Posted on 03/19/2024 8:32:10 PM PDT by nickcarraway
“This is not a food ban. This is not banning Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in California," says Assemblymember Jessie Gabriel, who introduced AB 2316 last week
Google "Flamin' Hot Cheetos" and you'll find a long list of news outlets joining the chorus of reports that a new California bill proposed last week by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino) will ban the popular snack item, along with a bunch of other popular items including Gatorade and M&Ms, from public schools. It's an attention-grabbing, SEO-friendly headline, but ultimately misleading and misses the point of the legislation, which does not mention Cheetos or any other branded foods anywhere.
Instead, Assembly Bill 2316 lists six synthetic food dyes — Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, and Green 3 — as well as titanium dioxide, which the bill aims to eliminate from school food menus during the school day, allowing for food that does contain the additives to be served 30 minutes after the final bell rings and at events.
The reason is that synthetic food dyes have been linked to hyperactivity and other neurobehavioral effects in children, who vary in sensitivity to the chemicals in much of the food they chomp or guzzle down on the reg.
“Evidence shows that synthetic food dyes are associated with adverse neurobehavioral outcomes in some children,” said Dr. Lauren Zeise, director of California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, after publishing results of a study in April of 2021. “With increasing numbers of U.S. children diagnosed with behavioral disorders, this assessment can inform efforts to protect children from exposures that may exacerbate behavioral problems.”
For Gabriel, a parent who struggled with ADHD, the issue hits home.
“California has a responsibility to protect our students from chemicals that harm children and that can interfere with their ability to learn,” Gabriel said last week. “I find it unacceptable that we allow schools to serve foods with additives that are linked to cancer, hyperactivity, and neurobehavioral harms."
SPONSORED Sponsored Video Watch to learn more BY ADVERTISING PARTNER READ MORE During last Tuesday's press conference, the San Fernando Valley politician described the bill as “first-in-the-nation legislation,” which follows in the footsteps of the European Union, that banned titanium dioxide for use in foods back in 2022. While the EU has not banned these dyes specified by Gabriel's legislation, it does require products containing specified dyes to carry a warning label about potential harm to children.
“This is not a food ban,” Gabriel said. “This is not banning Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in California.”
Instead, he sees it as an opportunity for public schools to serve healthier food to students and challenge companies behind kid-favorite snacks to find an alternate recipe — something Kraft successfully did in 2013 when the company announced artificial food dyes in its beloved mac and cheese would be replaced with colorful spices including paprika, annatto and turmeric.
"This bill will empower schools to better protect the health and wellbeing of our kids and encourage manufacturers to stop using these dangerous additives," Gabriel explained.
Of course, the National Confectioners Association — the leading trade organization for the U.S. candy industry — is not happy about the proposed legislation, which will be reviewed by the Assembly Education Committee in coming weeks. "These activists are dismantling our national food safety system state by state in an emotionally-driven campaign that lacks scientific backing,” the NCA said in a statement, arguing that the Food and Drug Administration, not lawmakers, should be making such policy decisions.
But years earlier, researchers behind the OEHHA study Gabriel cites also found that all of the FDA’s Acceptable Daily Intake levels (ADIs) for synthetic food dyes are based on 35- to 70-year-old studies that were not designed to detect the types of behavioral effects that have been observed in children.
Only time will tell if Gabriel's bill can survive the political process to become law, but five months ago, the Democrat successfully passed similar legislation known as the California Food Safety Act, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or distribution of any food product containing Red Dye No. 3, Potassium Bromate, Brominated Vegetable Oil, or Propyl Paraben.
Skittles was the junk food of choice that the media latched on to last year to describe the "ban," which Gabriel also refuted: "This bill will not ban any foods or products – it simply will require food companies to make minor modifications to their recipes and switch to the safer alternative ingredients that they already use in Europe and so many other places around the globe.”
Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, endorsed that bill which was signed into law last October. "I’m a small government guy," the fitness icon said in a newsletter. "But I’ve also seen that sometimes, in a world where every big industry has an army of lobbyists, and our kids have no one fighting for them, government has to step in.”
I’m OK with this. Don’t like Flamin’ Hot Cheetos banned at school? Don’t send your kid to that school.
“Instead, Assembly Bill 2316 lists six synthetic food dyes — Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, and Green 3 — as well as titanium dioxide, which the bill aims to eliminate from school food menus during the school day,allowing for food that does contain the additives to be served 30 MINUTES after the final bell rings...”
So, by California logic, kids WILL NOT DIE if they’re given these 6 colorings 31 minutes after school, but they will die if given the same 29 minutes after school.
This is why Universal Voting was a HORRIFIC IDEA and we should have never doubted our Founders.
When I went to school, they wouldn’t have had those kinds of foods anyway, but they weren’t considered banned.
There is no reason to ingest titanium, especially in nano forms for coloring purposes.
titanium dioxide is found in the pancreases of diabetics.
You are correct:
https://news.utexas.edu/2018/06/20/link-found-between-type-2-diabetes-and-common-white-pigment/
There are a LOT of chemicals and sweeteners that shouldn't be there.
Haven't all those been shown to cause cancer in the state of California?
I know people who as kids were sensitive to stuff like that.
One was allergic, one got hyperactive, and one turned into a vicious, cruel savage.
I’m Ok with this as well, on multiple levels.
It’s just ironic that they portend to care about children with this legislation.
Hypocrites, but who’s shocked?
>David, a 65-year-old lawyer from Chicago, is going to Portugal on a scouting trip next month...<
Everything causes cancer in California. That’s why I don’t go there anymore. There are signs everywhere./s
EC
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