Taste The Rainbow, Ditch The Toxins: The Next Generation of Food Coloring Is Here

Perhaps you’re sipping a craft cocktail during date night at a swanky bar — your adult beverage crowned with a bright, Maraschino cherry — or perhaps you’re attempting to ease a tickly, sore throat from sickness with cherry cough drops. Make no mistake, if it’s ruby in hue, it likely derives its iconic color from Red No. 3. But, will it always? In April 2025, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) announced that his agency would take serious action against synthetic food dyes. While Red No. 3 was already in the process of being banned, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) working with the HHS now plans to speed up that timeline, as well as start the process to ban Citrus Red No. 2, Orange B, and voluntarily eliminate six dyes overall by the end of next year. There’s evidence to show how dyes have links to poor childhood behavior and even cancer, yet our grocery store aisles remain packed with dye-laden products. You shouldn’t have to choose between a snack that dazzles the eyes and one that respects your body, however. Birthday cake frosting, candy, baked goods, fruit snacks, dietary supplements and vitamins and more — now with the FDA finally kicking certain artificial colorings to the curb and pushing for industry giants to phase out use of synthetic hues, a new class of innovators is stepping in. And they’re providing that vivid, joyful food doesn’t have to come with a toxic tradeoff. Clean Labeling, Meet Playful Indulgences Let’s be honest with ourselves — as much as we all pride ourselves on trying to be crunchy, adhering to clean eating, and organic this-and-that, there’s still something irresistible about an indulgent treat here and there. It’s not just food, frankly, it’s nostalgia too and playful feminine energy splashed on your plate. But modern women have evolved past the era of blindly trusting whatever chemicals Big Food serves up. We’re label readers and diligent ingredient-checkers (even if it turns a short grocery run into a half-hour excursion) and we’re asking sharper questions than our mothers’ generation ever did. Why should fun indulgent treats come laced with carcinogens? Why should kids’ lunchbox snacks contain ingredients linked to hormone disruption or behavioral issues? We all deserve beautiful things that don’t decrease our quality of life. Thankfully, the answer isn’t “give up and eat beige, boring foods for life.” From biotech labs to mushroom farms, there are now innovators around the world proving theres an intersection between colorful food and clean ingredients. They can coexist, and frankly, the colors they’re crafting are so stunning, I doubt you’d notice the difference. The FDA’s recent ban on Red No. 3 is more than just regulatory fine print. I see this as a clear signal that the tides are turning. The dye, long linked to cancer in lab rats and associated with hyperactivity concerns in children, is on its way out thanks to mounting cultural pressure from the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. While the FDA still claims the risk to humans is less clear-cut, consumer pressure has spoken louder. Parents, wellness advocates, and even casual shoppers are exhausted by long, unpronounceable ingredient lists packed with synthetic additives. Major food companies can also sense this cultural shift. Even though no sweeping law officially mandates the elimination of all artificial dyes yet, the cultural momentum is unmistakable. Clean labels sell! Companies know it’s bad optics to cling to outdated additives when safer, natural alternatives are on the rise. This is where the new class of biotech innovators comes in… and their solutions are genuinely exciting. The Biotech Innovators Bringing Bold, Natural Color to the Mainstream Danish startup Chromologics is spearheading a fungi-based revolution with its fermentation-derived red pigment. Unlike traditional food dyes, this colorant is tasteless, stable, and requires zero crushed bugs or synthetic chemicals. It seems like a dream for clean label purists. Then across the Mediterranean in Israel, Phytolon is using genetically modified yeast (do note, the yeast’s modifications get stripped away before the final product hits your plate) to engineer an entire rainbow of vivid shades. Phytolon’s process is designed to be scalable and safe, so they could offer everything from happy yellows to moody purples using a single platform. Meanwhile, an Argentinian-Israeli startup called Michroma is fermenting fungi to create protein-rich dyes. These dyes could be especially attractive to plant-based meat manufacturers that struggle to replicate the natural pinks and browns of real beef. Personally, I’m wary of the broader push toward ultra-processed, fake meats, but Michroma’s color tech isn’t exclusive to vegan products. This could easily brighten up baked goods (like Red Velvet cake), candies, or desserts. For those comfortable with insect-derived ingredients (and I don’t blame you if you’re not in that camp), Sensient Technologies has reportedly perfected a Barbie-pink dye sourced from crushed cochineal insects. Before you totally plug your ears when you hear about the use of insects, this technique is apparently an ancient coloring method being modernized for better purity and precision. Whether you want bug-free, vegan, or just cleaner formulations, the