wall—to make brightly colored products pop. It's not always named as an ingredient in foods that are made with the dye. Other synthetic dyes, such as Red 40 and Yellow 5, which are made from petroleum, must be disclosed on a product's nutrition label. (That's also true for several other dyes that end in a number.) The FDA, however, allows food companies to simply label titanium dioxide as an 'artificial color,' given that technically titanium is a mineral.
Food makers argue that this distinction demonstrates that titanium dioxide is not like other dyes. The International Dairy Foods Association told me that it's 'focused on removing certified artificial colors' when I asked whether the group's pledge included titanium dioxide. A spokesperson for the Consumer Brands Association, a major lobbying group that recently announced a food-dye pledge of its own, similarly said that the numbered dyes 'are a unique subset.' Whether people really should fret about titanium dioxide while licking an ice-cream cone is a contentious question. In 2022, the European Union banned the dye over concerns that tiny particles in the product could build up in the body and damage DNA. But the decision wasn't based on clear evidence that links the chemical to specific ailments. Rather, European officials identified 'some data gaps and uncertainties' about the dye's health impacts, and acted out of an abundance of caution.
The evidence against titanium dioxide isn't much different from that against other artificial dyes. Food makers have stopped using the numbered dyes based solely on preliminary science. Prior to Kennedy's confirmation, many of the same organizations that are now touting the food industry's efforts to remove synthetic dyes were arguing that requests to ban these ingredients were scientifically flawed. In 2023, the Consumer Brands Association, alongside two other trade groups, argued that the FDA should not ban Red 3, because the science around its health harms was unconvincing.
Kennedy has indicated that he does want to phase out titanium dioxide along with other synthetic dyes, pointing to the European ban. Titanium dioxide is listed as a food additive of concern in a report on childhood chronic disease recently released by the Trump administration's MAHA Commission. ('HHS takes the safety of food ingredients seriously and will continue to review available evidence and expert guidance on this and other additives,' a Health and Human Services spokesperson told me in an email.) MAHA has had some victories when it comes to titanium dioxide. At the end of last year, the food giant Mars removed the chemical from Skittles. The ice-cream company Turkey Hill, which joined the dairy industry's dye pledge, is in the process of purging its products of titanium dioxide, a spokesperson said. (The company did not respond after I asked when that transition would be complete.) A representative for PepsiCo told me that the company is phasing out titanium dioxide in the one product it sells that includes the chemical: Muscle Milk. But many more companies that are replacing other artificial food dyes have been quiet about titanium dioxide.
The food industry is reluctant to give the chemical up for a reason. It's remarkably efficient as a food dye—nothing else comes close to its ability to turn food white. (No wonder versions of the chemical are also used in house paint.) The main replacement is calcium carbonate, also known as chalk, which is much less opaque, and so food companies would need to use much more of it to get the same whitening effect. This could not only make products more expensive, it could impact the texture and taste of the underlying food. Some companies have successfully been able to reformulate their products: Skittles look the same as they always have. 'These reformulations are not easy and can sometimes take months to years to accomplish adequately,' Dave Schoneker, a food-dye consultant, told me. 'This ends up being a big investment.' Not every company will have a bench of food scientists able to spend years reformulating its products.
Without titanium dioxide, consumers may just have to get used to uglier food. At one point while working on this story, I went to the grocery store and picked up two blue-cheese dressings—one with titanium dioxide and one without. The version with the additive looked like what I expected blue-cheese dressing to look like: pearly white. The other one looked a bit like grayish-green mucus.
That's not a proposition that excites the food industry, nor is it something that companies seem to believe Americans can handle. As California prepared to become the first state to ban several food additives in 2023, titanium dioxide was removed from the legislation at the eleventh hour amid vocal opposition from food companies. Before caving to pressure, Mars had resisted calls for the company to stop using artificial dyes in sweets; instead, the company settled on doing so just in Europe, citing that it's where 'consumers have expressed this preference.' Indeed, European consumers are 'okay with muted tones,' Chari Rai, the head of innovation for North America at Oterra, a natural-color manufacturer, told me. "I think the difference in the U.S. market is they're just so used to seeing vibrant colors.'
If the industry is correct and Kennedy cannot persuade Americans to embrace an ugly scoop of ice cream, that would signal he's going to have an even harder time pushing Americans away from foods containing the many other ingredients that he claims, with varying degrees of evidence, are making people sick. Food dyes are just cosmetic. (Ice cream still generally tastes the same with or without titanium dioxide.) Other food additives, such as emulsifiers and low-calorie sweeteners, serve a bigger role; ultra-processed foods, which Kennedy opposes, make up a sizable portion of the American diet. MAHA still has much bigger battles to fight.
Article originally published at The Atlantic
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