No, you're not eating gasoline. The "petroleum food dye" narrative is disinformation.
RFK Jr. and the wellness industry ignore basic chemistry to sell fear about food dyes and your health.
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RFK Jr’s war on synthetic food dyes is the same fearbait that has circulated for decades:
“Red 40 is made from petroleum!”
“Let’s ban toxic petroleum-based food dyes!”
These talking points have long been used by the wellness influencer industrial complex, from the likes of Vani Hari, to chiropractors cosplaying as scientific experts, to supplement-stack selling biohackers.
These claims are designed to evoke fear and disgust: to suggest you and your family are ingesting gasoline. Just like all anti-science rhetoric, it’s not based in reality. The claims about synthetic food dyes weaponize low science literacy, chemphobia, and the appeal to nature fallacy in order to promote alternative food dyes that aren’t inherently “better” – like natural colorings that are less stable, less tested, and less safe.
Petroleum isn’t an evil man-made chemical – it’s literally a natural substance.
SURPRISE! Petroleum isn’t “evil toxic sludge” after all.
Petroleum is dead ancient marine organisms. More specifically, petroleum is a mixture of chemicals that came from the partial decomposition of dead phytoplankton, zooplankton, algae, and bacteria in the oceans over millions of years. It’s literally a natural substance.
Petroleum forms through the incomplete decay of these tiny creatures. When oxygen levels are low (like in the deep ancient ocean), they don’t fully decompose but instead, are semi-preserved. Over millions of years, their tiny corpses are covered with sediment (mud, sand), and as those layers get thicker and thicker, pressure increases. Pressure leads to heat generation and that heat causes those tiny corpses to get cooked into a substance called kerogen, which is a wax-like precursor to petroleum. When kerogen gets heated further – usually between 140 and 250°F, it is broken apart into petroleum.
This irony always cracks me up – because the people demonizing synthetic food dyes since they’re “derived from petroleum” don’t know that petroleum is a natural substance. Not only a natural substance, but an ANCIENT natural substance.
Petroleum is not a single chemical, but a mixture of hydrocarbons.
Hydrocarbons are chemicals made up only of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are a big bucket that include alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, and cyclic hydrocarbons. These are all different types of hydrogen-carbon compounds that have different arrangements and structures of bonds between the carbons: single bonds, double bonds, triple bonds, rings, etc.
These include chemicals such as octane (8-chain alkane), butane (a 4-carbon alkane), cyclohexane (6-carbon ring), and so on. Hydrocarbons are everywhere and comprise many important structures on our planet.
For example, fatty acids (think those omega-3s and omega-6s you’re always hearing about) are made up of a hydrocarbon attached to a carboxylic acid.
And that leads us to an important detail: hydrocarbons, including those that make up petroleum, are oily. That’s why petroleum is also called crude oil.
Crude oil, aka petroleum, is NOT gasoline.
It's called "oil" because it does not mix with water. Petroleum is hydrophobic, because it is made up of those hydrocarbons. It has a greasy, oily texture, and is semi-liquid. That’s why it is called crude oil.
You’ve got olive oil, canola oil, avocado oil, right? Petroleum is “rock oil” – or dead, semi-fossilized zooplankton oil (that’s a bit of a mouthful though).
Crude oil, aka petroleum, itself is not usable. But it’s loaded with carbon, an element that is the foundation of all life that happens to be ubiquitous as a result (also, did you know diamonds are literally just carbon?)
Scientists can take petroleum and do more chemistry with it to create countless products and substances we use and rely on today because of that abundance of carbon. The hydrocarbons in petroleum become the chemical building blocks for countless products, many of which your anti-synthetic food dye wellness influencers love (ironic, right?), including:
Dietary supplements. Yep, supplements are made by pharmaceutical companies and chemical reactions and yep, many of them start with petroleum.
Do you take Vitamin A, D, or E? You’re eating petroleum by their logic.
Mineral oil, used in a myriad of products, including ‘all natural’ baby oils.
Yoga mats: someone tell all the GOOP gals!
Your spandex athleisure too, that's from petroleum.
Vaseline — it’s called petroleum jelly for a reason.
“Natural” paraffin candles – yep, paraffin is refined petroleum. In fact, by that logic, more closely related to the refined petroleum you put in your car (aka gasoline) than a food dye is.
Toothbrush bristles? Nylon also comes from processing of petroleum.
“Eco-friendly” food packaging – that contains petroleum too.
