It's not a ban, but could it serve as a major breaking point from the past?

A renewed focus from the FDA on food dies, what to know and why it matters.

I'm Jenna and this is smarter news.

On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services had a media event with this announcement.

Today the FDA is taking action to remove petroleum-based food dyes from the U.S. food supply and from medications.

The scientific community has conducted a number of studies raising concerns about the correlation between petroleum-based

synthetic dyes and several health conditions. This is one of those news stories that we need

to slow down a little bit to cover because initial reporting described this announcement as a ban

on food dyes, including, by the way, some of our own reporting on smarter news that we had

to correct once we kind of figured out what was going on. It's not really a ban. The FDA says it is

taking action. What does that mean? Why does it matter? Let's get into it. The work to reduce or

eliminate food dyes has emerged from a variety of different sources, both Republican and Democrat,

at a state and federal

level, and sometimes by food companies themselves over the years. So what we're witnessing

is not just evolving policy under a brand new administration, but also evolving perspective

on the way we think about our food and our health. Just a quick historical context about

food dyes. Food die isn't new. The ancient

Egyptians died their food. In fact, they use natural dyes and mineral dyes or additives on

their bodies, in cosmetics, for example, and in their bodies, in their food. The FDA says

artificially dyed wine existed in 300 BCE. So history proves that human nature

desires beautiful things that taste good and look good. I know it sounds obvious, but sometimes

stating the obvious more clearly helps us understand our current reality. The modern food dyes

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