I held the bag of peanut M&Ms out to my sister: “Come on, I got these to share!” They’d been free from the concessions stand at the outdoor venue where we were attending a symphony concert, courtesy of her husband’s workplace. “I don’t want to eat this whole bag by myself.”
“They have so much artificial dyes and stuff in them—I’m trying to avoid all of that,” she said.
The way she phrased her polite refusal got me thinking. Of course, M&Ms are unhealthy junk food. That’s why I wanted to share the bag rather than eat them all. But why single out food coloring as a special cause for concern above and beyond the general crappiness of highly processed food? As a science writer, I decided to find out. This is what I learned:
Food Coloring Is Kind of Everywhere
According to the FDA, consumption of dyes increased fivefold ...
