November 20, 2024 • 38 mins
Could those vibrant, eye-catching treats be effecting more than just what we see on our plates? On this episode of The I'm Not Dumb But Podcast we ride the rainbow of the colorful world of food dyes.
We journey back in time to uncover the fascinating origins of food coloring, from the natural dyes of ancient Egypt to the accidental discovery of synthetic dyes during a quest for a treatment for malaria. As we trace the transition from coal tar to petroleum-based dyes, we explore the intertwined paths of medical and food innovations that have led us to where we are today. We also navigate the tangled web of food dye regulation, comparing the U.S. and Europe's differing approaches and sharing anecdotes of our own experiences with potential side effects.
Vivid colors aren't just confined to our food – they're part of our everyday products, from soap to clothes. Yet, with processed foods on the rise since the 1950s, the sheer amount of dyes we're consuming is staggering. We reflect on how aesthetics drive our buying choices, often at the expense of nutritional value, and share lighthearted memories of our favorite childhood cereals and ice cream toppings. This is an episode that tastes too good to pass up.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Victor (00:00):
Wait, what are we talking about today?
Rob (00:01):
Food dyes.
Victor (00:02):
How about food?
Lives Sure.
Cesar (00:08):
You'll be here all week.
Rob (00:11):
I have a question for y'all Do you guys check the nutrition
labels on your food?
Of course, Every day, of course.
Victor (00:17):
All the time.
Chris (00:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
Rob (00:20):
So what do you guys look for?
Chris (00:21):
First thing I check is for make sure they don't have
like some sort of gum food, dyes, stuff like that.
Cesar (00:26):
I agree, but I mostly look for added sugars.
Oh, added sugars.
At this point, now I'm lookingat it, I'm like this is not good
for me.
So that's one of my biggestthings that I look for.
Are you pre-diabetic?
Victor (00:38):
No, it depends what I'm buying.
Buying like, if I get peanutbutter, I make sure it's the
peanut butter that only haspeanuts listed as the
ingredients.
Nothing else other than that?
Rob (00:47):
no, I don't look at it so it seems like chris is the only
person who's actually checkedfor food dyes then, or so he
says yeah, he just said it, butI don't eat anything with food
dyes, like I don't eat cerealanymore, I don't eat um, I don't
go down that preservativeartificial rabbit hole.
Victor (01:05):
Vitamins are healthy.
Candy doesn't count in themonths of October through
November.
Oh, that's true Of thefollowing year.
Rob (01:16):
That's true.
So this past Halloween I had akid tell me that I can't have
Red 40 as he was rummagingthrough all the candies.
Well, this piqued my interest.
I had no idea what he wastalking about.
I was like Red 40?
What the hell's wrong with thiskid?
So I started looking into itand recently there's been a lot
of information that's beenrevealed about synthetic food
(01:36):
dyes and their side effects,especially in young children.
So I started thinking I'm notdumb, but are food dyes
affecting our behavior?
Welcome?
Cesar (01:46):
to the I'm not dumb but.
Are food dyes affecting ourbehavior?
Welcome to the I'm Not Dumb butPodcast, where we won't claim
to have the answers to life'seasiest questions but we'll give
you an exciting journey intothe realms of knowledge you
never knew you'd either.
Might be mainstream, but notcommon knowledge.
From artificial intelligence toconspiracy theories, no topic
is too taboo for us to explore.
Let's get curious together.
No topic is too taboo for us toexplore.
Rob (02:05):
Let's get curious together.
So I'm Rob, your host for today, joined by our boy Cesar.
You, victor how y'all doing and, of course, chris.
Hey.
Well, with the upcoming holidayseason, I'm going to be tearing
through a ton of cupcakes,candies and other processed
foods, and a lot of the icing iseither green, blue, red, crazy
(02:27):
colors, and I'm starting tothink that not only is the food
not good for me, maybe thecoloring is not good either.
So have you guys heard anythingabout this?
Cesar (02:37):
Sounds like you're getting racist, but I've never
liked icing on any of thesecakes.
Rob (02:45):
Have you heard anything about?
Chris (02:46):
any side effects, any behavioral changes about dyes.
The only thing I know isgiddles.
There was a whole.
I don't know if it's the foodcoloring or not, but I remember
is it california or something?
They're trying to bend?
The candy itself, uh-huh,that's the only thing I know
listen.
Cesar (02:58):
When I eat a cake that's american flag, I feel more
american.
Is that a?
I don't think so.
Red, white and bluemotherfucker, these colors don't
rhyme bitch.
Victor (03:08):
So I have a box of food coloring.
Okay wow.
What am I supposed to belooking for?
Rob (03:14):
You're supposed to take it and see if you feel any
different.
Victor (03:17):
Take it now.
Cesar (03:18):
Take all of them.
Victor (03:19):
Because this is gluten-free, dairy and nut-free
and vegetarian.
I don't see any red 40.
I don't see any yellow.
I don't see anything, it's all.
Rob (03:28):
What is it made from?
Victor (03:30):
Tartrazine brilliant blue.
Fcf Allura Red, sunset Yellow Idon't know if that's any of
those Sunset.
Oh shit bro.
Rob (03:38):
Those are all food coloring .
Victor (03:40):
Yeah, but are those the bad ones?
Rob (03:45):
California.
Yeah, they interchange thenames.
So what is it?
The Sunset Yellow is probablyYellow 6.
The Allura Red is Red 40.
Victor (03:52):
Oh, okay, is there a blue?
Cesar (03:53):
steel in that one.
Rob (03:54):
It's black steel.
Actually it's black steel.
Cesar (03:58):
That Hansel's so hot right now.
Rob (04:00):
So yeah, I mean I've been reading some articles.
There's a bunch of TED Talksand they're talking about
children experiencing symptomsof like hyperactivity,
inattentiveness, aggression,impulsiveness.
Some kids are even suicidalfrom this stuff.
So why do we use food coloringanyway?
It looks nice.
We have to taste the rainbow.
I mean, you can't even tastethe color.
Cesar (04:21):
Do you not taste red Powerade Do?
Victor (04:23):
you not know the taste of purple you?
Cesar (04:25):
know it, everyone knows it.
Come on, crayons taste likepurple.
Rob (04:28):
Apparently, humans have been coloring food since like
the 1500 BC.
So Egyptians were using fooddyes to color their food, hair
colors and even increase thecolor in wines.
This came from like when theyused to have these grand feasts.
They would color the foods andincrease the color so that it
(04:53):
would look more appealing andappetizing and it would just
make everything more vibrant.
So this has been going on forsome time now, but they did it
naturally.
If they wanted to get thegolden hues, they would use
saffron.
If they wanted red they uselike paprika.
They used a lot of lead forwhite would use saffron.
If they wanted red, they uselike paprika.
They used a lot of lead forwhite and grays.
But if they've already beenusing natural dyes, when did
everything change to syntheticdyes?
Chris (05:14):
I think it's because of the cost.
Rob (05:16):
That's why production of food so we made the transition
from natural food dyes tosynthetic food dyes because of
malaria surprise motherfuckerkills, I think, billions of
people over thousands of years.
It still is a big problem.
I think it killed like 600 000people a year in uh africa yeah,
it's in africa, parts of southamerica, but yeah, it's a big
(05:39):
problem it's because of therains, the, the, what the rains
in Africa.
So malaria is.
Victor (05:49):
Malaria has been around for no Toto fans around here.
Rob (05:51):
I can see that, all right.
No, the rains down in Africa.
Victor (05:54):
Yeah, you got to bless them.
I liked it.
Rob (06:02):
So malaria was a big problem, especially in
developing countries, right, andit actually came from the
Italian word or words malaria,which means bad air.
Victor (06:12):
What do they call it?
Do it in Italian Malaria,Malaria oh okay, it's a me
Malaria.
Rob (06:22):
Malaria, here we go.
It came from these marshes andthese swamps.
People were getting sick, theywere getting fevers.
Victor (06:28):
the romans thought it was like bad air or evil spirits
you need a 70 year old doctorto come and tell you what's
going on with that bewitchmentdoc.
Chris (06:38):
Bewitchment, fuck again, it's always bewitchment is that
a reference?
Rob (06:44):
malaria was the catalyst that basically started this.
In the 17th century, spanishJesuit missionaries were in Peru
and they come across this treebark that the locals were using
to cure reoccurring fevers andthey called it the cinchona
officinalis.
And they realized that theserecurring fevers was actually
(07:05):
malaria and that they had thecure for it.
So these Jesuit missionariestake this bark back to Europe
and they're like uh, I think wejust found the cure to malaria.
And they're like you better goback there and just get as much
of this tree bark as youpossibly can.
The Spanish go there, take allthe tree bark of this tree bark
(07:25):
as you possibly can.
The Spanish go there, take allthe tree bark, take a bunch of
seeds.
They own this land in Peru andthey had the foothold on the
treatment for malaria in likethe 1680s.
Chris (07:34):
You just eat the bark?
Rob (07:34):
Yeah, that was my question, so what they would do is they
would grind up the bark and theywould pour it in like wines or
drinks and then they would justintake this tree bark.
Early 19th century.
There's something going oncalled the Scramble for Africa.
So a lot of developed countriesare trying to get into Africa
and at the same time, perudecides that it wants to be a
(07:56):
nation.
So they're like listen, youguys have been exploiting us for
a while now.
We're going to hold on to allthese seeds.
We're going to hold on to,basically, the treatment of
malaria.
Great britain doesn't like this.
They send an expedition andthey just steal a bunch of
freaking seeds and take themback to europe and they try to
plant these seeds everywhere and, like other underdeveloped
nations, to try to grow theirown plantations so that peru
(08:20):
wouldn't have the cure formalaria I think there is.
Victor (08:24):
I think there is another treatment.
I think they did this when theybuilt the Panama Canal.
Oh, what did they do?
Deforestation.
Rob (08:33):
That's one way.
Cesar (08:34):
Not a good idea.
How?
