4 ms·

It makes sense, for example, if you use turmeric in a rice dish, would you say it is artificially colored? In a sense rice isn’t yellow, but it is a natural dye

It makes sense, for example, if you use turmeric in a rice dish, would you say it is artificially colored? In a sense rice isn’t yellow, but it is a natural dye.

cesaref 7mo ago
Except it has a taste. I think finding something with just the colour and no taste would be a better example of this.
- IAmBroom 7mo ago
  Go find that unicorn. Make your first $100M. Also: that's a completely different issue to "describing its presence as 'artificial'". Needs a new thread.
elil17 7mo ago
That is not what this is about. You've always been able to advertise rice with turmeric as free from artificial colors. Here, the FDA is allowing for so-called natural dyes which are just chemicals that have been extracted from plants (usually through solvents). Imagine taking the turmeric, soaking it in gasoline, then distilling the color back out of the gasoline. The only requirement is that the color itself is not petroleum-derived.
- gruez 7mo ago
  >Here, the FDA is allowing for so-called natural dyes which are just chemicals that have been extracted from plants (usually through solvents). Imagine taking the turmeric, soaking it in gasoline, then distilling the color back out of the gasoline. That's basically what's done for vegetable oils so should vegetable oils be called "artificial" as well? Is there a principled way of defining what amount of scary chemical involvement is needed for something natural to lose its "natural" designation? Are pretzels at risk because they're dipped in lye (ie. drain cleaners)?
  - devin 7mo ago
    I don't know the answer to your question, but it would seem no one involved in this decision making process is even trying.
  - dyauspitr 7mo ago
    I believe if you’re using hexane to extract the vegetable oils it should definitely be called artificial. A highly artificial substance was added to the food at some point. Lye is typically not artificial if it’s made from sea shells and wood ash like it has been traditionally. Even the industrial chlor-alkali process just uses salt (NaCl) and water so it’s not artificial.
    - IAmBroom 7mo ago
      To point out how confusing this is: If you add a knife tip to a cow carcass to extract the steak, that is adding a highly artificial substance to the food at some point. Likewise if you use steel balls to tumble-crush shells into calcium carbonate powder (don't know if they do, or if it's even a product, but neither are the point here). "We are required to inform this table that your naturally wild-caught salmon had, briefly, at one time, a small hook inserted into its mouth. It was otherwise wholly without artificial feed nor other additives." How do you write a law that slices between those ideas and hexane, clearly?
      - dyauspitr 7mo ago
        On a case by case basis that generally aligns with common sense. Most people can instantly recognize a hook and knife are very different from adding a solvent to food. Drug laws are a good analog for this. I don’t think the universe of possibilities in this space is prohibitively large. You can probably begin by broadly calling petroleum and petroleum products artificial.
        SPICLK2 7mo ago
        There's a rich heritage and history of solvent-based foods. Vanilla essence, sloe gin, etc.
- jbstack 7mo ago
  Where's the boundary between "natural" and "artificial"? If we're allowing processing in the definition of "natural" (e.g. extracting a chemical from a plant using a solvent) then everything is natural: it's all ultimately derived from something that naturally occurred on Earth.
- SPICLK2 7mo ago
  Tumeric is a chemical that has been extracted from plants! Your scenario holds for any part of any food processing, not just food colours. The issue is that the definition of "natural" when applied to food is impossible to pin down. Can we process using solvents? What if those solvents were brewed? At what point does heat and pressure treatment become "unnatural"? Can I use an acid for processing? Can I use vinegar? The various vegetable, seed and nut oils that form the basis for so many food products are very problematic if you want "natural" food.
giancarlostoro 7mo ago
My thing is why not just spell it out as "Color due to x, not due to some artificial dye" or something reasonable? It should just be descriptive enough, I feel like I've seen similar messaging on some foods.
- groundzeros2015 7mo ago
  Color due to X is a statement about causality.
  - giancarlostoro 7mo ago
    Well whatever wording is clear to the reader as to the source of unexpected coloring would be.
  - toast0 7mo ago
    It's a statement about color debt.
dathinab 7mo ago
The think is you 1. add turmeric not color extracted from turmeric 2. you don't add the turmeric just to get the color What this is about is if a company things their rice + turmeric isn't "popping" enough in color they can extract colors from other food or even non eatable plants and then say "no artificial colors" while the color of the end product is very well artificial/not natural. Add in that "natural sourced" doesn't mean healthy but many people think it does this is pretty deceptive. (E.g. one of the worst pesticides, banned decades ago, was neurotoxin extracted from plants, _and then highly concentrated_. But 100% natural sourced so the FDA would treat it as not "artificial" even if the concentration of it and separation from the plant is not natural at all.)

