Artificial food coloring is like a rectangular wheel. It sort of works but gives a hazardous and bumpy ride.

Additives like tartrazine (E102), ponceau 4R (E124), sunset yellow (E110), carmoisine (E122), quinoline yellow (E104) and allura red AC (E129) have been linked to problems for children in the form of allergies, temper tantrums, poor concentration and hyperactivity. 1 2

Tartrazine causes hives in some people. Erythrosine has been linked to thyroid tumors in rats.

It’s not like there is a lack of safe alternatives. Actually, there are a lot of alternatives that are not only safe, they are incredibly beneficial disease preventing substances.

The anthocyanins, which give color to red, purple and blue fruits and vegetables, has been shown to slow the growth of colon cancer cells. In some cases, colon cancer cells are even selectively killed by these natural food colorants.

Monica Giusti, an assistant professor of food science at Ohio State University has studied anthocyanins that show remarkable cancer-preventing effects. She and her team studied anthocyanins from grapes, radishes, purple corn, chokeberries, bilberries, purple carrots and elderberries. 3 4 5

The purple corn extract was the most potent, followed by chokeberry and bilberry extracts which were nearly as potent as purple corn.

All fruits and vegetables that are rich in anthocyanins have compounds that can slow down the growth of colon cancer cells, whether in experiments in laboratory dishes or inside the body. Monica Giusti

In laboratory studies, she and her colleagues showed that anthocyanin pigments from radish and black carrots slowed the growth of cancer cells by 50 to 80 percent.

Purple corn and chokeberries not only completely stopped the growth of cancer cells, but also managed to kill roughly 20 percent of the cancer cells without damaging any healthy cells.

Extract from bilberries and chokeberries appeared to reduce signs of colon tumors by 70 and 60 percent in animal trials.

All this suggest that anthocyanins may provide surprisingly strong protection against certain gastrointestinal cancers.

There are more than 600 different anthocyanins found in nature and you could suspect that our human ancestors evolved with diets that contained much larger amounts of anthocyanins. Most modern diets supply very small amounts of these compounds. Countries that traditionally have higher amounts in their diet, like France and Greece, have lower levels of heart disease than expected. This could be totally unrelated, it could be due to a number of other factors such as healthier natural fats in the diet: Olive oil in Greece and good quality butter and cheese in France. Politically correct nutrition would object to the latter being heart-healthy but it is better to be correct than to be politically correct.

Bilberry is a godsend. Not only does it prevent cancer and degenerating eyesight, it also provides a much needed protection for my few remaining healthy neurons. It can also regulate the traffic in the intestines, preventing constipation as well as loose stools.

It makes so much sense to use natural, anthocyanin-based food colorants instead of synthetic ones that only industry conservatism, FDA complacency and recklessness can explain why we still subject our children and ourselves to a litany of E-codified mind altering additives such as tartrazine (E102), ponceau 4R (E124), sunset yellow (E110), carmoisine (E122), quinoline yellow (E104) and allura red AC (E129).

Do I hear cries from the candy industry that these natural dyes are hard to incorporate in their products?

No, they are not, but that’s a non-issue. Candy is another inappropriately shaped wheel we can do without.

Our children are designed to eat cherries and bilberries, not the industrial waste the candy industry churn out. Sure, it is easier to buy a couple of pounds of brightly colored sweets than to make delicious desserts or smoothies based on fruits and berries, but that gain is quickly lost an hour later when you are chasing your hyperactive sugar crazed offspring hither and dither.

And it feels a whole lot better knowing you are reducing their risk for serious chronic diseases rather than increasing it.

1. 1 McCann D, et al., Food additives and hyperactive behaviour in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the community: a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial., Lancet. 2007 Nov 3;370(9598):1560-7. ¶
2. 2 UK Food Standards Agency, T07040: Chronic and acute effects of artificial colourings and preservatives on children’s behaviour (Detailed version - 188 pages.) ¶
3. 3 Jing P, Bomser JA, Schwartz SJ, He J, Magnuson BA, Giusti MM., Structure-function relationships of anthocyanins from various anthocyanin-rich extracts on the inhibition of colon cancer cell growth., J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Oct 22;56(20):9391-8. Epub 2008 Sep 19. ¶
4. 4 Lala G, Malik M, Zhao C, He J, Kwon Y, Giusti MM, Magnuson BA., Anthocyanin-rich extracts inhibit multiple biomarkers of colon cancer in rats., Nutr Cancer. 2006;54(1):84-93. ¶
5. 5 CUIWEI ZHAO, M. MONICA GIUSTI, MINNIE MALIK, MARY P. MOYER, AND BERNADENE A. MAGNUSON, Effects of Commercial Anthocyanin-Rich Extracts on Colonic Cancer and Nontumorigenic Colonic Cell Growth (Full text), J. Agric. Food Chem. 2004, 52, 6122−6128. ¶

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 07:09 and is filed under Children's Health, Food Safety. You can follow responses to this entry through the Comments RSS Feed. Pinging is currently closed.

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