Chris (08:35):
dare you.
Rob (08:36):
Around the same time in the 1800s, the Germans start to
realize that plants have thesethings called alkaloids in them,
that they can just extract whatthey need from the plants.
So they don't need plantationsand grinding up bark.
They can just go ahead and takesmall pieces, take out the
alkaloids from the plants anduse it as medicine.
(08:58):
European scientists were likego ahead and figure out how the
hell we can just take outwhatever's in this tree bark, so
we're not all running around.
Can we synthesize something?
Cesar (09:09):
Now, if we have the cure, why is malaria still killing
people?
Victor (09:15):
It's a treatment and not everybody has it, and you don't
want poor people to havemedicine.
Chris (09:19):
No.
Cesar (09:20):
That's business 101.
Victor (09:22):
That's not good business .
Cesar (09:23):
But you do need poor people for business, because
who's going to buy your stuff?
Rob (09:27):
Within reason.
Poor people, poor people.
So in the 1820s, two Frenchscientists extract the alkaloid
from the Sencona Bar.
Pierre-joseph Pelletier andJoseph Caventeau create this
thing called quinine, and thatis basically what's found in
tonic water Little bits ofquinine in tonic water, actually
, back then it was like a lotmore.
So that was one of thetreatments for malaria was tonic
(09:48):
water.
Victor (09:49):
Oh, so gin and tonics can treat my malaria, but then
that becomes in very shortsupply.
Rob (09:54):
A lot of countries like France and Great Britain.
They said can we get off thistree completely?
Can we just synthesize a fakequinine?
We know what it is, we knowwhat we need, we've broken it
down, so there's tons of fundingfor this to basically create a
synthetic cure for malaria.
There's a young man namedWilliam Perkin.
(10:15):
He's 18 years old.
He just gets put on to be partof this project.
So he's home.
He's got a freaking lab in hisparents' house in East London.
Really smart kid At 18, he waslike a professional violinist.
He finished high school at 15.
He was in college at like 16years old.
This guy was like a brainiac.
Victor (10:35):
What a fucking nerd.
He's like in his basement.
His mom's like yelling from thetop of the stairs Get your
dinner.
He's like Mom I.
Rob (10:42):
I'm busy, I'm synthesizing quinine fuck loser.
I was playing n64.
Yeah, they didn't really knowmuch about chemistry back then.
Right, they thought thatcertain things were building
blocks, but they didn'tunderstand what molecules were.
So they were.
They were playing around withcoal tar.
(11:02):
That was the idea and like allright, so you can probably make
quinine with coal tar.
Well, what happens is they werefucking wrong and they realized
that 100 years later that theywere wrong.
You idiot.
But what coal tar was reallygood for was.
They had the building blocksfor colors.
He creates this thing in thelab what he calls mauve or
mauveine, depending on where youread the lab what he calls
(11:28):
mauve or mauveine, depending onwhere you read and it's this
bright purple color that is likenot even seen anywhere.
It's fabulous and remember atthe time they were only using
natural dyes and purple was oneof those ones that was really
really hard to make.
Is the purple a popular color?
Purple is like a royalty color.
I was gonna say it's a popularcolor.
Purple is like a royalty color.
Chris (11:45):
I was going to say it's a rich color, it's a royalty
color.
Victor (11:49):
You got to jump on my case, right, I'm a peasant over
here.
Rob (11:53):
You only wear gray and black, so you wouldn't fucking
know.
That's true.
Feeling attacked.
Yeah, so he calls his dad.
He's like I made this crazycolor purple.
I know how to make this andknow how to make like a lot more
colors.
Basically, they open up a shopand, at 18 years old, selling
textiles, the queen of englandactually wears a dress at her
(12:15):
daughter's wedding and theeveryone goes fucking bananas
which queen is this?
Is queen victoria, queenvictoria.
Everybody lost shit.
So this is in like the 1850s.
Victor (12:26):
Are we eating these things Right?
Rob (12:29):
We are now.
Victor (12:30):
I thought you were talking about food dyes.
Rob (12:32):
Yeah, we're on food dyes now.
I'm there now, okay, I'm justgiving you a little fucking
history and you can just deletehalf of this shit, idiot.
Cesar (12:45):
There's an article I'm reading real quick from 2019.
It was like that uh, so hediscovered the you know mavene,
whatever it is.
Yeah, there's a mystery.
Uh, using his patented method,it's impossible to recreate the
product he made.
There's a doctor he's trying tofind, he's trying, he's doing
investigations to discover thetrue method of synthesizing
movie a pretty interesting funfact that I learned is he sold
his business off.
Rob (13:04):
So a bunch of other companies jumped in because they
were like oh shit, there's ahuge demand for just dying food
dying, clothes dying anything.
They hired a bunch of chemists.
Eventually that entire industrygot super stagnant and they
were like well, we've kind ofcreated as many colors as we
possibly can, like what the fuckdo we do with a bunch of
chemists?
So all these dye companiesstarted making instead of making
(13:27):
synthetic dyes, started makingsynthetic medicine, and that's
the birth of Big Pharma.
Bayer was one of the big dyecompanies in Germany and we know
them as Bayer, so Big Pharmaactually came from the synthetic
food dye industry.
Yeah because it was hugecompanies making tons of money
with a lot of chemists.
Cesar (13:48):
Well, what?
Rob (13:48):
do you know?
So the thing is with the dyesis, when they started making
these colors, they were puttingthem in everything.
They were dyeing foods, theywere dyeing medicine, they were
dyeing clothes.
There was really no regulationon what you could dye.
Victor (14:02):
Oh, so they were like the coal tar dye was going into
food.
Rob (14:06):
Yeah, a lot of people getting sick, a lot of people
dying, a lot of people gettingrashes.
And this was all in like thelate 1800s, early 1900s.
So that's when regulationstarted kicking in.
The government started havingto create regulation.
The governments were steppingin and saying, okay, what are
all the food dyes you guys areusing?
(14:26):
And they started testing eachone of them.
Present day, the FDA has onlyseven certified food dyes that
they can use, and they checkthem by batches.
So what were some of the onesthat you saw in yours, victor?
Victor (14:41):
Sunrise, sunset yellow, not sunrise yellow yellow.
That's a completely differentyellow.
So sunset yellow right have younever seen a sunrise before and
you.
Rob (14:50):
It doesn't look anything more orange sunrise sunset so
sunset yellow is a certifiedfood dye and actually goes by
the name a yellow six but likewhat is the criteria for them to
approve or disapprove food dyes?
They get batches and it has tomeet like its molecular setup.
Victor (15:11):
So every food dye company sends samples to the.
Fda, for them to constantlycheck who agreed.
These are acceptable to beginwith the FDA.
Cesar (15:21):
A lot of times it's the company they're testing their
own product, sending it to theFDA.
A lot of times it's the companythey're testing their own
product sending it to the FDA.
And then the FDA, along withthese other companies and their
scientists, are the ones kind ofgetting together to create like
a baseline, because the FDAthey're in so much shit they
don't really have a lot offunding, so they need.
That's what happens with thedrug trials.
(15:43):
The drug makes.
You're actually testing theseown drugs and then sending these
samples and these informationto the FDA.
Rob (15:51):
So we're just hoping that the company is not lying.
Cesar (15:54):
That and also they send like they also send samples to
like independent labs, so theykind of like collaborate all
together.
I'm assuming this is whatexactly is happening.
Rob (16:04):
Yeah, collaborate all together.
I'm assuming this is whatexactly is happening.
Yeah, apparently there's like astrict criteria of what food
dyes have to be and they checkwhat they're made of.
They check byproducts,precipitants.
There's like a whole list oflike what the molecular setup of
the dye is.
There's no more coal tar.
They don't use that much coaltar dyes.
They use petroleum dyes now,but apparently in the process of
(16:26):
making the dye all thepetroleum should have been
removed, so there's supposed tobe just the color left, and
right now they use let's breakit down.
Blue 1 goes by Brilliant BlueBlue 2, which goes by Indigo
Green 3 goes by Fast Green.
Red 3 goes by Eurythrazine.
(16:46):
Allura Red is Red 40.
Tartrazine is Yellow 5 andSunset Yellow is Yellow 6.
Chris (16:53):
That's a lot.
Rob (16:55):
They have two other ones that they certified.
So there's this thing calledOrange B, but they can only use
it in hot dog casings, that's it.
You can't put it in any otherfood.
Apparently, it's like not good.
Cesar (17:08):
Hot dogs.
Rob (17:09):
And then citrus, red number two.
We cannot consume it because itcauses cancer, but we can use
it to make food and ship it toother countries that will take.
Red number two.
What, what?
Chris (17:25):
That's messed up.
Look, I have a starburst herburst.
Look at this, I have a wholepack.
Victor (17:30):
How many colors you got in there?
Did you purposely go out andbuy starburst for this podcast?
Rob (17:36):
yeah, so you actually eat that stuff no, this is jesus
christ, chris, this one has red40 and blue one okay, so I'll
tell you right now these are theside effects that you're gonna
get.
Wait a minute.
Victor (17:49):
Hold on, hold, on, hold on, hold on.
You're fucking so consciousabout what you fucking buy that
you have to check ingredientsfor other things, and you're
buying starburst.
No, first of all, I didn't buythis.
Chris (18:00):
Oh okay, yeah, it just appeared in your house.
Victor (18:03):
You just created it from fucking coal tar.
Chris (18:06):
And whatever the fuck you had lying around, I have a
bunch of guys making it rightnow.
Well, anyways, every time I doeat gummy bears or any candies,
I break out into rashes.
Rob (18:20):
now, so what was it?
Blue number one and red 40?
Chris (18:24):
Yeah.
Rob (18:26):
So apparently some of the side effects, like hyperactivity
and rashes.
Chris (18:30):
Like I have rashes right now because I had a bag of
Skittles from like what is wrongwith you?
No, I had a bag of Skittleslike a month ago and then it's
coming up like now.
