Artificial food dyes have been garnering a surprising amount of attention over the last few months. The FDA recently banned Red No. 3 due to concerns about the product’s safety. Now a number of states are making a push to prohibit even more artificial food dyes. These bans are defended on the grounds that artificial dyes pose health risks, add nothing of nutritional value, and serve only to make food and drinks more visually appealing. So why not prohibit them? It seems like a ban would be all benefit and no cost.
Let’s assume, at least for the sake of argument, that the above concerns are justified; even so, we shouldn’t ban artificial food dyes. The reason is simple: people have the right to decide for themselves whether they have good reason to accept risks to their own health. Suppose, as some claim, that the bans on artificial dyes would make the relevant products more expensive. For instance, the National Confectioners Association suggests that they “will make food significantly more expensive for, and significantly less accessible to, people in the states that pass them.” Someone should be free to buy and consume riskier food to save money given that people generally have the right to take health risks for financial reasons. Jane is free to quit her desk job to start work on a commercial fishing vessel for a trivial increase in salary even though commercial fishing is a lot riskier than working from an office. Similarly, someone should be free to consume products with artificial dyes to save money if they prioritize savings over safety.
Now, the claim that the artificial dye bans will make food more expensive is contested. So let’s suppose it’s false and prices won’t change at all. Maybe the only reason why these dyes are used is to make food and drinks more aesthetically appealing. Still, people have the right to take risks for purely aesthetic reasons. Imagine you’re at a car dealership choosing between a gray car and a red car. They’re the same price, but the red car has fewer safety features than the gray one. However, you simply prefer red and so you buy the red car. Maybe that’s an unwise choice, but it’s yours to make. Or suppose you’ve got a headache and you’re choosing between two pain relievers. The red pill carries greater risks than the gray pill. But here again, you simply prefer red to gray, and so you opt for the riskier pill. Few would dispute that you should be free to make this choice.
The right to make decisions regarding your own health is grounded in the right of bodily autonomy, which is sometimes summarized as “your body, your choice.” Since it’s your body, you have the right to take risks with it. You can undergo risky surgeries, climb Mount Everest, or simply refuse to take needed medication. Think of it this way: if the Picasso painting is yours, you have the right to play Frisbee with it. This risks harming the painting, but it would be wrong for others to forcibly stop you. Similarly, maybe consuming artificial food dyes is risky and unwise, but you’re taking the risk with your own body. So, it would be wrong for others to forcibly prevent you from consuming them.
Lastly, consider that the state doesn’t ban substances that are far more harmful than artificial food dyes, such as cigarettes. This is strange—it’s analogous to the state making it illegal to stub your toe to ensure that you’re taking care of your health, while at the same time legalizing dueling. If we’re unwilling to ban products that are more harmful than artificial food dyes, we shouldn’t be willing to ban artificial food dyes either.
Christopher Freiman is a Professor of General Business in the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University.
READER COMMENTS
David Seltzer
Apr 25 2025 at 10:49am
Christopher: Good stuff!
Kevin Corcoran
Apr 25 2025 at 1:00pm
This whole episode is also a big reminder of how much people’s policy positions are rooted in little more than a display of team loyalty. A surprising number or Republicans have jumped on board the RFK Jr bandwagon, sharing his desire to ban all manner of things on the grounds that they might pose some vague and undefined health risk. Yet not long ago, when it was Democrats advocating for using taxes on soda and other public policy tools to nudge people toward making healthier decisions, Republicans were in an uproar, defiantly declaring that it was their God-given right to drink six gallons of Coca Cola every single day and live with the consequences if they wanted to, and nobody had the right to say they couldn’t.
They would have absolutely smiled and cheered when the greatest (fictional) American of all time, Ron Swanson, said “The whole point of this country is if you wanna eat garbage, balloon up to 600 pounds and die of a heart attack at 43, you can! You are free to do so! To me, that’s beautiful.” But now, I guess, Republicans (or at least those toeing the RFK Jr line these days) would find Ron Swanson appalling. And if there’s anything that should make anyone reconsider their choices in life, it’s finding yourself on the opposite side of Ron Swanson.
(Tongue (partly) in cheek, of course.)
David Henderson
Apr 25 2025 at 3:12pm
Well done, Christopher.
Re cigarettes, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if the FDA tried to ban them. They certainly are making moves in that direction.
john hare
Apr 25 2025 at 7:16pm
Yet another “more harm than good” I believe.
Peter
Apr 27 2025 at 1:52pm
So I highly disagree here though I would agree in libertopia. The problem with unregulated markets isn’t the ability for harm, as you said, we are all big girls and should be able to be harm ourselves if we want to, it’s that for it to work you have to have extremely strong laws on truth in advertising, disclosure, and liability, sans that disclosure, because it’s only moral if you are making a fully informed decision free of fraud or duress.