Medical materials: IV tubing, syringes, surgical gloves
Countless medicines that save people’s lives every day? Also derived from petroleum.
Yes, gasoline is also derived from petroleum through a specific chemical process, but it itself is not petroleum.
And yes, certain food colorings are derived from hydrocarbons too.
And guess what? That methylene blue that RFK Jr. enthusiastically ingests and touts as a wellness panacea (and is not regulated for safety like food dyes are) also comes from petroleum. Does the hypocrisy have an end?
You’re not eating gasoline when you ingest foods with synthetic colorings. You’re eating carbon-based molecules — some of which happen to originate from petroleum once upon a time. And ironically, petroleum isn’t unnatural or manmade – it’s ancient and natural, direct from the Earth.
Substances derived from petroleum are not petroleum. This is chemistry 101.
Some artificial food dyes (like Red 40 or Yellow 5) are synthesized using petroleum-derived building blocks.
But this is why understanding chemistry matters: those hydrocarbons are broken down, purified, and reassembled into entirely new molecules. They don’t retain “petroleum-ness.”
It’s like baking a cake: no one says there are wheat stalks in your dessert.
It’s the same reason you aren’t afraid that your salt (sodium chloride) will blow up when you add it to soup, even though elemental sodium explodes in water.
You understand that chemical reactions and processes transform the starting materials into something entirely new. That’s the exact same concept for these food colorings. And for your yoga mat. And your toothbrush bristles.
Everything is chemicals—yes, even you
A chemical is NOT just the sum of its parts. Once these bonds form, the new chemical is completely distinct from the elemental “ingredients.”
A chemical behaves based on its identity, not its origin.
It doesn’t matter what the source of a chemical is: the only thing that matters is the actual chemical. Your vitamin C could be synthesized from petroleum OR isolated from an orange, but it is still vitamin C, in the end.
For the record, yes, vitamin C supplements ARE derived from petroleum.
Food ingredient regulation and purification processes are rigorous (well, they were before RFK Jr. decided to gut the FDA). Colorants intended to be ingested, whether in medicines or food, go through extensive refinement and purity testing. There’s no trace of “crude oil” in Red 40, just like there’s no dead plankton in your Tylenol.
The most common synthetic food dyes include: Red 40 (Allura Red AC), Yellow 5 (Tartrazine), Yellow 6 (Sunset Yellow FCF), Blue 1 (Brilliant Blue FCF), Blue 2 (Indigotine).
These are made through chemical synthesis, which is why scientists know exactly how they are made and what their chemical structure is. They’ve also been extensively studied, highly regulated, and are incredibly consistent lot-to-lot because of these standards.
And they aren’t banned in other countries, contrary to what RFK Jr., Vani Hari, and even Cory Booker and Gavin Newsom claim (read below).
Are food dyes used in the US banned in other countries? No, not really.
A common trope that often circulates when the likes of Vani Hari get a megaphone are false claims that suggest the US food supply is filled with “poison” food colorings that other countries don’t allow. Because of that, they like to spread fear and undermine the safety of our food supply.
The Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) levels established by global safety agencies have been based on decades of research. For explanations on how that’s done, head here. ADI levels are also extremely conservative: they are levels that someone could consume every single day for their entire life without any adverse effects. These levels have been independently assessed and set by global science experts, including the European Food Safety Authority, Health Canada, and others:
The ADI for red 40 is 7 milligrams per kilograms of body weight per day. How much Red 40 is that, really?
Let’s say you’re a 27 kg (60 lb) kid, since that’s generally the “target” audience for the fear-laden claims about food colorings. You can eat 189 milligrams of red 40 before even reaching the ADI. That means you can eat that every single day, by the way.
Depending on color, there’s between 0.2 to 0.5 mg of Red 40 in a Skittle candy, only in the red, purple, and orange ones. Let’s average to 0.4 mg.
A 60 lb kid can eat 472 Skittles every day before hitting the ADI for Red 40.
A standard 2.17 oz bag of Skittles contains 55-65 Skittles. That kid would need to eat 8 bags of Skittles a day to hit the ADI — over a pound of Skittles. Pretty sure the risks from the excess sugar consumption should definitely be a much bigger concern here!
The reality is there is no robust human evidence that these food colorings pose a health risk to us, especially at levels we would realistically ingest them at. That’s why these regulatory and scientific agencies have set these safety thresholds.
Natural food dyes are chemicals too – and they’re not inherently better.
