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The appeal of a brightly colored candy, the vibrant hue of your mouthwash, the pigment of your sports drinks — they’re all thanks to food dyes. These colorful additives don’t add any nutritional value to the foods, medications and drinks they’re in, but they’ve long served to make them look more appealing.

Under previous administrations, food dyes were considered safe to consume “when used properly,” Dr. Linda Katz, former director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Cosmetics and Colors, said in 2023.

All food dyes must be authorized by the FDA before they can be used. During the authorization process, the agency says it looks at “the short and long-term effects of consumption, composition and properties, manufacturing process, stability, likely amount of consumption/exposure, and the availability of analytical methods for determining its purity and the amount in food.”

“Synthetic dyes also have to be batch-certified to check their chemical composition prior to use,” Emily Barrett, Ph.D., professor and director of the epidemiology concentration in the department of biostatistics and epidemiology at the Rutgers School of Public Health, tells TODAY.com. This means the FDA has tested certain samples from the very batch of dye that will be used in food or medication to confirm its composition and purity.

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(Source: Today.com– May22, 2025)