California continues leading nation on food additive safety, bans harmful food dyes in schools

For the second year in a row, California has taken decisive action to protect consumers—especially kids—from unsafe food additives. Over the weekend, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the California School Food Safety Act. This first-in-the-nation law bans synthetic food dyes in foods served or sold in public schools across the state and follows up on the also-groundbreaking California Food Safety Act signed into law last year that banned four harmful additives—including the dye Red 3—from foods statewide.

For years, we at the Center for Science in the Public Interest have urged the Food and Drug Administration to protect both adults and children from synthetic food dyes like Red 3, Yellow 5, and Red 40. These chemicals can cause or worsen hyperactivity, inattentiveness, and other behavioral problems in children, a finding confirmed by California’s Environmental Protection Agency. In its 2021 report following a multi-year comprehensive assessment of the evidence, Cal EPA noted that, in sensitive children, dyes could harm academic and social success. While we question whether any foods need synthetic dyes, they certainly don’t belong in foods offered to children in schools.

We are grateful for the leadership of Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel and to our partners at Environmental Working Group and Consumer Reports for their leadership on the bill. We hope that other states follow suit and that FDA will eventually implement warning labels on dye-containing foods, as the European Union has required since 2010.