I don't think that's how itworks.
It's like I love gummy bearsand then, because of that, I
don't think that's how it works.
It's like I love gummy bears.
Victor (18:49):
And then, because of that, I don't eat it.
So, Chris, I'm not a doctor Ifyou eat something and then
months later start havingsymptoms from it.
I don't think it was that.
Cesar (18:57):
Yeah, chris, normally a rash.
Comes out like right away, yeah, or like shortly after yeah.
Chris (19:03):
I have no idea, man.
Oh, it is rice.
Rob (19:05):
I'm Korean.
It could be the dyes in your.
Maybe you have bed bugs.
Victor (19:10):
Yeah, do you have bed bugs?
Do you have bed bugs?
Have you checked for?
Cesar (19:13):
that?
Did you live in Paris?
When was the last time you wentto Paris?
That's true.
Rob (19:15):
Oh shit, Didn't you go to Paris.
Cesar (19:26):
No, you go to months ago.
He needs a fumigate.
I don't know.
Rashes develop kind of likeright away.
I used to eat gummy worms likecrazy and I never got a rash.
Cavities, no rashes.
Victor (19:35):
So, with all the regulation that's happening, our
FDA is getting these samplesand all this information.
Why are certain dyes approvedto use in the US but not
approved in Europe?
Are they taking differentinformation, like what the
fuck's up with that the way?
Rob (19:53):
I understood it.
Like Europe, they take a moreprecautionary approach.
So if they see things that arelike could be, they have
stricter bans and warnings,whereas the FDA will go by
conclusive evidence and then banand they will use the causation
(20:14):
.
You know, correlation, wholeargument 2011,.
They had a vote on if theyshould put on warning labels on
foods that have food dyes and itwas voted down eight to six, so
it was very close, but the FDAsaid no, we're not putting any
warning labels on it.
Food dyes, we don't findanything wrong.
(20:36):
The FDA did finally say thatthere is evidence that people
could be sensitive to food dyesand they would get hyperactivity
and rashes, but that it wasvery rare.
But we're not going to put awarning label on there, whereas
Europe said no, we will putwarning labels on here.
What that did?
(20:56):
Instead of companies wanting toput warning labels on their
food, they just went and foundnatural ways to dye their food
and actually it was weird.
On the FDA website, you cansend in if you are getting
rashes or if you're experiencingany symptoms.
You can send those symptoms into the FDA and tell them what
(21:19):
food colorings you're eating andthen they'll look into it more
Really.
So there's like an ongoingstudy right now about if food
dyes are still bad for us.
Victor (21:28):
Chris, send them Send them your information with your
rash.
Send them actually photos ofyour rash as well and send them
like other photos too.
Rob (21:36):
Like you know, not just the rash, Like different parts of
your body.
Victor (21:40):
Show off your personality.
Rob (21:43):
Show them like parts of your body that don't have the
rash and then show them otherparts of your body that do have
the rash To get a baseline.
Victor (21:50):
They need a baseline.
He's taking a selfie.
Rob (21:52):
Some of the things I was reading like with this.
They're doing constant studies.
Victor (21:57):
Shit hasn't been around for that long.
You know what?
I'm saying Like if I inventsomething in the 80s, I only
have 40 years of study.
Cesar (22:08):
And that the 80s.
I only have 40 years of studyand that's like 40 years of very
limited studies based onlimited groups.
Fun fact corona don't have dyesto really embrace life.
Chris (22:14):
You just have to learn to let go in europe when you look
for a gatorade, they only havelike one color yeah, but that's
stupid.
Rob (22:22):
You need.
I go with the blue what coloris it?
I go with the blue.
What color is it?
I go with the blue Blue or red,and lemon-lime is a staple.
I like orange.
Lemon-lime won championships.
Gatorade, h2o.
One of the biggest argumentsagainst food dyes is like how do
we know food dye is bad for you?
(22:42):
Because most food dyes are inprocessed foods, so are the
reactions you're having from thefood dye or is it just the
shitty?
food you're eating, so like theorange, it's only in, you know,
hot dog casings.
Red four is only in skittles,starbursts and you know icing,
and we know these things are badfor you.
(23:03):
So is it really the food dye oris it a mixture of the food dye
and the processed food?
Well, I started going in andthinking well, are they just
dyeing processed foods or arethey dyeing other things too?
These are some prettyinteresting examples.
So pickles, I mean we probablyfigured out those are dyed.
What?
Yeah, pickles are actually dyedto keep that color, that yellow
(23:28):
color, really yeah, no, whatkind of pickles though like the
mount olive ones or the vlassicsor whatever they are.
Victor (23:35):
They're actually dyed, but that's a specific brand
though, like if I pickle you canget natural, natural pickles,
cucumber pickles like the thepickles as Americans know them.
Rob (23:48):
They're light.
You can go to like Trader Joe'sand get pickles lighter, but
let's go with.
Most pickles are dyed.
They do that actually to keepthe skin vibrant, because it
tends to go brown and peopledon't like to buy it.
Another thing that is dyed areoranges.
I was reading and they weresaying that in warmer climates
(24:08):
when they ship oranges over,oranges are green but they have
a hard time selling them toother countries in colder
climates like America.
They dye the rind or the peelorange and then they ship it to
America.
I mean, I think farm-raisedsalmon is also dyed but what
they do is they feed them umpellets that mimic beta carotene
(24:33):
and that turns them pink, oh soit's not.
Victor (24:35):
It's a natural dye.
Is that a natural?
Rob (24:37):
dye.
Yeah, they don't actually goover there and paint it.
Another way that they dye foods, which was pretty interesting
and not using an actual dye,tuna is gassed.
Have you ever heard of this?
Cesar (24:51):
No.
Rob (24:51):
They will gas tuna with carbon monoxide and what that
does is it keeps the flesh pink.
Even if it's going spoiled, itwill keep the flesh pink and I
think there's like a lot ofcontroversy about it, because
now the tuna could be bad butwill not brown.
So there's a lot of ways wherethey play with the color of our
(25:12):
food to be able to sell it to us, and it's not just processed
foods.
Victor (25:16):
A part of that problem is us, though.
Rob (25:18):
Yeah, it's people, it's education.
Well, it's not even.
Victor (25:22):
I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about just like wedon't buy food that looks
deformed or doesn't lookappetizing.
Yeah, Like, if you go in thereand you see like an orange or
something with a hole or a dentin it, you don't buy it.
I'm not buying it.
But it's a perfectly good fruitor vegetable or whatever.
You think it's ugly so youwon't get it.
Cesar (25:42):
Yeah, there is that section by the fruit and veggies
where they have like those bags, like all the deformed fruit.
Victor (25:49):
I've never seen that I bought a couple, I would get
food.
I've never seen that.
Cesar (25:53):
It's like a bag of apples , like 20 apples.
Rob (25:55):
I will not buy a deformed fruit.
If I didn't have to, I'd buy it.
It's like is this thing goingto?
Cesar (26:01):
last.
That's what you do you eat 20apples right there.
Victor (26:06):
No, you make an apple crisp.
I did this the other day, youhave the 20 apples they're
starting to go, or make applesauce.
Chris (26:14):
Oh yeah, that's a good one.
Rob (26:16):
Apples in protein shakes are nice too.
Victor (26:19):
Really, I've actually never tried that, yeah.
Rob (26:21):
They give it like this weird you might.
It's acquired, but it gives itlike this weird texture.
Victor (26:27):
We're talking Granny Smith or Red Delicious.
Rob (26:30):
I like Red Delicious, the Granny Smith you know it might
be weird with like a vanilla.
Victor (26:35):
Yeah, Well, you've always been a known communist,
yeah.
Rob (26:38):
Communist.
I'm not a communist, but therewas some other examples too,
like cheddar cheese is dyed,wasabi is dyed green.
It's not actually wasabi.
Wasabi is horseradish here, butI guess real wasabi is really
hard to make.
Um, in america we don't get it.
The pink ginger from sushi isalso dyed pink and a lot of
(26:59):
dried fruits don't carry theircolor so they dye those.
Victor (27:03):
So like dried apricots, dried papaya, dried strawberries
, but you're throwing in a lotof you're throwing in a lot of
stuff.
Are these naturally your thingor is this red 40 could?
Rob (27:14):
be both so like cheese.
They were saying that it's dyednaturally dried fruits.
They use dyes synthetic.
Victor (27:21):
So check the ingredients is what you're saying.
Chris (27:23):
Ingredients yeah, the the fruit loops, man fruitops will
kill you.
Victor (27:27):
You shouldn't be eating cereal anyway, dude, it's all
sugar.
Chris (27:30):
I know I don't eat cereal anyway.
Victor (27:33):
I just eat like packs of Starbursts every day.
I don't eat them.
Chris (27:36):
It was like my wife got it as a gift for her birthday.
Cesar (27:39):
That's bullshit.
Rob (27:40):
I was looking for this statistic on the FDA.
I couldn't find it, but I foundit on a bunch of other websites
.
They're saying from the 1950sto around 2012, 2013,.
People are consuming five timesthe amount of food dies than
they did in the 1950s.
Victor (27:57):
The amount of processed foods from the 1950s to now is
probably quadrupled.
Chris (28:03):
Yeah.
Victor (28:04):
In the 1950s.
How many cereals did you haveto choose from?
Yeah, Because, like when I was,a kid, I had like 500 fucking
cereals to choose from, likethere was so many cereals.
Rob (28:12):
Every single one of them was a million colors.
Right, I mean, I only used toeat the marshmallows from Lucky
Charms.
Great, that's a straight upcall Fruity Pebbles.
Oh yeah, Just let it all turninto mush.
Victor (28:26):
Sprinkles, you always go Rainbow, yeah, or Funfetti Cake
.
Cesar (28:30):
I used to go Chocolate.
Victor (28:31):
You went Chocolate Sprinkles.
Cesar (28:33):
Yeah.
Victor (28:33):
I always went Chocolate, sprinkles, chocolate on
Chocolate too.