excitement from the MAHA movement and this new health-conscious ecosystem is revolutionizing bold, beautiful food color without resorting to the chemical shortcuts of yesteryore. Real Progress Takes Patience and Perseverance Through Roadblocks Ahead Now, before we all get swept away by visions of rainbow-colored snack plates, let’s ground ourselves in reality. Cutting synthetic dyes alone won’t single-handedly Make America Healthy Again. No one is claiming that swapping Red No. 3 for beet juice concentrate will magically erase metabolic disorders, cure cancer, or gut the rising obesity rates. The science behind nutrition is way more complex than that. But, as women who are serious about long-term wellness, cutting unnecessary toxins is an applaudable effort and a smart, easy win. It’s also worth us understanding the logistical hurdles ahead, however. The current global supply of these natural, biotech-based dyes isn’t remotely large enough to cover the colossal demand of the American processed food industry. Developing scalable production, achieving regulatory approvals (easier said than done!), and integrating alternatives into an established manufacturing pipeline all takes time. And while consumer pressure is impressively powerful, Big Food won’t budge overnight. That’s not because they’re inherently evil, out to target Americans and intentionally disrupt our health, it’s because changing formulas, sourcing, and supply chains is a snail-like, costly process. So yes, we all need to be a bit patient. But, momentum is already building, and informed women can indeed help accelerate it. Think about how Vani Hari, also known as The Food Babe ( featured in Evie's latest Print Magazine ), has had a measurable impact on how both consumers and regulators view food additives. Her viral campaigns (like the takedown of Subway’s “ yoga mat chemical ” azodicarbonamide or Kraft’s artificial dye in mac & cheese) mobilized massive consumer backlash that has actually forced some major food companies to voluntarily reformulate products to avoid Bad PR… even in cases where those ingredients were technically FDA-approved! Hari didn’t need a lab coat to make food giants sweat. She made ingredient lists headline news , and turned the pesky fine print into a cultural battleground. Cleaner Candies, Snacks, and Breakfast Faves You Can Buy Now While biotech gets a bad rep from the crunchiest of those among us, many brands are also adopting cleaner colors using natural ingredients. UNREAL makes a dupe for M&M’s that not only tastes better than the OG, the “Gems” colorful coatings are derived from things like beet juice and spirulina. I’m a big fan of SmartSweets — particularly their Red Twists that are an amazing dupe for Red Vines or Twizzlers — which is crimson colored from fruit and vegetable juice like beet and carrot. For the kiddos lunch bags (or for the inner children and “girl dinner” snackers inside us all), instead of Welch’s Fruit Snacks, you can reach for Annie’s Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks. First off, the bunny shapes are way cuter, and second off, they’re colored with carrot juice, beet juice, and annatto , an orange-red dye from the seeds of a tropical fruit tree that, surprisingly, has been linked to anti-inflammatory, anticancer properties. When you’re buying for breakfast, brands like Siggi’s Strawberry and Raspberry Yogurts use elderberry juice concentrate and carrot juice, Chobani’s Less Sugar Greek Yogurt uses blueberry and black carrot concentrates, and Icelandic Provisions Strawberry Lingonberry Skry uses — you guessed it — real hues from strawberry and lingonberry. Not a dairy queen? Harmless Harvest’s Coconut Yogurt (Strawberry) is, in fact, colored with organic strawberry and beet juice. The bright cereals of your youth like Fruit Loops, Trix, or Fruity Pebbles can easily be swapped out by Three Wishes Fruity Cereal and Magic Spoon Fruity Cereal, colored with turmeric, spirulina, and vegetable or juices. Cascadian Farm , Kashi Organic , Barbara’s Organic , and Nature’s Path may be a bit more affordable and accessible, with each brand offering cereal products colored with fruit and vegetable juices, too. And get this — even Tyson Foods plans to reformulate their entire food products by the end of May to get rid of synthetic dyes. It makes me wonder why there were even artificial colors in things like frozen chicken nuggets in the first place, but hey, progress is progress, right? Spotting these cleaner options is easier than you think, too. Scan labels for words like “fruit and vegetable concentrates,” “beta carotene,” “spirulina extract,” “annato,” or even “paprika oleoresin.” All these natural colorants serve as a great alternative with or without the recent biotech advancements. Closing Thoughts As health savvy, beauty-conscious women, we wield enormous influence. By choosing better products, sharing what we learn, and asking ourselves smarter questions during our grocery runs, we can signal to companies that aesthetics and ethics can go hand in hand. This isn’t about fear-mongering or crunchy perfectionism. This is all about reminding the food industry that we’re watching, and that our dollar flow toward brands that value both beauty and wellbeing. The more we vote with our wallets, the faster we’ll see those guilty-pleasure, childhood treats reborn as modern, clean-label icons we can actually feel good about eating.