Kraft Is Removing Artificial Dyes From Some Products, But Your Kid Better Like Spongebob

71RxMFUR2cL._SL1442_Last spring, two women started a petition to have yellow dye 5 and yellow dye 6 taken out of Kraft Mac and Cheese sold in the United States. Coincidentally, Kraft has decided to take the dyes out of some products, but they would like everyone to know it’s not because of that stinking Change.org petition: “Kraft says the decision has nothing to do with a campaign by Change.org to convince the company to remove Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6 dyes from its Mac & Cheese products sold in the U.S.”

Thanks for bringing national attention to the potentially harmful dyes used by Kraft, but this really has nothing to do with you, Lisa Leake and Vani Hari, authors of the Change.org petition. Ha! Obviously it does. Good job, ladies.

I know what some people may be thinking, why petition Kraft – why not just decide to not purchase it? Well, it turns out Kraft doesn’t use the harmful dyes everywhere – the company uses natural beta carotene and paprika to make almost the same color in the Mac & Cheese it sells in the U.K.

That’s kind of a strange decision. An even stranger one is that they aren’t removing the dyes from all of their products – just the ones they consider to be for kids: SpongeBob Squarepants, Halloween, and winter shapes varieties of Mac & Cheese, but not to the original elbow shaped pasta versions. Hmm. They have a recipe to make food that doesn’t contain potentially harmful dyes, but they’re opting to only use it for certain products. I wonder how many parents actually buy the funny shapes over opting for the original variety? My child doesn’t like the funny shaped pasta – I buy the Annie’s pasta occasionally and he always turns his nose up at the bunnies and farm shapes in favor of the regular old shells and elbows.

These kinds of practices always make me feel a little icky about companies. The women claim the food colorings have been associated with hyperactivity in children, allergies, migraine, and perhaps cancer. Why not just remove it from all Mac & Cheese products? Maybe Kraft thinks adults like to live on the edge.

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