I go Chocolate.
Now, as an adult, I'm too oldfor Rainbow Chocolate.
Rob (28:39):
Sprinkles for ice cream or cupcakes, Ice cream.
I want Chocolate ice cream,chocolate sprinkles.
But before that ice cream hitsthat cup, you're throwing
sprinkles in the bottom of thecup.
Oh, absolutely.
And then you hit it the icecream, and then you dump the
sprinkles on top, because I wantthat last bite to have a
ridiculous amount of sprinkles,and then it's a $20 ice cream
(29:01):
cup.
Cesar (29:02):
Mmm chocolate.
Rob (29:04):
The FDA apparently has accepted daily intakes of each
color.
How many milligrams of eachcolor you could have for the
rest of your life without havingany adverse side effects?
Blue one only 840 milligramsfor 150 pound person.
Red 40, only 490 milligrams for150 pound person.
But the one thing I realize isthey don't tell you how many
(29:27):
milligrams is in your food.
Victor (29:28):
Because you can't read, because you've ingested so many
food dyes, I'm blind in my lefteye.
You can't even math.
You can't even think you are alost cause.
Rob (29:39):
No, it's just, it's difficult, you know, they tell
you oh, this is how much you cando, because you're on food dyes
.
You've already been corrupted,so everything's difficult for
you.
I tried so when I was doingresearch.
I was like you know what?
I'm not going to eat food dyesfor the entire day.
I usually don't have breakfastor whatever.
My first meal is at one o'clock.
So I was like I can do this.
So I'm drinking tons of water.
(30:01):
I'm like, looking at all mysnacks, I'm like, all right, I'm
not going to eat this one today, I'm not going to eat that one.
So I run downstairs, I go tothe bathroom and I see the
storage closet and I see all thesoaps and they're bright green.
And I walk right over to it andit says green number three and
I'm like, well, I'm fucking done.
Like there's no way to get awayfrom it, because it's not just
in your food.
(30:22):
They dye your clothes with it,they dye your soap with it.
Cesar (30:28):
So you eat soap now.
Rob (30:30):
No, when you rub it on your hands, it goes through your
skin.
Victor (30:36):
I am at the eating zone.
This is actually anintervention.
We need you to stop eating soap.
Cesar (30:41):
This is getting out of hand.
Victor (30:43):
Rob, you've been doing this for way too long.
Cesar (30:45):
Stop soap.
You shouldn't eat it.
Rob (30:48):
Stop eating soap.
There's no way to get away fromgreen food dye.
There's no way to get away fromany dyes we live in a colorful
world, yeah, we're man.
Victor (30:56):
And I'm a material girl.
Cesar (30:59):
What colors children?
In your research did you comeacross what sort of effects the
dye have on the skin?
You're not ingesting it.
You're not ingesting soap.
Well, maybe he is.
I'm assuming.
If we had an adverse effect tothese dyes with soap, they would
have stopped making these soapsa long time ago.
Rob (31:16):
I mean, if you're rubbing something on your skin, don't
you think they would get rubbedinto your body, or no?
I see people who get rasheswhen they use different types of
like laundry detergent, andthat's from perfumes and dyes.
Victor (31:32):
Or dry skin.
Dry skin actually can make youbreak out.
Rob (31:35):
My thing is how do you know how much food dye you're
actually putting in your body ina day?
Really hard to tell.
Chris (31:42):
It is hard.
You just have to be moremindful, that's all.
Victor (31:44):
I looked up the ingredients for Fruity Pebbles.
It has the list of ingredientsand then contains 1% or less of
natural artificial flavor red 40, citric acid, dalo5, blue 1,
bht added to preserve freshness.
But if you look at it, there'snine servings per container.
The daily value is inpercentage, based off of 2,000
(32:07):
calorie day diet, so this wouldhave less than 1% of your daily
intake per serving.
Rob (32:14):
So what color was it?
Let's see if we can try tofigure out how many is in your
Fruity.
Pebbles.
Victor (32:18):
Oh shit, All of them.
Rob (32:19):
It says that Fruity Pebbles , I guess for their serving size
, has 19 milligrams of dyes andthe daily allowable intake for
dyes is for, let's say, red 40,is 490 milligrams.
So you have to eat a lot ofFruity Pebbles in order to hit
the acceptable daily intake.
(32:40):
I would have to only eat FruityPebbles.
But the thing is that's justfrom Fruity Pebbles.
So what are you having forlunch?
What are you having as a snack?
If you're eating a ton ofprocessed foods, you're going to
probably get somewhere close tothis daily intake.
Victor (32:55):
But then it falls under your problem again of are you
just eating too much processedfoods?
Cesar (33:01):
That's probably the key right Reducing processed foods
as much as you can.
Try eating an apple that hasn'tbeen dried Fatty, oh, oh,
healthy.
The fruits in DR are a lotdifferent and they taste a lot
different.
The ones here, even the apples.
It could be the same apple andlike, the color is a little bit
more dull and it tastes a littlebit more.
Victor (33:20):
I don't know.
Healthier, yeah, but like Ithink our apples are genetically
modified, healthier, yeah, butI think our apples are
genetically modified?
Chris (33:27):
Yeah, that could be it too After I read about the
Skittles California.
Is it California they're tryingto ban?
Cesar (33:32):
California banned Skittles.
Rob (33:34):
Yeah.
So California recently bannedRed 3.
There are like a bunch of otherstates that are banning Red 3.
So Illinois, Missouri, NewJersey, New York, there's a
bunch of states that are goingto individually ban these food
dyes.
Actually, Pennsylvania has abill to ban red three, red 40,
(33:57):
yellow five, yellow six, blueone and two.
So I think a lot of states arenow basically not waiting for
the federal government andthey're just going ahead trying
to ban the dyes themselves.
But red three has been one thata lot of states have
immediately jumped on to to tryto get rid of but no, once I
hear about that, I was like ohshit, this is for real.
Cesar (34:19):
Like well, chris is trying to tell you is that after
this podcast, he's gonna doubledown on eating starbuck, which
he doesn't know how he got.
So there you go, yeah.
Rob (34:29):
Chris is like well, I'm going to eat the pink one, so
that doesn't have any of them,it's not cake.
Chris (34:34):
Also, I feel like they don't really talk about this as
much Food color like warningpeople, or at least to talk
about it, to be aware of None ofthese companies are going to
warn you, Chris.
Cesar (34:44):
They make their money on this.
Victor (34:45):
Pete, I mean, do you follow notices that the FDA puts
out?
Cesar (34:49):
No, the major ones, yeah, no.
Victor (34:50):
That's like saying, oh, the mainstream media doesn't
like to report on this becauseyou never actually looked it up.
Chris (34:59):
If you call CNN a network , I don't, I don't know.
Maybe like in a health class ina high school or middle school,
like in a health class in ahigh school or middle school.
Cesar (35:08):
You're close to 40.
Chris (35:09):
No, they feel like they should be talking about it as
part of a health education.
Why?
Victor (35:14):
They're trying to teach a bunch of horny fucking
teenagers to stop having unsafesex and to not do drugs or to do
it responsibly.
I think they got the handful At16,.
You want to talk to me aboutfucking food dyes?
I don't got the handful At 16,you want?
Cesar (35:26):
to talk to me about fucking food dyes.
Chris (35:27):
I don't give a fuck.
Victor (35:29):
I use my only dollar to get a Snapple out of the fucking
vending machine and I'm holdingmy fucking book bag at my low
waist because I have a ragingheart on it.
Chris (35:40):
I have no idea why?
Rob (35:42):
Yeah, yeah, my whole day is fucked.
This is a problem.
Yeah, man, so it day is fucked.
This is a problem.
Yeah, man, so it's a problem.
We'll see what happens.
I'm curious to see what happensin the future.
Victor (35:51):
I think we're going to go for an all-out ban.
Yeah, I think so too, unlessWorm Brain Guy gets convinced
otherwise.
Rob (36:02):
I think the warning label would be a good step forward,
because it would force companiesto then try to do a lot of
natural colors.
Europe's already doing it.
Another thing that I found thatwas interesting was that
American companies that createproducts that they also ship out
to Europe will dye those foodsusing natural colors, ship those
(36:23):
to Europe, then use syntheticcolors because they're cheaper
and keep them here in America.
So they're already doing it.
They're just trying to cutcosts because I guess it's a lot
more expensive for them.
So you're not going to look fora company who's going to want
to do it.
There has to be regulation.
Victor (36:39):
unfortunately, Is that like being sneaky and healthy?
Rob (36:42):
What do you guys think?
What are your takeaways fortoday?
Cesar (36:45):
Cesar, I'm on this health trip and I started looking at
added sugars in my food, and now, with this podcast, I'm also
going to be looking at whatfoods have dyes.
I just looked at this fruityCheerios that I bought earlier
today that my son actually ate,and it contains two of them.
I'm gonna be more consciousabout eating foods with dyes and
(37:10):
processed foods in general,chris I always been mindful of
food coloring but, like you said, it's in everything.
Chris (37:18):
What I do is like usually I, just once in a while, you
know, we'll just get somethingthat has food coloring, but
otherwise, like I, like I said,you can't avoid it.
So, like I said, you just haveto be more mindful and just
control the intakes or whatnot.
Rob (37:32):
Victor, what are your thoughts?
Victor (37:34):
There's always more information coming out, and if
they find conclusive evidencethat this is not good for you,
I'm pretty sure they'll ban it,no problem, and then you don't
have to worry about it at all.
But if you are afraid of it, Imean, just avoid these, just try
to avoid it as best as possible.
Even if it's impossible toavoid, you can at least lessen
the amount that you're going toingest.
Or you're going to get to yourkids and then, instead of
(37:56):
grabbing that candy bar to giveto them, grab that genetically
modified apple that's beenspliced with the salmon and eat
that instead, as long as it wasfree range, alaskan cod salmon.
No, the apple actually likes toswim with the salmon All right.
