Latest / The Monégasque Table / Is Red Dye 3 Banned? What Bakers Need to Check
Transcript
- Margaux: January 15, 2027. That is a real deadline, printed by a real agency, and if you buy baking supplies for a living it is already on your calendar whether you put it there or not. Dana: And I'm going to be the person in the room who says the quiet thing: I have read 4 different versions of this story and they cannot all be true. One of them said a dye was banned. One said it was banned 2 years ago. One said everything red is coming off the shelf. Which is it? Margaux: Welcome to The Monégasque Table. Today is a documents episode — the FD&C Red No. 3 story, what the order actually says, what the dates actually are, and what a buyer should ask a supplier for before signing anything. This one is for the person who orders in cases, not jars. Dana: The person who gets the email from a customer that starts "quick question about your ingredients" and ends their whole afternoon. Margaux: Here's the answer up front, in 3 sentences. Yes, it's real: the FDA issued an order on January 15, 2025 revoking the authorization for FD&C Red No. 3 in food and in ingested drugs. No, it did not empty the shelves that day: food manufacturers have until January 15, 2027 to reformulate, ingested drugs until January 18, 2028, and product made before the effective date can still be legally on the market afterwards. And no, it is not a finding that the dye causes cancer in people — I'll read you exactly what the FDA says about that, because that sentence is the one the internet keeps mangling. Dana: Start with the mangled part. That's the part my customers are actually asking about. Margaux: Then let's do it properly. The legal trigger here is a clause from 1960 called the Delaney Clause, part of the Color Additives Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. What it says is narrow and absolute: the FDA may not authorize a food additive or colour additive if it has been found to induce cancer in humans or animals. Not "if it is dangerous at the doses people eat." If it induces cancer in an animal study, the authorization cannot stand. That's a legal test, not a risk assessment. Dana: So it's a switch, not a dial. Margaux: It's a switch. And here is what flipped it, in the FDA's own words. The dye causes cancer in male laboratory rats exposed to high levels of FD&C Red No. 3, because of a hormonal mechanism that occurs in male rats. Studies in other animals, or in humans, did not show the same effect — and there is no evidence showing FD&C Red No. 3 causes cancer in humans. Dana: Wait. Say that last part again, because that is not the version in my feed. Margaux: No evidence showing it causes cancer in humans. That's the agency writing about its own order. The mechanism is specific to male rats and specific to high exposure. The Delaney Clause doesn't care — an animal finding is an animal finding, and the authorization comes off. Both things are true at once, and that's why the story is so easy to garble. Dana: Okay. That reframes the whole thing and I want to sit in it for a second. Because I've been telling people "they found it causes cancer," and what I should have been saying is "a 1960 rule says an animal finding ends the authorization, full stop." Margaux: Which is a better sentence anyway, because it explains why the deadline is 2 years out instead of immediate. If this were an emergency, nobody gets 24 months to use up inventory. Dana: Right — that's my first real objection, so let's have it out. If a thing is banned, it's banned. What is a 2-year runway doing in a safety decision? Margaux: It's doing what a reformulation always does. Pulling a colour out of a product isn't a switch on a wall — it's new formulations, new stability testing, new labels, new packaging print runs, existing stock in a warehouse. So the order lands on one date and the compliance date lands on another. Food: January 15, 2027. Ingested drugs: January 18, 2028. And explicitly, product manufactured before the effective date may still be on the market after it. Dana: Which means in February 2027 there can be a perfectly legal box on a shelf with that dye in it. Margaux: There can, and a buyer who doesn't know that is going to make a scene about a compliant product. That's why I wanted the dates in the first 5 minutes. Dana: Second objection, and this one's mine. Why should anyone in the glitter aisle care about a cherry-red dye? We are 2 shelves over. Margaux: Because of where the FDA says it shows up. Their own description: a synthetic dye that gives a bright, cherry-red colour, used in certain candy, cakes and cupcakes, cookies, frozen desserts, and frostings and icings. Read that list again. That is the whole dessert aisle. If you buy sprinkles, gels, icings, or coloured decorations in volume, the reformulation wave crosses your purchase orders, not just the candy aisle's. Dana: Frostings and icings. Okay. That's my table. Margaux: And there's a second reason, which is the one I actually care about. This whole episode is a live demonstration of how the colour system works, and almost nobody in a kitchen knows how it works. Dana: Then teach it, because I'd like to stop being surprised by headlines. Margaux: Colour additives are pre-market. Before a colour can be used in food in the United States, the FDA has to review and approve that colour additive. That's the system Title 21, parts 