Kraft Heinz to remove artificial dyes from U.S. products by end of 2027
The company said in a release that about 10% of its U.S. items use FD&C colors, the synthetic additives that make many foods more visually appealing. Kraft Heinz brands that sell products with these dyes include Crystal Light, Kool-Aid, MiO, Jell-O and Jet-Puffed, according to a Kraft Heinz spokesperson.
The company removed artificial colors, preservatives and flavors from its Kraft macaroni and cheese in 2016 and its Heinz ketchup has never used artificial dyes, according to Pedro Navio, North America president at Kraft Heinz. It is unclear how removing the dyes will affect the company's business, as consumers could perceive the products as healthier but also may be less drawn to duller colors.
The decision follows pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Department of Health and Human Services, led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for the food industry to pull back on artificial dyes as part of a larger so-called Make America Healthy Again platform.
The FDA in April announced a plan to phase out the use of petroleum-based synthetic dyes by the end of next year and replace them with natural alternatives. Besides the previously banned Red No. 3, other dyes that will be eliminated include red dye 40, yellow dye 5, yellow dye 6, blue dye 1, blue dye 2 and green dye 2, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said at the time.
Kennedy said at the time that the FDA and the food industry have "an understanding," not a formal agreement, to remove artificial dyes. The Health and Human Services secretary discussed removing artificial food dyes during a meeting in March with top food executives from companies including Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo North America, General Mills, WK Kellogg, Tyson Foods, J.M. Smucker and the Consumer Brands Association, the industry's top trade group.
A spokesperson for Kraft Heinz said on Tuesday that the company looks forward to partnering with the administration "to provide quality, affordable, and wholesome food for all."
Momentum against food dyes had been building for years. In January, before President Donald Trump and Kennedy took office, the FDA announced a ban on the use of Red No. 3 dye in food and ingested drugs. The dye gives many candies and cereals their bright red color, but is also known to cause cancer in laboratory animals. The FDA allowed Red No. 3 to be used by food manufacturers for years, though the state of California had already banned the dye in 2023.
Kraft Heinz said in the release Tuesday that it has made more than 1,000 recipe changes over the past five years to improve product nutrition.
"The vast majority of our products use natural or no colors, and we've been on a journey to reduce our use of FD&C colors across the remainder of our portfolio," Navio said. "Above all, we are focused on providing nutritious, affordable and great-tasting food for Americans and this is a privilege we don't take lightly."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. wants everyone to use wearables. What are the benefits, risks?
Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the agency was launching a campaign to encourage all Americans to use wearables to track health metrics. Wearables come in the form of watches, bands, rings, patches and clothes that can be used for a variety of reasons including monitoring glucose levels, measuring activity levels, track heart health and observe sleeping patterns. "It's a way … people can take control over their own heath. They can take responsibility," Kennedy said during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Health. "They can see, as you know, what food is doing to their glucose levels, their heart rates and a number of other metrics as they eat it. and they can begin to make good judgments about their diet, about their physical activity, about the way that they live their lives." He went on, "We think that wearables are a key to the MAHA agenda -- Making America Healthy Again. My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years." MORE: Fitness trackers can help monitor health for some people, but can exacerbate disordered eating for others Digital medicine experts told ABC News that wearables do have benefits and can be used to motivate someone to increase physical activity, which could reduce the risk of poor health outcomes. However, they said not everybody needs to have a wearable and there are some potential risks including data breaches. Nabil Alshurafa, an associate professor in the department of preventive medicine and the department of electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern University in Illinois, said wearables were born out of the quantified self movement. This is a movement that endorses using technology to track and analyze personal data for learning and improvement. "Just the way when we're driving a vehicle, we see whether we're low on gas, and then we pass by the gas station and repump," Alshurafa told ABC News. "So, the idea was sort of can I see when I'm active? Not active? Can I see when I have poor health habits and then adjust accordingly. Did I have good quality asleep last night? If not, let me try to improve that." He said there are benefits to wearables, mostly in the form of motivation to change behaviors. A July 2022 study found wearables can empower patients and help with diagnosing conditions, changing behaviors and self-monitoring. Additionally, a July 2019 study from the University of Florida in Gainesville found wearable devices can motivate and accelerate physical activity, although it did not find consistent improvement in health outcomes. MORE: This is how wearables could catch early coronavirus symptoms Dr. David McManus, chair and professor of medicine at UMass Chan Medical School and a digital medicine expert, said an example would be if someone wants to walk 10,000 steps a day and they wear an activity monitor that tells them they only walked 5,000 steps on a particular day. This might motivate that person to walk further to achieve their goal. In turn, evidence shows people who are more physically active have fewer rates of heart attacks and are less likely to develop high blood pressure or obesity. "The benefit would be if a person actually used that information to change their behavior," he told ABC News. "That would be the clearest use case of a person using a wearable to learn. … I won't say there's convincing concrete evidence that a wearable will prevent heart attacks -- I would be uncomfortable saying that -- but I do think it's reasonable on the basis of preliminary studies and observational studies, there is some potential benefit for certain types of people from wearing devices to get people motivated to change." Alshurafa said clinicians can also receive more granular data about behaviors such as how much energy patients are expending and how many calories they are burning. It's unclear if Kennedy's connections have played a role in his endorsements of wearables. U.S. surgeon general nominee Casey Means co-founded Levels, an app that allows people to track their food, along with biometric data like sleep and glucose monitoring, to see how their diet is impacting their health. Additionally, her brother, Calley Means -- an adviser to Kennedy -- has a company that could benefit from more wearables in the world. His company, TruMed, allows people to use funds from Health Savings Accounts towards health products, such as fitness tracker watches. There are also drawbacks. McManus said there is not a