Rob (38:14):
Thanks for tuning in.
Don't forget to follow us onInstagram, twitter and YouTube
at I'm Not Dumb, but, where wepost extra fun content that you
may not find on the podcast, and, before you go, hit the
subscribe button because you'llfeel better.
Trust me, until next time, staycurious.
Cesar (38:29):
Later.
Do you have an Instagram?
Victor (38:37):
Chris is supposed to be taking care of it.
Cesar (38:38):
Chris, we got an Instagram.
Chris (38:40):
I don't know, do we do Leave that open?
Wait, what are we talking about today?
Rob (00:01):
Food dyes.
Victor (00:02):
How about food?
Lives Sure.
Cesar (00:08):
You'll be here all week.
Rob (00:11):
I have a question for y'all Do you guys check the nutrition
labels on your food?
Of course, Every day, of course.
Victor (00:17):
All the time.
Chris (00:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
Rob (00:20):
So what do you guys look for?
Chris (00:21):
First thing I check is for make sure they don't have
like some sort of gum food, dyes, stuff like that.
Cesar (00:26):
I agree, but I mostly look for added sugars.
Oh, added sugars.
At this point, now I'm lookingat it, I'm like this is not good
for me.
So that's one of my biggestthings that I look for.
Are you pre-diabetic?
Victor (00:38):
No, it depends what I'm buying.
Buying like, if I get peanutbutter, I make sure it's the
peanut butter that only haspeanuts listed as the
ingredients.
Nothing else other than that?
Rob (00:47):
no, I don't look at it so it seems like chris is the only
person who's actually checkedfor food dyes then, or so he
says yeah, he just said it, butI don't eat anything with food
dyes, like I don't eat cerealanymore, I don't eat um, I don't
go down that preservativeartificial rabbit hole.
Victor (01:05):
Vitamins are healthy.
Candy doesn't count in themonths of October through
November.
Oh, that's true Of thefollowing year.
Rob (01:16):
That's true.
So this past Halloween I had akid tell me that I can't have
Red 40 as he was rummagingthrough all the candies.
Well, this piqued my interest.
I had no idea what he wastalking about.
I was like Red 40?
What the hell's wrong with thiskid?
So I started looking into itand recently there's been a lot
of information that's beenrevealed about synthetic food
(01:36):
dyes and their side effects,especially in young children.
So I started thinking I'm notdumb, but are food dyes
affecting our behavior?
Welcome?
Cesar (01:46):
to the I'm not dumb but.
Are food dyes affecting ourbehavior?
Welcome to the I'm Not Dumb butPodcast, where we won't claim
to have the answers to life'seasiest questions but we'll give
you an exciting journey intothe realms of knowledge you
never knew you'd either.
Might be mainstream, but notcommon knowledge.
From artificial intelligence toconspiracy theories, no topic
is too taboo for us to explore.
Let's get curious together.
No topic is too taboo for us toexplore.
Rob (02:05):
Let's get curious together.
So I'm Rob, your host for today, joined by our boy Cesar.
You, victor how y'all doing and, of course, chris.
Hey.
Well, with the upcoming holidayseason, I'm going to be tearing
through a ton of cupcakes,candies and other processed
foods, and a lot of the icing iseither green, blue, red, crazy
(02:27):
colors, and I'm starting tothink that not only is the food
not good for me, maybe thecoloring is not good either.
So have you guys heard anythingabout this?
Cesar (02:37):
Sounds like you're getting racist, but I've never
liked icing on any of thesecakes.
Rob (02:45):
Have you heard anything about?
Chris (02:46):
any side effects, any behavioral changes about dyes.
The only thing I know isgiddles.
There was a whole.
I don't know if it's the foodcoloring or not, but I remember
is it california or something?
They're trying to bend?
The candy itself, uh-huh,that's the only thing I know
listen.
Cesar (02:58):
When I eat a cake that's american flag, I feel more
american.
Is that a?
I don't think so.
Red, white and bluemotherfucker, these colors don't
rhyme bitch.
Victor (03:08):
So I have a box of food coloring.
Okay wow.
What am I supposed to belooking for?
Rob (03:14):
You're supposed to take it and see if you feel any
different.
Victor (03:17):
Take it now.
Cesar (03:18):
Take all of them.
Victor (03:19):
Because this is gluten-free, dairy and nut-free
and vegetarian.
I don't see any red 40.
I don't see any yellow.
I don't see anything, it's all.
Rob (03:28):
What is it made from?
Victor (03:30):
Tartrazine brilliant blue.
Fcf Allura Red, sunset Yellow Idon't know if that's any of
those Sunset.
Oh shit bro.
Rob (03:38):
Those are all food coloring .
Victor (03:40):
Yeah, but are those the bad ones?
Rob (03:45):
California.
Yeah, they interchange thenames.
So what is it?
The Sunset Yellow is probablyYellow 6.
The Allura Red is Red 40.
Victor (03:52):
Oh, okay, is there a blue?
Cesar (03:53):
steel in that one.
Rob (03:54):
It's black steel.
Actually it's black steel.
Cesar (03:58):
That Hansel's so hot right now.
Rob (04:00):
So yeah, I mean I've been reading some articles.
There's a bunch of TED Talksand they're talking about
children experiencing symptomsof like hyperactivity,
inattentiveness, aggression,impulsiveness.
Some kids are even suicidalfrom this stuff.
So why do we use food coloringanyway?
It looks nice.
We have to taste the rainbow.
I mean, you can't even tastethe color.
Cesar (04:21):
Do you not taste red Powerade Do?
Victor (04:23):
you not know the taste of purple you?
Cesar (04:25):
know it, everyone knows it.
Come on, crayons taste likepurple.
Rob (04:28):
Apparently, humans have been coloring food since like
the 1500 BC.
So Egyptians were using fooddyes to color their food, hair
colors and even increase thecolor in wines.
This came from like when theyused to have these grand feasts.
They would color the foods andincrease the color so that it
(04:53):
would look more appealing andappetizing and it would just
make everything more vibrant.
So this has been going on forsome time now, but they did it
naturally.
If they wanted to get thegolden hues, they would use
saffron.
If they wanted red they uselike paprika.
They used a lot of lead forwhite would use saffron.
If they wanted red, they uselike paprika.
They used a lot of lead forwhite and grays.
But if they've already beenusing natural dyes, when did
everything change to syntheticdyes?
Chris (05:14):
I think it's because of the cost.
Rob (05:16):
That's why production of food so we made the transition
from natural food dyes tosynthetic food dyes because of
malaria surprise motherfuckerkills, I think, billions of
people over thousands of years.
It still is a big problem.
I think it killed like 600 000people a year in uh africa yeah,
it's in africa, parts of southamerica, but yeah, it's a big
(05:39):
problem it's because of therains, the, the, what the rains
in Africa.
So malaria is.
Victor (05:49):
Malaria has been around for no Toto fans around here.
Rob (05:51):
I can see that, all right.
No, the rains down in Africa.
Victor (05:54):
Yeah, you got to bless them.
I liked it.
Rob (06:02):
So malaria was a big problem, especially in
developing countries, right, andit actually came from the
Italian word or words malaria,which means bad air.
Victor (06:12):
What do they call it?
Do it in Italian Malaria,Malaria oh okay, it's a me
Malaria.
Rob (06:22):
Malaria, here we go.
It came from these marshes andthese swamps.
People were getting sick, theywere getting fevers.
Victor (06:28):
the romans thought it was like bad air or evil spirits
you need a 70 year old doctorto come and tell you what's
going on with that bewitchmentdoc.
Chris (06:38):
Bewitchment, fuck again, it's always bewitchment is that
a reference?
Rob (06:44):
malaria was the catalyst that basically started this.
In the 17th century, spanishJesuit missionaries were in Peru
and they come across this treebark that the locals were using
to cure reoccurring fevers andthey called it the cinchona
officinalis.
And they realized that theserecurring fevers was actually
(07:05):
malaria and that they had thecure for it.
So these Jesuit missionariestake this bark back to Europe
and they're like uh, I think wejust found the cure to malaria.
And they're like you better goback there and just get as much
of this tree bark as youpossibly can.
The Spanish go there, take allthe tree bark of this tree bark
(07:25):
as you possibly can.
The Spanish go there, take allthe tree bark, take a bunch of
seeds.
They own this land in Peru andthey had the foothold on the
treatment for malaria in likethe 1680s.
Chris (07:34):
You just eat the bark?
Rob (07:34):
Yeah, that was my question, so what they would do is they
would grind up the bark and theywould pour it in like wines or
drinks and then they would justintake this tree bark.
Early 19th century.
There's something going oncalled the Scramble for Africa.
So a lot of developed countriesare trying to get into Africa
and at the same time, perudecides that it wants to be a
(07:56):
nation.
So they're like listen, youguys have been exploiting us for
a while now.
We're going to hold on to allthese seeds.
We're going to hold on to,basically, the treatment of
malaria.
Great britain doesn't like this.
They send an expedition andthey just steal a bunch of
freaking seeds and take themback to europe and they try to
plant these seeds everywhere and, like other underdeveloped
nations, to try to grow theirown plantations so that peru
(08:20):
wouldn't have the cure formalaria I think there is.
Victor (08:24):
I think there is another treatment.
I think they did this when theybuilt the Panama Canal.
Oh, what did they do?
Deforestation.
Rob (08:33):
That's one way.
Cesar (08:34):
Not a good idea.
How?
Chris (08:35):
dare you.
Rob (08:36):
Around the same time in the 1800s, the Germans start to
realize that plants have thesethings called alkaloids in them,
that they can just extract whatthey need from the plants.
So they don't need plantationsand grinding up bark.
They can just go ahead and takesmall pieces, take out the
alkaloids from the plants anduse it as medicine.
(08:58):
European scientists were likego ahead and figure out how the
hell we can just take outwhatever's in this tree bark, so
we're not all running around.
Can we synthesize something?
Cesar (09:09):
Now, if we have the cure, why is malaria still killing
people?