73 and 74 implement. And the thing everybody gets backwards: the agency lists colour additives. It does not approve finished products. There is no such thing as an FDA-approved jar of anything on your shelf. And the listings are specific, not general. The mica-based pearlescent pigment that makes most shimmer powders shimmer is listed in section 350 of part 73, and that listing names frostings — up to 1.25% by weight of the food. A different colour gets a different section and a different list of foods. There is no master pass. Dana: Then explain the letters, because "FD&C" is sitting in the name of this dye and I've never once known what it stands for. Margaux: It's the Act — Food, Drug and Cosmetic. And the letters carry a real distinction that matters to your paperwork. The FD&C colours are the certified ones, and the regulations say so in their own titles. Part 73 is called Listing of Color Additives Exempt from Certification. Part 74 is called Listing of Color Additives Subject to Certification. Red No. 40, Blue No. 1, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6 all have their sections in part 74 — and so did Red No. 3, before the order. Dana: And the mineral ones? Margaux: They sit in part 73, the exempt half. And exempt does not mean unregulated — it means the control sits somewhere else. Section 350 writes its purity limits straight into the law: lead not more than 4 parts per million, arsenic not more than 3, mercury not more than 1. Dana: Hold on. Those are limits the law sets. That's not the same as somebody having tested the jar in my hand. Margaux: Completely different things, and I want that on the record as your round too. The regulation says what the ceiling is. A certificate of analysis says what a specific lot measured. If you only ever hold the first one, you know the rule, not the result. That's the whole reason step 3 on the list was a lot-specific certificate. Dana: So when someone tells me "it meets the federal limits" — Margaux: Ask them how they know. That's not a hostile question. It's the only question. Dana: So when a listing says "FDA approved" — Margaux: It's saying something that cannot be true of a product. The colour in it can be listed. The product cannot be approved. We don't use that phrase here and we never have. Dana: Alright, the part my job actually depends on. Somebody emails me: "does your product contain Red 3?" What do I do on a Tuesday afternoon? Margaux: 4 steps, and they're in a deliberate order. Step 1: read the declaration. Every edible glitter and dust has to carry an ingredient list — the FDA says companies that make edible glitters and dusts are required by law to include a list of ingredients on the label. So the first move is to read the label you already have. Dana: And if the answer's on the label, you're done. Margaux: You're done screening. You are not done verifying, and this is the distinction I would tattoo on a purchasing department. An ingredient list is the first screening check, not proof of compliance. A list can perfectly honestly name a colour additive that isn't cleared for the food it's going into. Reading the list tells you what's in the jar. It does not tell you whether that's allowed there. Dana: That's a genuinely uncomfortable sentence. Margaux: It's the most useful one in the episode. Step 2, then: ask for the product specification. Not the marketing sheet — the spec. Step 3: ask for a lot-specific certificate of analysis, for the lot you are actually buying. And step 4, the one almost nobody asks for and the one that would end most of these email threads on the spot: a written regulatory statement from the supplier naming the food categories the product is intended for. Dana: Naming the categories. Not "it's food grade." Margaux: "Food grade" is a phrase, not a document. The categories are the substance. And I'll flag one trap, because it catches smart buyers: a safety data sheet is not the test. An SDS is an occupational-hazard document — it's written for the person handling powder in a warehouse. It's a fine thing to have. It is not evidence of food compliance, and asking "will you send the SDS?" is not the decisive question people think it is. Dana: I have used that as my decisive question for years. Margaux: So has everyone. It feels rigorous. It's the wrong document for the job. Dana: Okay. Now the awkward one, and I'm going to ask it because if I don't, every listener is going to think it. This is a glitter company's podcast. Our jars don't declare Red 3. Isn't the obvious move here for you to say "and that's why ours is the safe one"? Margaux: It's the obvious move and I'm not going to make it. Here's what I'll say, flat, as a declaration and nothing more: the colours declared across our line are FD&C Red No. 40, Blue No. 1, Yellow No. 5 and Yellow No. 6, alongside the mineral pigments. Red No. 3 doesn't appear in those declarations. That is a fact about what a label says. It is not a safety ranking, it is not a comparison, and I have no idea what's in anybody else's jar — so I'm not going to imply I do. Dana: You could get away with implying it. Everyone else would. Margaux: That's the round you win, and I'd rather lose the sales line than win it that way. Think about what the comparison would actually be doing. It would take a regulatory decision about one dye — a decision with a specific mechanism, in a specific animal, under a specific 1960 