Easter candy

Easter basket of the food dyes

Easter is coming and we are expected to be inspired into buying by reading something like this: ”…It’s hard to imagine Easter without marshmallow treats, bunny-shaped sweets and cream-filled eggs. Did you know the holiday is the second-biggest time of year for candy sales?” – MSN

Oh, yeah… Candy sales are what they are concerned about first of all. How about OUR children’s health affected by the food additives? Well, if you knew what are the food dyes that make those treats look so fluorescent bright and attractive to your children, you would never consider touching them! Those are azo-dyes and aniline dyes that fall into the DyeDiet foreign food additives category, worst anti-nutritional food additives.  After the US public leading by the Center for Science in the Public Interest recently has lost the battle attempt for banning the synthetic food coloring, the food industry now has no hesitation to inject even more of the food dyes into our children’s blood. Watch out! Every holiday is now preceded by a tsunami of the dyed sweets targeted at millions of the US children. Read the CSPI report Food Dyes: Rainbow of Risks.

But the good news is that there is always a healthier choice next to a risky food. Let us see what health risks and nutritional values are for the Marshmallow Peeps Chicks, Wonka Spring Mixups egg and Hershey’s Easter Assortment Egg.

Marshmallow Peeps Risk Score Diagram, DDRS ~ 51

These seemingly innocent chicks manufactured by Just Born come with 3 foreign anti-nutritional additives (red segments, 28 units), 3 benign (yellow, 13) and only 3 nutritional ingredients (green segments, 10). Looks like a colored food imitation with high health risks of DDFI = 28/10 = 2.8 and a ridiculously low nutritional value, DDNF = 0.2

The DyeDiet opinion: the Marshmallow Peeps are NOT edible. Of course, you can prove the otherwise. Wait a second, here is something even more challenging for you to achieve.

Wonka Spring Mixups Risk Score, DDRS ~ 134

This is a treat from Nestle USA, Inc., a terrible collection of sugar and corn syrup composites heavily colored with 9 artificial food dyes, carmine color and artificially flavored. What a nasty sweet junk for a sensible $3 a piece!

From its 10 foreign (anti-nutritional) additives (red segments, 84), 7 benign food additives (yellow segments, 30) and only 6 nutritional ingredients (green segments, 20 units) you get high health risk DDFI = 84/20 = 4.2 and shamefully low nutritional value, DDNF = 20/114 ~ 0.2.

Hershey’s Easter Assortment egg Risk Score, DDRS ~ 34

Surprisingly, we have a little better treat from The Hershey Company, the proud manufacturer of million miles a year of Twizzlers waste. With only 2 foreign additives (red, 12), 1 benign additive (yellow, 3) and 7 nutritional ingredients (green, 19) this is something you may survive. The DDFI = 12/19 ~ 0.63 and nutritional value DDNF = 19/15 ~ 1.3

PGPR stands for Polyglycerol polyricinoleate, a semi-synthetic emulsifier, a cheap non-nutritional replacement for an expensive nutritional cocoa butter to increase Hershey’s profit at your health expense. For more details read an article on Candy Recapper.

Easter candy comparison chart

^a) 3 OZ, 85 g; ^b) 6 OZ, 170 g; ^c) 5 OZ, 141 g container

I hope this DyeDiet report helps you navigating through a flood of chemically modified food surrogates so that it has become easier for you to make less risky choices. Have a happy and healthy Easter!

Tags: Easter candy, food additives, food colors, food reviews, Food Risk Score, nutritional value

Category: Candy