Victor (09:15):
It's a treatment and not everybody has it, and you don't
want poor people to havemedicine.
Chris (09:19):
No.
Cesar (09:20):
That's business 101.
Victor (09:22):
That's not good business .
Cesar (09:23):
But you do need poor people for business, because
who's going to buy your stuff?
Rob (09:27):
Within reason.
Poor people, poor people.
So in the 1820s, two Frenchscientists extract the alkaloid
from the Sencona Bar.
Pierre-joseph Pelletier andJoseph Caventeau create this
thing called quinine, and thatis basically what's found in
tonic water Little bits ofquinine in tonic water, actually
, back then it was like a lotmore.
So that was one of thetreatments for malaria was tonic
(09:48):
water.
Victor (09:49):
Oh, so gin and tonics can treat my malaria, but then
that becomes in very shortsupply.
Rob (09:54):
A lot of countries like France and Great Britain.
They said can we get off thistree completely?
Can we just synthesize a fakequinine?
We know what it is, we knowwhat we need, we've broken it
down, so there's tons of fundingfor this to basically create a
synthetic cure for malaria.
There's a young man namedWilliam Perkin.
(10:15):
He's 18 years old.
He just gets put on to be partof this project.
So he's home.
He's got a freaking lab in hisparents' house in East London.
Really smart kid At 18, he waslike a professional violinist.
He finished high school at 15.
He was in college at like 16years old.
This guy was like a brainiac.
Victor (10:35):
What a fucking nerd.
He's like in his basement.
His mom's like yelling from thetop of the stairs Get your
dinner.
He's like Mom I.
Rob (10:42):
I'm busy, I'm synthesizing quinine fuck loser.
I was playing n64.
Yeah, they didn't really knowmuch about chemistry back then.
Right, they thought thatcertain things were building
blocks, but they didn'tunderstand what molecules were.
So they were.
They were playing around withcoal tar.
(11:02):
That was the idea and like allright, so you can probably make
quinine with coal tar.
Well, what happens is they werefucking wrong and they realized
that 100 years later that theywere wrong.
You idiot.
But what coal tar was reallygood for was.
They had the building blocksfor colors.
He creates this thing in thelab what he calls mauve or
mauveine, depending on where youread the lab what he calls
(11:28):
mauve or mauveine, depending onwhere you read and it's this
bright purple color that is likenot even seen anywhere.
It's fabulous and remember atthe time they were only using
natural dyes and purple was oneof those ones that was really
really hard to make.
Is the purple a popular color?
Purple is like a royalty color.
I was gonna say it's a popularcolor.
Purple is like a royalty color.
Chris (11:45):
I was going to say it's a rich color, it's a royalty
color.
Victor (11:49):
You got to jump on my case, right, I'm a peasant over
here.
Rob (11:53):
You only wear gray and black, so you wouldn't fucking
know.
That's true.
Feeling attacked.
Yeah, so he calls his dad.
He's like I made this crazycolor purple.
I know how to make this andknow how to make like a lot more
colors.
Basically, they open up a shopand, at 18 years old, selling
textiles, the queen of englandactually wears a dress at her
(12:15):
daughter's wedding and theeveryone goes fucking bananas
which queen is this?
Is queen victoria, queenvictoria.
Everybody lost shit.
So this is in like the 1850s.
Victor (12:26):
Are we eating these things Right?
Rob (12:29):
We are now.
Victor (12:30):
I thought you were talking about food dyes.
Rob (12:32):
Yeah, we're on food dyes now.
I'm there now, okay, I'm justgiving you a little fucking
history and you can just deletehalf of this shit, idiot.
Cesar (12:45):
There's an article I'm reading real quick from 2019.
It was like that uh, so hediscovered the you know mavene,
whatever it is.
Yeah, there's a mystery.
Uh, using his patented method,it's impossible to recreate the
product he made.
There's a doctor he's trying tofind, he's trying, he's doing
investigations to discover thetrue method of synthesizing
movie a pretty interesting funfact that I learned is he sold
his business off.
Rob (13:04):
So a bunch of other companies jumped in because they
were like oh shit, there's ahuge demand for just dying food
dying, clothes dying anything.
They hired a bunch of chemists.
Eventually that entire industrygot super stagnant and they
were like well, we've kind ofcreated as many colors as we
possibly can, like what the fuckdo we do with a bunch of
chemists?
So all these dye companiesstarted making instead of making
(13:27):
synthetic dyes, started makingsynthetic medicine, and that's
the birth of Big Pharma.
Bayer was one of the big dyecompanies in Germany and we know
them as Bayer, so Big Pharmaactually came from the synthetic
food dye industry.
Yeah because it was hugecompanies making tons of money
with a lot of chemists.
Cesar (13:48):
Well, what?
Rob (13:48):
do you know?
So the thing is with the dyesis, when they started making
these colors, they were puttingthem in everything.
They were dyeing foods, theywere dyeing medicine, they were
dyeing clothes.
There was really no regulationon what you could dye.
Victor (14:02):
Oh, so they were like the coal tar dye was going into
food.
Rob (14:06):
Yeah, a lot of people getting sick, a lot of people
dying, a lot of people gettingrashes.
And this was all in like thelate 1800s, early 1900s.
So that's when regulationstarted kicking in.
The government started havingto create regulation.
The governments were steppingin and saying, okay, what are
all the food dyes you guys areusing?
(14:26):
And they started testing eachone of them.
Present day, the FDA has onlyseven certified food dyes that
they can use, and they checkthem by batches.
So what were some of the onesthat you saw in yours, victor?
Victor (14:41):
Sunrise, sunset yellow, not sunrise yellow yellow.
That's a completely differentyellow.
So sunset yellow right have younever seen a sunrise before and
you.
Rob (14:50):
It doesn't look anything more orange sunrise sunset so
sunset yellow is a certifiedfood dye and actually goes by
the name a yellow six but likewhat is the criteria for them to
approve or disapprove food dyes?
They get batches and it has tomeet like its molecular setup.
Victor (15:11):
So every food dye company sends samples to the.
Fda, for them to constantlycheck who agreed.
These are acceptable to beginwith the FDA.
Cesar (15:21):
A lot of times it's the company they're testing their
own product, sending it to theFDA.
A lot of times it's the companythey're testing their own
product sending it to the FDA.
And then the FDA, along withthese other companies and their
scientists, are the ones kind ofgetting together to create like
a baseline, because the FDAthey're in so much shit they
don't really have a lot offunding, so they need.
That's what happens with thedrug trials.
(15:43):
The drug makes.
You're actually testing theseown drugs and then sending these
samples and these informationto the FDA.
Rob (15:51):
So we're just hoping that the company is not lying.
Cesar (15:54):
That and also they send like they also send samples to
like independent labs, so theykind of like collaborate all
together.
I'm assuming this is whatexactly is happening.
Rob (16:04):
Yeah, collaborate all together.
I'm assuming this is whatexactly is happening.
Yeah, apparently there's like astrict criteria of what food
dyes have to be and they checkwhat they're made of.
They check byproducts,precipitants.
There's like a whole list oflike what the molecular setup of
the dye is.
There's no more coal tar.
They don't use that much coaltar dyes.
They use petroleum dyes now,but apparently in the process of
(16:26):
making the dye all thepetroleum should have been
removed, so there's supposed tobe just the color left, and
right now they use let's breakit down.
Blue 1 goes by Brilliant BlueBlue 2, which goes by Indigo
Green 3 goes by Fast Green.
Red 3 goes by Eurythrazine.
(16:46):
Allura Red is Red 40.
Tartrazine is Yellow 5 andSunset Yellow is Yellow 6.
Chris (16:53):
That's a lot.
Rob (16:55):
They have two other ones that they certified.
So there's this thing calledOrange B, but they can only use
it in hot dog casings, that's it.
You can't put it in any otherfood.
Apparently, it's like not good.
Cesar (17:08):
Hot dogs.
Rob (17:09):
And then citrus, red number two.
We cannot consume it because itcauses cancer, but we can use
it to make food and ship it toother countries that will take.
Red number two.
What, what?
Chris (17:25):
That's messed up.
Look, I have a starburst herburst.
Look at this, I have a wholepack.
Victor (17:30):
How many colors you got in there?
Did you purposely go out andbuy starburst for this podcast?
Rob (17:36):
yeah, so you actually eat that stuff no, this is jesus
christ, chris, this one has red40 and blue one okay, so I'll
tell you right now these are theside effects that you're gonna
get.
Wait a minute.
Victor (17:49):
Hold on, hold, on, hold on, hold on.
You're fucking so consciousabout what you fucking buy that
you have to check ingredientsfor other things, and you're
buying starburst.
No, first of all, I didn't buythis.
Chris (18:00):
Oh okay, yeah, it just appeared in your house.
Victor (18:03):
You just created it from fucking coal tar.
Chris (18:06):
And whatever the fuck you had lying around, I have a
bunch of guys making it rightnow.
Well, anyways, every time I doeat gummy bears or any candies,
I break out into rashes.
Rob (18:20):
now, so what was it?
Blue number one and red 40?
Chris (18:24):
Yeah.
Rob (18:26):
So apparently some of the side effects, like hyperactivity
and rashes.
Chris (18:30):
Like I have rashes right now because I had a bag of
Skittles from like what is wrongwith you?
No, I had a bag of Skittleslike a month ago and then it's
coming up like now.
I don't think that's how itworks.
It's like I love gummy bearsand then, because of that, I
don't think that's how it works.
It's like I love gummy bears.
Victor (18:49):
And then, because of that, I don't eat it.
So, Chris, I'm not a doctor Ifyou eat something and then
months later start havingsymptoms from it.
I don't think it was that.
Cesar (18:57):
Yeah, chris, normally a rash.
Comes out like right away, yeah, or like shortly after yeah.
Chris (19:03):
I have no idea, man.
Oh, it is rice.
Rob (19:05):
I'm Korean.
