Food Dyes Research Paper

Words: 1675
Pages: 7

Color additives or food dyes are classified as, “any dye, pigment, or other substance that can impart color to a food, drug, or cosmetic or to the human body” (Barrows et al., 2003). Food dyes are a huge part of the food industry, and are virtually in every product. The color of a food is a powerful stimuli for humans in terms of food primes. The color will make the food product more attractive and also it serves as a way to identify flavor before intake. There are three types of food dyes: straight colors, lakes, and mixtures (Barrows et al., 2003). Food dyes are in almost everything humans eat because they make the process of consumption more enjoyable. The controversy surrounded food dyes is that it has been observed that food dyes in diet can increase hyperactivity also known as attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) in children, and therefore affect the young impressionable brain’s ability to learn.
The controversy began when
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His study found that the diet helped children become less hyperactive (Feingold, 1975). This is the birth of the Feingold diet, This is where the controversy truly began because if this was true parents were feeding their children food that would make them perform poorly in school. This is the reason it is relevant to nutrition and society, because if the study was proven correct then the food that children ate everyday affected their ability to learn. Most researchers today do not rule out the possibility of food additives playing a part in hyperactivity but they cite the lack of true evidence when arguing that there is no seen connection between food additives and hyperactivity, while others believe that there is a strong correlation between food additives and hyperactivity based on behavioral findings. The supporting sides of the argument begins with El-lethey et al. (2011) demonstrates that exposure to certain