For example, I’d be perfectly OK here with your red dye if Fruit Loops had to label itself “Cancer Loops” and before buying them you had to take an in person class where you have to acknowledge that: (1) should you ever get cancer, neither Medicare nor insurance will cover it because you chose to intentionally consume a carcinogenic; (2) Any one you ever give these too (family members, your kids, bake sale customers, etc) have a permanent tort against you that is automatically presumed causal for the rest of their life if they develop cancer; (3) You have no tort against the seller of this product, or anyone higher up in the sales chain as a result of this class; (4) You are an adult, you have been informed at a level you can understand individualized for your intelligence and education kevel. (5) If you give this product to anyone else, even your own family, they will have a lifetime presumptive tort against you. If you still want to sell (or buy them) at that point, yeah you should be able too.
And that is important because when I go to a restaurant, I should be able to assume they didn’t replace sugar with lower cost lead acetate because it’s just as sweet and chances are it won’t harm me, or if it does will be a long time in the future and indirect enough I can’t prove it was that single instance at the restaurant, *asbestos cough cough*. When my friend offers me a glass of orange juice, I should be able to assume it’s not orange flavored bleach. From an efficiency perspective, I shouldn’t have to distrust every single ingredient in every single food item that it won’t kill me and have to spend 15% of my day every day doing the research which may or may not exist. Hell it probably doesn’t because who would fund it once “we no longer are prohibited from selling methanol as a low cost alternative to ethenol”. And that isn’t a problem reputations can fix in practice hence the huge percentage of counterfeit fish, olive oil, and spices; a mislabeled bass sold as salmon won’t kill you. Fly by night companies can do a lot of harm before they go out of business.
And that’s assuming above average intelligence on the consumer. Do we really think six year olds when they go to their friend’s house are going to do the research on whether that cherry cup cake will give them cancer or not? Parents giving out Halloween candy? Do prisoners, invalids, or homeless have a choice on not consuming low cost nutritionally complete slow acting known poisons sold as food? Yes I know some authors on this very site strongly believe we should give homeless people expired rotten not fit for human consumption food because “freedom” but I can’t say I agree with that one. When I buy white flour I should be able to assume it wasn’t bleached with white leaded paint nor have to send it off to my own lab for analysis.
At some point we have to accept the greater efficiency and practicality of “if I buy something labeled food, it doesn’t intentionally contain things that will harm me unless it’s I am forced to make a fully informed choice and coupled with a tort”. I’m sure Pierre (respectfully, not sarcasm) or someone more educated that me could tell me the economic term for that, I’m sure it exists.
As an aside also, I find the people making advocating things like “I should have a right to consume whatever I want” tend to be disengenuine, libertarian drug warriors have always been that way. In my experience they all tend to get really excited and pro regulation when I mention that I used to give my kids a line of methamphetamine if they needed to do an all nighter to cram for a test, even in middle school, and still function the next day and then when they got home, high dosage benzos to recover. After all, their body, their risk, my kids, red dye, freedom right? They all turned out pretty good and who knows, maybe it’s because I didn’t give them dyes known to cause neurological defects in children. I don’t believe that of course but you can always explode the “you can’t ban raw milk, I’m free to harm my kids if I want too” once you mention drugs, well except caffeine, alcohol, any food you enjoy as it produces an addictive dopamine hit such as biscuits and gravy, etc.
Should red dye be banned, of course not but nothing should be. But until the law puts the onus on the seller to ensure I am able to make a fully informed decision free of all duress and fraud AND gives me an automatic presumptive tort on anyone that gives anything (without a fully informed decision, i.e. a cup of water from a friend, the public drinking fountain, a school bake sale, dinner at my neighbors, etc), I should be able to freely consume a necessity like FOOD with a presumption they are safe knowing known harmful additives weren’t intentionally added unbeknownst to me rather than wonder if butcher spray painted and spiced the spoiled meat because “hey, you are free to eat rotten meat with harmful additives if you want too that I didn’t even communicate to you I used because you didn’t do the independent research and trusted me, FREEDOM!!!”.
Neither alcohol, cigarettes, nor scuba diving are labelled food btw. CancerLoops are. Not all products are equal. Food by its very nature and social contract is understood to be safe, or at least not intentionally harmful. Not all products are equal.
Mark Brophy
Apr 28 2025 at 8:39am
Artificially colored foods are often targeted at children without the knowledge to make those tradeoffs. Also, they are often served in schools for lunches without the other options one finds in the grocery store.
The companies already rather the foods without artificial dyes for other countries so it’s easy and inexpensive to sell them to Americans, too. The additional profit that they make from artificial dyes is very small.
Luis
Apr 28 2025 at 11:27pm
What do you think it’s reasonable to ban a good or service? I feel like we shouldn’t ban anything. Maybe that’s too extreme.
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