It could be the dyes in your.
Maybe you have bed bugs.
Victor (19:10):
Yeah, do you have bed bugs?
Do you have bed bugs?
Have you checked for?
Cesar (19:13):
that?
Did you live in Paris?
When was the last time you wentto Paris?
That's true.
Rob (19:15):
Oh shit, Didn't you go to Paris.
Cesar (19:26):
No, you go to months ago.
He needs a fumigate.
I don't know.
Rashes develop kind of likeright away.
I used to eat gummy worms likecrazy and I never got a rash.
Cavities, no rashes.
Victor (19:35):
So, with all the regulation that's happening, our
FDA is getting these samplesand all this information.
Why are certain dyes approvedto use in the US but not
approved in Europe?
Are they taking differentinformation, like what the
fuck's up with that the way?
Rob (19:53):
I understood it.
Like Europe, they take a moreprecautionary approach.
So if they see things that arelike could be, they have
stricter bans and warnings,whereas the FDA will go by
conclusive evidence and then banand they will use the causation
(20:14):
.
You know, correlation, wholeargument 2011,.
They had a vote on if theyshould put on warning labels on
foods that have food dyes and itwas voted down eight to six, so
it was very close, but the FDAsaid no, we're not putting any
warning labels on it.
Food dyes, we don't findanything wrong.
(20:36):
The FDA did finally say thatthere is evidence that people
could be sensitive to food dyesand they would get hyperactivity
and rashes, but that it wasvery rare.
But we're not going to put awarning label on there, whereas
Europe said no, we will putwarning labels on here.
What that did?
(20:56):
Instead of companies wanting toput warning labels on their
food, they just went and foundnatural ways to dye their food
and actually it was weird.
On the FDA website, you cansend in if you are getting
rashes or if you're experiencingany symptoms.
You can send those symptoms into the FDA and tell them what
(21:19):
food colorings you're eating andthen they'll look into it more
Really.
So there's like an ongoingstudy right now about if food
dyes are still bad for us.
Victor (21:28):
Chris, send them Send them your information with your
rash.
Send them actually photos ofyour rash as well and send them
like other photos too.
Rob (21:36):
Like you know, not just the rash, Like different parts of
your body.
Victor (21:40):
Show off your personality.
Rob (21:43):
Show them like parts of your body that don't have the
rash and then show them otherparts of your body that do have
the rash To get a baseline.
Victor (21:50):
They need a baseline.
He's taking a selfie.
Rob (21:52):
Some of the things I was reading like with this.
They're doing constant studies.
Victor (21:57):
Shit hasn't been around for that long.
You know what?
I'm saying Like if I inventsomething in the 80s, I only
have 40 years of study.
Cesar (22:08):
And that the 80s.
I only have 40 years of studyand that's like 40 years of very
limited studies based onlimited groups.
Fun fact corona don't have dyesto really embrace life.
Chris (22:14):
You just have to learn to let go in europe when you look
for a gatorade, they only havelike one color yeah, but that's
stupid.
Rob (22:22):
You need.
I go with the blue what coloris it?
I go with the blue.
What color is it?
I go with the blue Blue or red,and lemon-lime is a staple.
I like orange.
Lemon-lime won championships.
Gatorade, h2o.
One of the biggest argumentsagainst food dyes is like how do
we know food dye is bad for you?
(22:42):
Because most food dyes are inprocessed foods, so are the
reactions you're having from thefood dye or is it just the
shitty?
food you're eating, so like theorange, it's only in, you know,
hot dog casings.
Red four is only in skittles,starbursts and you know icing,
and we know these things are badfor you.
(23:03):
So is it really the food dye oris it a mixture of the food dye
and the processed food?
Well, I started going in andthinking well, are they just
dyeing processed foods or arethey dyeing other things too?
These are some prettyinteresting examples.
So pickles, I mean we probablyfigured out those are dyed.
What?
Yeah, pickles are actually dyedto keep that color, that yellow
(23:28):
color, really yeah, no, whatkind of pickles though like the
mount olive ones or the vlassicsor whatever they are.
Victor (23:35):
They're actually dyed, but that's a specific brand
though, like if I pickle you canget natural, natural pickles,
cucumber pickles like the thepickles as Americans know them.
Rob (23:48):
They're light.
You can go to like Trader Joe'sand get pickles lighter, but
let's go with.
Most pickles are dyed.
They do that actually to keepthe skin vibrant, because it
tends to go brown and peopledon't like to buy it.
Another thing that is dyed areoranges.
I was reading and they weresaying that in warmer climates
(24:08):
when they ship oranges over,oranges are green but they have
a hard time selling them toother countries in colder
climates like America.
They dye the rind or the peelorange and then they ship it to
America.
I mean, I think farm-raisedsalmon is also dyed but what
they do is they feed them umpellets that mimic beta carotene
(24:33):
and that turns them pink, oh soit's not.
Victor (24:35):
It's a natural dye.
Is that a natural?
Rob (24:37):
dye.
Yeah, they don't actually goover there and paint it.
Another way that they dye foods, which was pretty interesting
and not using an actual dye,tuna is gassed.
Have you ever heard of this?
Cesar (24:51):
No.
Rob (24:51):
They will gas tuna with carbon monoxide and what that
does is it keeps the flesh pink.
Even if it's going spoiled, itwill keep the flesh pink and I
think there's like a lot ofcontroversy about it, because
now the tuna could be bad butwill not brown.
So there's a lot of ways wherethey play with the color of our
(25:12):
food to be able to sell it to us, and it's not just processed
foods.
Victor (25:16):
A part of that problem is us, though.
Rob (25:18):
Yeah, it's people, it's education.
Well, it's not even.
Victor (25:22):
I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about just like wedon't buy food that looks
deformed or doesn't lookappetizing.
Yeah, Like, if you go in thereand you see like an orange or
something with a hole or a dentin it, you don't buy it.
I'm not buying it.
But it's a perfectly good fruitor vegetable or whatever.
You think it's ugly so youwon't get it.
Cesar (25:42):
Yeah, there is that section by the fruit and veggies
where they have like those bags, like all the deformed fruit.
Victor (25:49):
I've never seen that I bought a couple, I would get
food.
I've never seen that.
Cesar (25:53):
It's like a bag of apples , like 20 apples.
Rob (25:55):
I will not buy a deformed fruit.
If I didn't have to, I'd buy it.
It's like is this thing goingto?
Cesar (26:01):
last.
That's what you do you eat 20apples right there.
Victor (26:06):
No, you make an apple crisp.
I did this the other day, youhave the 20 apples they're
starting to go, or make applesauce.
Chris (26:14):
Oh yeah, that's a good one.
Rob (26:16):
Apples in protein shakes are nice too.
Victor (26:19):
Really, I've actually never tried that, yeah.
Rob (26:21):
They give it like this weird you might.
It's acquired, but it gives itlike this weird texture.
Victor (26:27):
We're talking Granny Smith or Red Delicious.
Rob (26:30):
I like Red Delicious, the Granny Smith you know it might
be weird with like a vanilla.
Victor (26:35):
Yeah, Well, you've always been a known communist,
yeah.
Rob (26:38):
Communist.
I'm not a communist, but therewas some other examples too,
like cheddar cheese is dyed,wasabi is dyed green.
It's not actually wasabi.
Wasabi is horseradish here, butI guess real wasabi is really
hard to make.
Um, in america we don't get it.
The pink ginger from sushi isalso dyed pink and a lot of
(26:59):
dried fruits don't carry theircolor so they dye those.
Victor (27:03):
So like dried apricots, dried papaya, dried strawberries
, but you're throwing in a lotof you're throwing in a lot of
stuff.
Are these naturally your thingor is this red 40 could?
Rob (27:14):
be both so like cheese.
They were saying that it's dyednaturally dried fruits.
They use dyes synthetic.
Victor (27:21):
So check the ingredients is what you're saying.
Chris (27:23):
Ingredients yeah, the the fruit loops, man fruitops will
kill you.
Victor (27:27):
You shouldn't be eating cereal anyway, dude, it's all
sugar.
Chris (27:30):
I know I don't eat cereal anyway.
Victor (27:33):
I just eat like packs of Starbursts every day.
I don't eat them.
Chris (27:36):
It was like my wife got it as a gift for her birthday.
Cesar (27:39):
That's bullshit.
Rob (27:40):
I was looking for this statistic on the FDA.
I couldn't find it, but I foundit on a bunch of other websites
.
They're saying from the 1950sto around 2012, 2013,.
People are consuming five timesthe amount of food dies than
they did in the 1950s.
Victor (27:57):
The amount of processed foods from the 1950s to now is
probably quadrupled.
Chris (28:03):
Yeah.
Victor (28:04):
In the 1950s.
How many cereals did you haveto choose from?
Yeah, Because, like when I was,a kid, I had like 500 fucking
cereals to choose from, likethere was so many cereals.
Rob (28:12):
Every single one of them was a million colors.
Right, I mean, I only used toeat the marshmallows from Lucky
Charms.
Great, that's a straight upcall Fruity Pebbles.
Oh yeah, Just let it all turninto mush.
Victor (28:26):
Sprinkles, you always go Rainbow, yeah, or Funfetti Cake
.
Cesar (28:30):
I used to go Chocolate.
Victor (28:31):
You went Chocolate Sprinkles.
Cesar (28:33):
Yeah.
Victor (28:33):
I always went Chocolate, sprinkles, chocolate on
Chocolate too.
I go Chocolate.
Now, as an adult, I'm too oldfor Rainbow Chocolate.
Rob (28:39):
Sprinkles for ice cream or cupcakes, Ice cream.
I want Chocolate ice cream,chocolate sprinkles.
But before that ice cream hitsthat cup, you're throwing
sprinkles in the bottom of thecup.
Oh, absolutely.
And then you hit it the icecream, and then you dump the
sprinkles on top, because I wantthat last bite to have a
ridiculous amount of sprinkles,and then it's a $20 ice cream
(29:01):
cup.