high level of evidence that shows wearables have benefits over the long term. "One thing I've learned as a physician and researcher is it's really hard to get people to change their habits," he said. "So it's not so much that the sensors don't work, and it's not so much that they're inaccurate -- because there is plenty of data that shows that wearable devices can present really good, high-quality data -- but the missing link in the chain of wearables to good health is getting people to actually get off their couch and go be more active when they have a wearable them that they've been on the couch." There are also privacy concerns because of the substantial amounts of data that wearables generate, as well as the potential for misuse. McManus said if a database gets hacked, the data could be compromised and potentially used by a bad actor to steal additional personal information. "The more data that's generated, the greater the risk," he said. Authors of a JAMA Viewpoint article in 2019 said another risk is that data could be used against policyholders with higher premiums or to deny insurance. Because wearables collect health information such as weight, calorie intake and blood pressure, insurance companies could use the data to increase costs, the authors said. Alshurafa said not everyone needs to wear a wearable and it depends on the patient's condition and what they hope to achieve. "We feel once their health improves, we then wean them off it," he said. "So, this notion that someone has to wear a wearable constantly -- well, I mean once the problem is solved, then hopefully there's no need for it."
an hour ago
RFK Jr. wants everyone to use wearables. What are the benefits, risks?
Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the agency was launching a campaign to encourage all Americans to use wearables to track health metrics. Wearables come in the form of watches, bands, rings, patches and clothes that can be used for a variety of reasons including monitoring glucose levels, measuring activity levels, track heart health and observe sleeping patterns. "It's a way … people can take control over their own heath. They can take responsibility," Kennedy said during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Health. "They can see, as you know, what food is doing to their glucose levels, their heart rates and a number of other metrics as they eat it. and they can begin to make good judgments about their diet, about their physical activity, about the way that they live their lives." He went on, "We think that wearables are a key to the MAHA agenda -- Making America Healthy Again. My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years." Digital medicine experts told ABC News that wearables do have benefits and can be used to motivate someone to increase physical activity, which could reduce the risk of poor health outcomes. However, they said not everybody needs to have a wearable and there are some potential risks including data breaches. Nabil Alshurafa, an associate professor in the department of preventive medicine and the department of electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern University in Illinois, said wearables were born out of the quantified self movement. This is a movement that endorses using technology to track and analyze personal data for learning and improvement. "Just the way when we're driving a vehicle, we see whether we're low on gas, and then we pass by the gas station and repump," Alshurafa told ABC News. "So, the idea was sort of can I see when I'm active? Not active? Can I see when I have poor health habits and then adjust accordingly. Did I have good quality asleep last night? If not, let me try to improve that." He said there are benefits to wearables, mostly in the form of motivation to change behaviors. A July 2022 study found wearables can empower patients and help with diagnosing conditions, changing behaviors and self-monitoring. Additionally, a July 2019 study from the University of Florida in Gainesville found wearable devices can motivate and accelerate physical activity, although it did not find consistent improvement in health outcomes. Dr. David McManus, chair and professor of medicine at UMass Chan Medical School and a digital medicine expert, said an example would be if someone wants to walk 10,000 steps a day and they wear an activity monitor that tells them they only walked 5,000 steps on a particular day. This might motivate that person to walk further to achieve their goal. In turn, evidence shows people who are more physically active have fewer rates of heart attacks and are less likely to develop high blood pressure or obesity. "The benefit would be if a person actually used that information to change their behavior," he told ABC News. "That would be the clearest use case of a person using a wearable to learn. … I won't say there's convincing concrete evidence that a wearable will prevent heart attacks -- I would be uncomfortable saying that -- but I do think it's reasonable on the basis of preliminary studies and observational studies, there is some potential benefit for certain types of people from wearing devices to get people motivated to change." Alshurafa said clinicians can also receive more granular data about behaviors such as how much energy patients are expending and how many calories they are burning. It's unclear if Kennedy's connections have played a role in his endorsements of wearables. U.S. surgeon general nominee Casey Means co-founded Levels, an app that allows people to track their food, along with biometric data like sleep and glucose monitoring, to see how their diet is impacting their health. Additionally, her brother, Calley Means -- an adviser to Kennedy -- has a company that could benefit from more wearables in the world. His company, TruMed, allows people to use funds from Health Savings Accounts towards health products, such as fitness tracker watches. There are also drawbacks. McManus said there is not a high level of evidence that shows wearables have benefits over the long term. "One thing I've learned as a physician and researcher is it's really hard to get people to change their habits," he said. "So it's not so much that the sensors don't work, and it's not so much that they're inaccurate -- because there is plenty of data that shows that wearable devices can present really good, high-quality data -- but the missing link in the chain of wearables to good health is getting people to actually get off their couch and go be more active when they have a wearable them that they've been on the couch." There are also privacy concerns because of the substantial amounts of data that wearables generate, as well as the potential for misuse. McManus said if a database gets hacked, the data could be compromised and potentially used by a bad actor to steal additional personal information. "The more data that's generated, the greater the risk," he said. Authors of a JAMA Viewpoint article in 2019 said another risk is that data could be used against policyholders with higher premiums or to deny insurance. Because wearables collect health information such as weight, calorie intake and blood pressure, insurance companies could use the data to increase costs, the authors said. Alshurafa said not everyone needs to wear a wearable and it depends on the patient's condition and what they hope to achieve. "We feel once their health improves, we then wean them off it," he said. "So, this notion that someone has to wear a wearable constantly -- well, I mean once the problem is solved, then hopefully there's no need for it."