clause — and turn it into a vibe about which jar is nicer. That's exactly the move this category already suffers from. Dana: Say more about that, because you've been circling the villain all episode. Margaux: The villain isn't the FDA and it isn't any company. It's the practice of selling shimmer without telling anyone what's in it. In an analysis of about 2,400 reviews across this category, the single biggest cluster of ingredient complaints — over 66.6% of them — is about missing ingredient information. Not bad ingredients. Missing ones. That's the wound. And a headline about a banned dye is worth something only if you can go look at a label afterwards and actually find an answer there. Dana: And if the label just says "non-toxic." Margaux: Then the FDA has already told you what to do. Their advisory on decorative products is blunt: if a label says only "non-toxic," or "for decorative purposes only," and carries no ingredient list, the product should not be used directly on foods. They even list the names these products hide behind — luster dust, disco dust, twinkle dust, sparkle dust, highlighter, shimmer powder, pearl dust, petal dust. Non-toxic is not a synonym for edible. It never was. Dana: Let me put a real afternoon on this. A small bakery orders decorations in cases. In January their biggest wholesale customer forwards them a news story and asks, in writing, whether anything they buy is affected. What actually happens next? Margaux: What usually happens is 3 days of panic and a lot of guessing. What should happen is 90 minutes with a spreadsheet. List every coloured decoration you buy. For each one, write down what the declaration says. Sort them into 3 piles: declarations you can read and that don't include the dye; declarations that do; and — the pile that matters most — products where you cannot find a declaration at all. Dana: The third pile is the problem pile. Margaux: The third pile is the only pile that's actually an emergency, and it has nothing to do with Red No. 3. A decoration going onto food with no ingredient list is a problem in every month of every year. The news story just made somebody finally look. Dana: And for the first 2 piles, you write to the supplier and ask for the spec, the lot certificate, and the written statement of intended food categories. Margaux: With a date on your request. Suppliers answer dated requests. Dana: Who should skip all of this? Because I can hear a home baker halfway through this episode wondering if she needs a spreadsheet for her daughter's birthday cake. Margaux: She does not, and that's the honest skip. If you bake at home a few times a year, the reformulation is the manufacturer's job, not yours — you're not the one who has to reformulate anything. Read the ingredient list on the things you buy, the way you'd read any label, and get on with your day. Skip number 2: if your business doesn't buy anything red, pink or cherry-coloured, this particular deadline is not your deadline — put the documentation habit in place anyway, but don't reorganize your January around it. And skip number 3: if you're looking for a supplier to tell you your finished product is FDA-approved, nobody can give you that, and a supplier who says they can has told you something useful about themselves. Dana: Dana's Scorecard. I came in at "a dye was banned and everything red is suspect." Where I've landed. One: the order is real and dated — January 15, 2025 — and the deadlines are January 15, 2027 for food and January 18, 2028 for ingested drugs, with pre-deadline product legally able to stay on the market after. Two: the mechanism is male laboratory rats at high exposure, the FDA says there is no evidence it causes cancer in humans, and the reason it still came off is a 1960 clause that treats an animal finding as an automatic disqualifier. I was wrong about that and I'd have kept being wrong. Three: the ingredient list is the screening check, not the proof — the spec, the lot certificate, and a written statement of intended food categories are the proof, and an SDS is not. Four: I tried to hand you the comparison and you wouldn't take it, and I'm keeping that as a point in your favour. My caveat: none of this tells me what's in anybody's unlabeled jar, which is exactly the problem. Margaux: Kept, all of it. The footnote, and it's a small one: if you want to see what a declaration looks like before you go asking your own suppliers for theirs, the MONÉGASQUE 7 gram luster dust jars are on Amazon at $9.99, and the ingredient list sits right there on the product page. After over 400,000 orders across the US, Canada and the UK and a 4.6-star rating, that page has been read a few times. Read ours, then go read the ones you already own. Dana: 2 teases tonight, because this one ran long. First — the question that falls straight out of everything we just said. What colour additives are actually in edible glitter? Not the marketing words. The list. Margaux: And it's a shorter list than people expect. Second tease, and I promise it's more fun: what a shimmer garnish actually takes at a bar — how much, in what glass, and the ones that only look good in a photo. Dana: I have opinions about garnishes. Margaux: I've heard them all. Quick note before we go — this show is produced by the team at Monégasque, with AI-crafted hosts, and every number you heard was checked by humans against the documents. See you at the table.