Selected points from “The Way of the Skeptical Nutritionist” (1981) by Michael A. Weiner.*

Are you stepping up your daily routine of detoxifying your body?

Here are six simple but interesting facts about synthetic food coloring to help justify your discipline.

1) Did you know that consumer fears about about harmful food coloring first began in 1906?

2) The first synthetic dye was mauve, adapted from a dye originally used to color fabrics. The purpose? You got it, to cut costs.

3) About 90% of all colors used in foods are synthetic.

4) Color certification by the government is not a guarantee of safety. A high percentage of synthetic colors used in the 1950’s were later banned from further use in foods. Who can be certain that the current lot of synthetic colors will not one day be banned?

5) Food coloring is often used to conceal damage or inferior products. A customer who bites into a shiny red apple whose skin has absorbed a dose of red dye may consume a pulp bruised and laden with bacteria.

6) “Man, in certain cases, is engineering his own demise in the name of frivolity. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the food colors, some of which are potent carcinogens, painted on a rainbow of foods” (Weiner).

Action:
If you want to take your detoxification disciplines to a higher level, be sure to read labels, do your best to avoid any foods with artificial (synthetic) colors.

CY

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*About the author’s style: Weiner’s writing has depth, filled with evidence from scientific research, historical anecdote, psychology, and various ethnic perspectives on nutrition. So it is with significant personal license that I revised a portion of his work to reiterate some points to heighten your awareness of the dangerous “frivolity” in the use of synthetic colors in food.