In general, I find 鈥淐enter for Science in the Public Interest鈥� to be a very reputable organization and I always enjoy reading 鈥淣utrition Action,鈥� their flagship publication. I usually find myself in agreement with Michael Jacobson, the microbiologist who has been the Center鈥檚 guiding light since 1977. Michael has been vocal about what he sees as the unnecessary use of food dyes, chemicals that really serve only a cosmetic purpose, often just aiming to increase the appeal of foods of low nutritional quality. He鈥檚 right. Do we really need multi coloured fruit loops and lollipops in every colour of the rainbow? Or yogurts that give the impression of having more fruit than they actually contain?
Michael has taken Dannon to task over one issue: If you eat strawberry, raspberry, cherry, or boysenberry yogurt, or the strawberry variety of Dannon鈥檚 Oikos Greek yogurt, you are eating carmine鈥攁n extract made from the dried and pulverized dead bodies of the cochineal insect. That dye is also used in two flavours of Dannon鈥檚 Light and Fit Greek line, as well as in six of its Activia yogurts! Using red food dye of any kind in these products is deceptive, since consumers rightly expect that the pink or red colour in their strawberry, raspberry, cherry, or boysenberry yogurt comes from the fruit pictured on the label, not some extract made from six-legged creepy crawlies. But it certainly saves Dannon money by replacing berries or cherries with a food colouring.
For most people, carmine is safe, but for a small number of consumers, it can be a serious problem. Some experience hives after consuming products with carmine, others have more potentially life-threatening anaphylactic shock. At the very least, Dannon should indicate on labels that carmine comes from an insect. Vegetarians who don鈥檛 have a dictionary handy would be especially interested to know. Perhaps if Dannon thinks its yogurt is insufficiently pink or red, they should use more strawberries, raspberries, cherries, or boysenberries鈥攁nd not allergenic extracts made from insects.
While I agree with the intent here, namely to eliminate the unnecessary use of food dyes, I think perhaps this particular issue has gained such notability due to most people鈥檚 general revulsion of insects. The fact that carmine derives from an insect has no bearing on its use as a food dye. Nobody would object to using beet juice as a red food colouring. Why not? Simply because they deem it to be natural, and therefore safe. Why is an insect considered any less natural than a beet? It isn鈥檛, but neither is that of any relevance. Food dyes are subject to the same regulations, whether they are synthetic or natural. What matters is what the safety trials show, not the source of the dye, so while I agree that I would rather not see carmine used in food (at least without not labels), it is because I don鈥檛 like deception, not because I鈥檓 repulsed by an insect extract. In either case, you can rest easy knowing that the dye is a highly purified compound that has no insect properties, so you鈥檙e not actually eating any bugs with your morning yogurt.聽