It makes sense, for example, if you use turmeric in a rice dish, would you say it is artificially colored? In a sense rice isn’t yellow, but it is a natural dye.

cesaref 7mo ago

Except it has a taste. I think finding something with just the colour and no taste would be a better example of this.

IAmBroom 7mo ago
Go find that unicorn. Make your first $100M. Also: that's a completely different issue to "describing its presence as 'artificial'". Needs a new thread.

elil17 7mo ago

That is not what this is about. You've always been able to advertise rice with turmeric as free from artificial colors. Here, the FDA is allowing for so-called natural dyes which are just chemicals that have been extracted from plants (usually through solvents). Imagine taking the turmeric, soaking it in gasoline, then distilling the color back out of the gasoline. The only requirement is that the color itself is not petroleum-derived.

gruez 7mo ago
>Here, the FDA is allowing for so-called natural dyes which are just chemicals that have been extracted from plants (usually through solvents). Imagine taking the turmeric, soaking it in gasoline, then distilling the color back out of the gasoline. That's basically what's done for vegetable oils so should vegetable oils be called "artificial" as well? Is there a principled way of defining what amount of scary chemical involvement is needed for something natural to lose its "natural" designation? Are pretzels at risk because they're dipped in lye (ie. drain cleaners)?
- devin 7mo ago
  I don't know the answer to your question, but it would seem no one involved in this decision making process is even trying.
- dyauspitr 7mo ago
  I believe if you’re using hexane to extract the vegetable oils it should definitely be called artificial. A highly artificial substance was added to the food at some point. Lye is typically not artificial if it’s made from sea shells and wood ash like it has been traditionally. Even the industrial chlor-alkali process just uses salt (NaCl) and water so it’s not artificial.
  - IAmBroom 7mo ago
    To point out how confusing this is: If you add a knife tip to a cow carcass to extract the steak, that is adding a highly artificial substance to the food at some point. Likewise if you use steel balls to tumble-crush shells into calcium carbonate powder (don't know if they do, or if it's even a product, but neither are the point here). "We are required to inform this table that your naturally wild-caught salmon had, briefly, at one time, a small hook inserted into its mouth. It was otherwise wholly without artificial feed nor other additives." How do you write a law that slices between those ideas and hexane, clearly?
    - dyauspitr 7mo ago
      On a case by case basis that generally aligns with common sense. Most people can instantly recognize a hook and knife are very different from adding a solvent to food. Drug laws are a good analog for this. I don’t think the universe of possibilities in this space is prohibitively large. You can probably begin by broadly calling petroleum and petroleum products artificial.
      - SPICLK2 7mo ago
        There's a rich heritage and history of solvent-based foods. Vanilla essence, sloe gin, etc.
jbstack 7mo ago
Where's the boundary between "natural" and "artificial"? If we're allowing processing in the definition of "natural" (e.g. extracting a chemical from a plant using a solvent) then everything is natural: it's all ultimately derived from something that naturally occurred on Earth.
SPICLK2 7mo ago
Tumeric is a chemical that has been extracted from plants! Your scenario holds for any part of any food processing, not just food colours. The issue is that the definition of "natural" when applied to food is impossible to pin down. Can we process using solvents? What if those solvents were brewed? At what point does heat and pressure treatment become "unnatural"? Can I use an acid for processing? Can I use vinegar? The various vegetable, seed and nut oils that form the basis for so many food products are very problematic if you want "natural" food.

giancarlostoro 7mo ago

My thing is why not just spell it out as "Color due to x, not due to some artificial dye" or something reasonable? It should just be descriptive enough, I feel like I've seen similar messaging on some foods.

groundzeros2015 7mo ago
Color due to X is a statement about causality.
- giancarlostoro 7mo ago
  Well whatever wording is clear to the reader as to the source of unexpected coloring would be.
- toast0 7mo ago
  It's a statement about color debt.

dathinab 7mo ago

The think is you 1. add turmeric not color extracted from turmeric 2. you don't add the turmeric just to get the color What this is about is if a company things their rice + turmeric isn't "popping" enough in color they can extract colors from other food or even non eatable plants and then say "no artificial colors" while the color of the end product is very well artificial/not natural. Add in that "natural sourced" doesn't mean healthy but many people think it does this is pretty deceptive. (E.g. one of the worst pesticides, banned decades ago, was neurotoxin extracted from plants, _and then highly concentrated_. But 100% natural sourced so the FDA would treat it as not "artificial" even if the concentration of it and separation from the plant is not natural at all.)