Cesar (29:02):
Mmm chocolate.
Rob (29:04):
The FDA apparently has accepted daily intakes of each
color.
How many milligrams of eachcolor you could have for the
rest of your life without havingany adverse side effects?
Blue one only 840 milligramsfor 150 pound person.
Red 40, only 490 milligrams for150 pound person.
But the one thing I realize isthey don't tell you how many
(29:27):
milligrams is in your food.
Victor (29:28):
Because you can't read, because you've ingested so many
food dyes, I'm blind in my lefteye.
You can't even math.
You can't even think you are alost cause.
Rob (29:39):
No, it's just, it's difficult, you know, they tell
you oh, this is how much you cando, because you're on food dyes
.
You've already been corrupted,so everything's difficult for
you.
I tried so when I was doingresearch.
I was like you know what?
I'm not going to eat food dyesfor the entire day.
I usually don't have breakfastor whatever.
My first meal is at one o'clock.
So I was like I can do this.
So I'm drinking tons of water.
(30:01):
I'm like, looking at all mysnacks, I'm like, all right, I'm
not going to eat this one today, I'm not going to eat that one.
So I run downstairs, I go tothe bathroom and I see the
storage closet and I see all thesoaps and they're bright green.
And I walk right over to it andit says green number three and
I'm like, well, I'm fucking done.
Like there's no way to get awayfrom it, because it's not just
in your food.
(30:22):
They dye your clothes with it,they dye your soap with it.
Cesar (30:28):
So you eat soap now.
Rob (30:30):
No, when you rub it on your hands, it goes through your
skin.
Victor (30:36):
I am at the eating zone.
This is actually anintervention.
We need you to stop eating soap.
Cesar (30:41):
This is getting out of hand.
Victor (30:43):
Rob, you've been doing this for way too long.
Cesar (30:45):
Stop soap.
You shouldn't eat it.
Rob (30:48):
Stop eating soap.
There's no way to get away fromgreen food dye.
There's no way to get away fromany dyes we live in a colorful
world, yeah, we're man.
Victor (30:56):
And I'm a material girl.
Cesar (30:59):
What colors children?
In your research did you comeacross what sort of effects the
dye have on the skin?
You're not ingesting it.
You're not ingesting soap.
Well, maybe he is.
I'm assuming.
If we had an adverse effect tothese dyes with soap, they would
have stopped making these soapsa long time ago.
Rob (31:16):
I mean, if you're rubbing something on your skin, don't
you think they would get rubbedinto your body, or no?
I see people who get rasheswhen they use different types of
like laundry detergent, andthat's from perfumes and dyes.
Victor (31:32):
Or dry skin.
Dry skin actually can make youbreak out.
Rob (31:35):
My thing is how do you know how much food dye you're
actually putting in your body ina day?
Really hard to tell.
Chris (31:42):
It is hard.
You just have to be moremindful, that's all.
Victor (31:44):
I looked up the ingredients for Fruity Pebbles.
It has the list of ingredientsand then contains 1% or less of
natural artificial flavor red 40, citric acid, dalo5, blue 1,
bht added to preserve freshness.
But if you look at it, there'snine servings per container.
The daily value is inpercentage, based off of 2,000
(32:07):
calorie day diet, so this wouldhave less than 1% of your daily
intake per serving.
Rob (32:14):
So what color was it?
Let's see if we can try tofigure out how many is in your
Fruity.
Pebbles.
Victor (32:18):
Oh shit, All of them.
Rob (32:19):
It says that Fruity Pebbles , I guess for their serving size
, has 19 milligrams of dyes andthe daily allowable intake for
dyes is for, let's say, red 40,is 490 milligrams.
So you have to eat a lot ofFruity Pebbles in order to hit
the acceptable daily intake.
(32:40):
I would have to only eat FruityPebbles.
But the thing is that's justfrom Fruity Pebbles.
So what are you having forlunch?
What are you having as a snack?
If you're eating a ton ofprocessed foods, you're going to
probably get somewhere close tothis daily intake.
Victor (32:55):
But then it falls under your problem again of are you
just eating too much processedfoods?
Cesar (33:01):
That's probably the key right Reducing processed foods
as much as you can.
Try eating an apple that hasn'tbeen dried Fatty, oh, oh,
healthy.
The fruits in DR are a lotdifferent and they taste a lot
different.
The ones here, even the apples.
It could be the same apple andlike, the color is a little bit
more dull and it tastes a littlebit more.
Victor (33:20):
I don't know.
Healthier, yeah, but like Ithink our apples are genetically
modified, healthier, yeah, butI think our apples are
genetically modified?
Chris (33:27):
Yeah, that could be it too After I read about the
Skittles California.
Is it California they're tryingto ban?
Cesar (33:32):
California banned Skittles.
Rob (33:34):
Yeah.
So California recently bannedRed 3.
There are like a bunch of otherstates that are banning Red 3.
So Illinois, Missouri, NewJersey, New York, there's a
bunch of states that are goingto individually ban these food
dyes.
Actually, Pennsylvania has abill to ban red three, red 40,
(33:57):
yellow five, yellow six, blueone and two.
So I think a lot of states arenow basically not waiting for
the federal government andthey're just going ahead trying
to ban the dyes themselves.
But red three has been one thata lot of states have
immediately jumped on to to tryto get rid of but no, once I
hear about that, I was like ohshit, this is for real.
Cesar (34:19):
Like well, chris is trying to tell you is that after
this podcast, he's gonna doubledown on eating starbuck, which
he doesn't know how he got.
So there you go, yeah.
Rob (34:29):
Chris is like well, I'm going to eat the pink one, so
that doesn't have any of them,it's not cake.
Chris (34:34):
Also, I feel like they don't really talk about this as
much Food color like warningpeople, or at least to talk
about it, to be aware of None ofthese companies are going to
warn you, Chris.
Cesar (34:44):
They make their money on this.
Victor (34:45):
Pete, I mean, do you follow notices that the FDA puts
out?
Cesar (34:49):
No, the major ones, yeah, no.
Victor (34:50):
That's like saying, oh, the mainstream media doesn't
like to report on this becauseyou never actually looked it up.
Chris (34:59):
If you call CNN a network , I don't, I don't know.
Maybe like in a health class ina high school or middle school,
like in a health class in ahigh school or middle school.
Cesar (35:08):
You're close to 40.
Chris (35:09):
No, they feel like they should be talking about it as
part of a health education.
Why?
Victor (35:14):
They're trying to teach a bunch of horny fucking
teenagers to stop having unsafesex and to not do drugs or to do
it responsibly.
I think they got the handful At16,.
You want to talk to me aboutfucking food dyes?
I don't got the handful At 16,you want?
Cesar (35:26):
to talk to me about fucking food dyes.
Chris (35:27):
I don't give a fuck.
Victor (35:29):
I use my only dollar to get a Snapple out of the fucking
vending machine and I'm holdingmy fucking book bag at my low
waist because I have a ragingheart on it.
Chris (35:40):
I have no idea why?
Rob (35:42):
Yeah, yeah, my whole day is fucked.
This is a problem.
Yeah, man, so it day is fucked.
This is a problem.
Yeah, man, so it's a problem.
We'll see what happens.
I'm curious to see what happensin the future.
Victor (35:51):
I think we're going to go for an all-out ban.
Yeah, I think so too, unlessWorm Brain Guy gets convinced
otherwise.
Rob (36:02):
I think the warning label would be a good step forward,
because it would force companiesto then try to do a lot of
natural colors.
Europe's already doing it.
Another thing that I found thatwas interesting was that
American companies that createproducts that they also ship out
to Europe will dye those foodsusing natural colors, ship those
(36:23):
to Europe, then use syntheticcolors because they're cheaper
and keep them here in America.
So they're already doing it.
They're just trying to cutcosts because I guess it's a lot
more expensive for them.
So you're not going to look fora company who's going to want
to do it.
There has to be regulation.
Victor (36:39):
unfortunately, Is that like being sneaky and healthy?
Rob (36:42):
What do you guys think?
What are your takeaways fortoday?
Cesar (36:45):
Cesar, I'm on this health trip and I started looking at
added sugars in my food, and now, with this podcast, I'm also
going to be looking at whatfoods have dyes.
I just looked at this fruityCheerios that I bought earlier
today that my son actually ate,and it contains two of them.
I'm gonna be more consciousabout eating foods with dyes and
(37:10):
processed foods in general,chris I always been mindful of
food coloring but, like you said, it's in everything.
Chris (37:18):
What I do is like usually I, just once in a while, you
know, we'll just get somethingthat has food coloring, but
otherwise, like I, like I said,you can't avoid it.
So, like I said, you just haveto be more mindful and just
control the intakes or whatnot.
Rob (37:32):
Victor, what are your thoughts?
Victor (37:34):
There's always more information coming out, and if
they find conclusive evidencethat this is not good for you,
I'm pretty sure they'll ban it,no problem, and then you don't
have to worry about it at all.
But if you are afraid of it, Imean, just avoid these, just try
to avoid it as best as possible.
Even if it's impossible toavoid, you can at least lessen
the amount that you're going toingest.
Or you're going to get to yourkids and then, instead of
(37:56):
grabbing that candy bar to giveto them, grab that genetically
modified apple that's beenspliced with the salmon and eat
that instead, as long as it wasfree range, alaskan cod salmon.
No, the apple actually likes toswim with the salmon All right.
Rob (38:14):
Thanks for tuning in.
Don't forget to follow us onInstagram, twitter and YouTube
at I'm Not Dumb, but, where wepost extra fun content that you
may not find on the podcast, and, before you go, hit the
subscribe button because you'llfeel better.
Trust me, until next time, staycurious.
Cesar (38:29):
Later.
Do you have an Instagram?
Victor (38:37):
Chris is supposed to be taking care of it.
Cesar (38:38):
Chris, we got an Instagram.
Chris (38:40):
I don't know, do we do Leave that open?
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