By Kai Stoltzfus, Sports Director
Red 40, yellow 5 and yellow 6 are the top three worst food dyes for your body, according to Natura, a business focusing on the body’s natural healing processes. Your morning bowl of froot loops, vibrant red, orange and sweet in flavor, are indeed full of those unnatural food dyes.
On October 15, 2024, natural medicine, chiropractor and clinical nutritionist, Josh Axe, stood in front of Kellogg's Cereal Company HQ in Battle Creek, Michigan to demand they replace the additives and harmful dyes in
their cereals. The $27 billion cereal company, creator of froot loops, apple jacks, frosted flakes, rice krispies, corn pops and others, has been asked to use natural dyes in their cereals, as they have done in numerous other countries, but haven’t yet done in the United States.
Axe, a John Hopkins University (JHU) graduate, recognized from his own experiences as a young child, the diagnosis of learning disabilities he struggled with were caused by the cereals he would consume regularly for breakfast.
In summary from his encouraging speech in Michigan in October, he shares that he was diagnosed with ADHD, (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) when he was in elementary school. Axe barely graduated high school with a 2.0 GPA because “I had such a difficult time learning in school” he said. “When I got to college I started learning about health and nutrition and I decided I was going to start eating real food for breakfast.”
After changing his diet, he went from a 2.0 to a 3.0 to graduating with a doctorate and almost a 4.0 GPA from John Hopkins University. He pleads to this popular cereal company: “Please do something very simple that you already do in literally every other country in the world and remove the food dyes now.” In a health comparison with other countries, America placed last out of 40 countries, for being the least healthiest and having the lowest mortality rate.
The same cereal brand in countries such as Italy, France, the UK, Australia, and Canada sell a nearly identical cereal to froot loops with the only difference being more monochrome with non-vibrant colors of the cereals.
From a local standpoint, the PRHS community, surveyed on November 5, 2024, are guilty of consuming toxic cereals. Of 123 answers, 35% students said they eat cereal for breakfast and those 38 students answer that they feel unproductive and tired.
Familiar with manufacturers sneaking unnecessary chemicals to their food, sophomore Yahaira Vilchis doesn’t regularly consume cereal, a part of the 17% (from the Nov 5 survey) on PRHS. Similar to Doctor Axe, Vilchis recognized the amount of unhealthy and hard-to-read chemicals that are increasingly being added to foods, are incredibly harmful.
“I think [putting unhealthy ingredients in foods] is their way of making money and trying to promote something that's not good for us to make profit from,” Vilchis said.
Vilchis first heard about companies, such as Kellogg, putting unhealthy dyes in their foods a couple years ago from videos and reviews. Vilchis believes that “it is really bad for people, especially if they have a condition that restricts them from eating something and if companies are hiding stuff, it could be bad”.
In her own life, she has seen her friends and sister fall into the habit of consuming foods with red 40 and yellow 5. Some people she knows eat those foods for breakfast, while she leans towards yogurt or fruit as she believes it has a healthier benefit.
“Right now a lot of kids are eating Takis or hot cheetos, especially in the morning, my sister specifically,” she said.
Vilchis recognizes that it is up to the individual to make the choice to put harmful or helpful things into your body.
Just as Axe pleads to Kelloggs to make a difference, Vilchis also believes that “we should be informed about the consequences of eating stuff and about what we put into our bodies,”. The step Doctor Axe has made to petition Kelloggs and the awareness of bearcat students like Vilchis, impacts the food industry greatly on a national and global level.