Food dyes linked to unappetizing effects could be banned from school meals

Artificial dyes found in processed and pre-packaged foods sold in schools are the target of a recent bill in the Vermont Senate.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden-Southeast, is modeled after California’s 2024 School Food Safety Act. While California’s bill goes a bit farther by banning food items that exceed set amounts of sugar and fat from being sold in lunchrooms, both pieces of legislation set their sights on dyes added to food—such as Red 40, Blue 1 and Yellow 5.

S. 26 would bar schools from serving food and beverages with any amount of the dyes.

Recent research suggests the six manmade dyes covered in the bill may have unpalatable upshots, including inattention and hyperactivity in kids.

“This makes a whole lot of sense to eliminate those food dyes that have significant health consequences, and especially for kids,” Lyons said.

Lindsey Hedges, public information officer for the Vermont Agency of Education, said in an email that many food manufacturers are already taking steps to remove the dyes from their products due to California’s recent bill.

“We do not think that Vermont school meals programs would have difficulty finding products that met the restrictions if the bill were to pass,” Hedges  said.

The agency conducts routine reviews of about 30 schools per year, examining their lunch menus, ingredient labels and recipes. Hedges said those assessments rarely find food dyes in the meals themselves, which are typically cooked from scratch.

Rather, items with the dyes are mostly found in vending machines, school stores or through a la carte options, she said.

To be sold in schools, foods must meet certain nutrition requirements, and food manufacturers often make versions of their products to be sold to schools, formulated with child nutrition in mind, Hedges said.

“These items are subject to minimum nutritional standards set by the federal Smart Snack requirements,” she said, referring to a common name for a set of Obama-era rules. “With California’s recent ban, we are no longer seeing food dyes in many of these products.”

Some local school nutrition directors are not so sure. Karyl Kent, treasurer and former president for the School Nutrition Association of Vermont, said her organization is in full support of Lyons’ measure.

“We really encourage that our legislators are bringing this up and voicing concern for our safety in school foods and for the health of our kids,” Kent said.

Pre-packaged and processed food options contain more artificial food dyes than any ingredient in school lunches, Kent said. Think Gatorade, Doritos or M&M’s.

Kent believes Vermont is at the forefront of an effort that encourages school districts to collaborate with local agriculture markets. As a plus, that dynamic helps cafeterias to divorce themselves from food and drink that contain dyes that can harm children.

“We’re kind of on the leading edge of the local foods movement,” she said. “So naturally, we’re looking to move away from those types of products.”

Two state programs help promote that emphasis on local foods: the 2023 universal school meals act and the Local Foods Incentive Grant, created by a 2021 law. One benefit of the grant, Kent said, is that schools can rely less on vending machines, which are installed to bring in more revenue for the school.

Noah Diedrich is a reporter with Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.