Axios
an hour ago
- Axios
Wearables take center stage in RFK Jr.'s personal health push
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. envisions Americans becoming healthier by using wearable health devices that track heart rates, blood sugar and other vitals — offering real-time feedback on how food affects their bodies. Why it matters: It's a buzzy component of a health care agenda that emphasizes self-empowerment — and self-responsibility — over relying on clinicians. But some doctors and ethicists say the push could backfire if the devices spit out faulty data or jeopardize the safety of sensitive, personal health data. Driving the news: Kennedy said he'd like to see every American using wearables within the next four years, while testifying before the House in late June. He later clarified in a statement to Axios that "they are not for everyone because of concerns like cost and personal privacy." Last month, Health and Human Services solicited applications for contractors to design a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign that will include"populariz[ing] technology like wearables as cool, modern tools for measuring diet impact and taking control of your health." The campaign won't be about wearables specifically, Kennedy later told Axios. Rather, HHS is looking for something focused on "inspiring Americans to stop eating ultra-processed foods and reclaim control of their health," he said. "This campaign will empower Americans to take personal responsibility for their health, including choosing what tools are right for them," he added. Zoom out: "Wearables" refer to a wide range of electronics that people wear on their bodies to monitor health metrics — or even aid in diagnosis. Food and Drug Administration-approved wearable medical devices are becoming increasingly common in patient care and provide valuable clinical data for both individual treatment and public health, says Andrew Brightman, a professor of engineering practice at Purdue University who researches biomedical ethics. The wearables umbrella also includes consumer products, like Oura Rings or Fitbits, that track health metrics but in most uses don't require government approval for safety and effectiveness. Between the lines: "Providing individuals with reliable, accurate, useful medical information is critically important to support health and well-being," Brightman says. "But the contrary is providing people with unreliable, inaccurate and confusing information, no matter how digitized or quantified or how sexy the tech looks to people and is fun to use," he says. "It can lead them to make poor choices about their health." For example, a tracker might conclude someone is in good health because they're getting plenty of sleep and exercising. That could give the user a false sense of security and lead them to delay a visit to the doctor. Supporting wearables is a good strategy to promote health and well-being — if it also comes with more resources and funding to bolster government oversight and regulation of the devices in the market, Brightman says. Expanding the use of wearables also increases health data risks. The main federal health privacy law, HIPAA, protects health data when it's used by a covered entity, like a provider or insurer. But when a consumer enters data into a health app or allows a wearable to track health metrics, their data isn't subject to HIPAA, says Lisa Pierce Reisz, a partner at law firm Epstein Becker Green. Companies have to honor the privacy policies they've created, but terms and conditions aren't standardized and can change — and few people stop to read those policies before allowing their data to be collected anyway. "We lose a lot of control of our data once we input it," Reisz says. "People think, 'Oh, it's just my steps,' or 'It's just my heart rate,' but it potentially is so much more when you look at location information, or if you start to add details about menstrual periods." That's sensitive information that, if leaked or exposed, could endanger people's safety or be used against them. The growing threat of cyberattacks also complicates the picture. Hackers could break into wearable device companies' systems and access troves of people's personal health data. "I am fully aware of the dangers mass data collection poses to personal freedoms, and I do not advise anyone to purchase a wearable that does not provide ironclad privacy protections," Kennedy said in his statement to Axios. What we're watching: Not everyone in Kennedy's core "Make America Healthy Again" base is on board with wearables, and some prominent supporters of his agenda are sounding the alarm about the data risks of the devices, The Bulwark reported.
