The Silent Poison: Red Dye 3 and the Harmful Impact of Food Additives on American Health

The Hidden Threat in Our Food

This is what most Americans innocently put into their bodies these days—and most alarmingly, into the bodies of their children. It’s no coincidence that Americans die earlier than Canadians, Germans, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, Australians, or most other comparable countries. It wasn’t always this way. Until the early 1990s, our life expectancy was the same or better than other developed countries.

A Rise in Chronic Diseases

Then suddenly, more and more Americans began suffering from chronic diseases such as obesity, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and all kinds of autoimmune diseases. Our maternal mortality rate soared to the highest of any developed country on Earth, and the same with infant mortality.

The Slow Boil of Public Health Decline

Like the frog in slowly boiling water, we didn’t really notice as we got sicker and sicker. We’ve grown now to accept chronic disease conditions as normal. But now, in 2024, we’re finally waking up to this cataclysm and asking ourselves, “How in the world did this happen?”

The Role of Our Diet

A big part of it is our diet. Restaurants that serve contaminated food are fined or shut down. But when it’s the government that approves the poisonous food, a few people get very, very rich, and the toxins end up in every supermarket aisle. Let me show you what I mean.

Junk Food and Toxic Additives

Doritos, Cheez-It, Captain Crunch, gummy bears—everyone knows these are junk foods. So maybe you wouldn’t be too surprised to learn that the ingredients include a lot of poisons, including a harmful yellow dye called tartrazine or Yellow Dye Number Five. What you may not know is that this dye was originally made from the sludge left over when coal is turned into coke for blast furnaces. It’s called coal tar.

The Origin of Tartrazine

I’ve actually sued many big industries for legacy contamination of coal tar all around the country because it’s so toxic. It is so harmful to the environment and human beings. A century ago, it was just an obnoxious industrial byproduct that everybody was trying to figure out ways to get rid of. One of the ways they did that was by paving roads.

From Coal Tar to Food Dye

Then a British chemist figured out that coal tar could be used to derive fabric dye. And if fabric dye, why not food dye? Food manufacturers began using it to cover up the discoloration of low-quality foods they wanted to pass off on unsuspecting customers. They didn’t know back then that this yellow dye, tartrazine, causes tumors, asthma, developmental delays, neurological damage, ADD, ADHD, hormone disruption, gene damage, anxiety, depression, and intestinal injuries.

Known Risks, Ignored Warnings

Well, we know it now. We’ve known this for decades. That’s why tartrazine is heavily restricted in other countries. In some places, foods with tartrazine require a warning label that it may cause ADHD in children. Today, it’s made from petroleum, not coal tar. Either way, it’s crazy to add this to your kids’ favorite foods. It doesn’t even change the flavor.

Hidden in Plain Sight

This yellow dye isn’t just in junk food; it’s in the foods we consider healthy. It’s in everyday kids’ snacks like popcorn, mac and cheese, and fruit snacks. It’s in sports drinks like Gatorade and so-called vitamin water. It’s even added to chicken broth, corn, pickles, mustard, and yogurt. And so, of course, our kids get sick, and we lovingly feed them chewable vitamins, which have—surprise—tartrazine. And so the cycle continues.

The Bigger Picture of Chemical Additives

I’ve been picking on tartrazine today, but that’s just one of at least 100 chemical poisons that our health agencies allow into our children’s food. If we removed all these chemicals, our nation would get healthier immediately. We’d have fewer sick days, better focus, less anxiety, and our kids would learn more easily. We’d lose weight, have more energy, experience fewer tumors, and live longer.

Progress and Political Will

It’s not all dark; over the past 16 years, the government has banned eight chemical additives that cause cancer, genetic damage, and asthma. All eight of those crucial steps forward in our kids’ health were taken under President Trump. But the Democrats, who claim to be all about healthcare, have stood by watching other countries ban these poisons.