The rhetoric around the “evil” petroleum-based food dyes is geared to scare people — and the solution? Replace those toxic synthetic dyes with natural ones. That’ll fix the health of our citizens!
Obviously, that’s false. But this rhetoric plays right into the appeal to nature fallacy: the false belief that natural chemicals are superior or safer than synthetic ones.
Cyanide is natural, Aspirin is synthetic. Which one do you trust?
The source of a chemical—whether derived from nature or synthesized in a laboratory—has no impact on whether it is safe or beneficial.
Let’s be clear: natural doesn’t mean better or safer. In the context of food colorings, many natural dyes have worse safety and performance, and are more expensive.
Cochineal (cochineal carmine) is a red dye extracted from crushed scale insects.
The coloring itself comes from carminic acid.
Fun fact: cochineal is a known allergen. Among people with routine exposure to cochineal, between 8 to 40% of the population have evidence of allergies, asthma, or anaphylaxis. Among people with known urticaria (allergy-associated hives), roughly 8% had reactions to cochineal.
Products containing cochineal in the US require a warning label because of this allergenicity risk.
But it’s all natural — and would replace Red 40 (with no established allergy mechanism), if synthetic dyes are banned. Oh and since it is derived from insects, it is not acceptable for use in foods for vegans or those needing kosher or halal foods.
Natural food dyes are, on average, 10-20 times more expensive than synthetic counterparts.
Why the cost difference? They are more resource-intensive to harvest and/or purify, they have lower pigment concentration so you need more for the same effect, the chemicals are less stable and deteriorate more quickly (in sun, certain pH levels, etc)., and since they are less chemically-controlled, there is lot-to-lot variability, requiring more interventions to maintain consistency in product.
Beet extract costs food manufacturers roughly $100–$200 per kilogram
Cochineal costs $200-300 per kilogram
Spirulina costs between $200-800 per kilogram
Red 40? Roughly $30 per kilogram. Also worth noting that beet extract and spirulina are unstable and degrade rapidly in heat or in UV light, which is why you see “natural” foods and candies often looking like they’ve sat out in the sun for a month. This also increases food waste, another added cost.
More than that, many of these natural colorings have less safety data because of legal loopholes regarding “naturally-derived” chemicals — which means we have less information about their potential harms, and there is no actual health benefit to them.
Let’s remember that Botulinum toxin, arsenic, and aflatoxin are also natural. We have to retire the “natural = good” fallacy, especially when it is increasing food costs, reducing safety, and undermining public health
Fixating on food dyes is a distraction.
The issues we have with health and access to nutritious foods have nothing to do with food dyes. The issues we have have to do with social determinants of health, access to healthcare, access to affordable foods (and swapping for natural dyes is only going to drive food cost up, fyi), and public health measures.
When people claim “food dyes” are causing issues in their child and demonizing processed foods by proxy, they’re ignoring serious confounding variables, like the lack of fiber, fruits and vegetables, and lean proteins in their overall diet.
The focus on dyes gives people a false sense of control and a villain to go after, but it distracts from bigger issues like:
Food insecurity and access
Sleep deprivation, screen time, and mental health
Healthcare inequities
Undiagnosed neurodevelopmental conditions
Overmarketed supplements with zero FDA oversight
And of course, RFK Jr. has zero plans to address any of these. In fact, his rhetoric and actions over the last 3 decades has — and will continue — to worsen these issues.
He scares people about affordable nutritious conventional produce, impedes the implementation of GE crops that improve nutrition and food security, and promotes unproven and dangerous supplements. Plus, the anti-vaccine profiteering, defunding scientific research programs, rolling back food safety measures, eugenic actions targeting those with autism, defunding suicide hotlines for teens…the list goes on.
Read another example below:
Petroleum isn’t the problem—pseudoscience is.
If you avoid Red 40 because you think it’s eating gasoline, you’ve been a target of disinformation. If you embrace crushed bugs and turmeric because they’re “natural,” you’re adding potential risks you might not realize.
If RFK Jr. and his MAHA allies actually cared about health, they’d stop spreading disinformation about science, stop demonizing chemicals they don’t even understand, and they’d actually focus on real measures that impact health. Banning synthetic food dyes only to replace them with others ain’t it.
The same people who rail against “petroleum-derived food dyes” are rubbing petroleum jelly on their lips, stretching on petroleum-based yoga mats, wearing petroleum-based clothing, eating petroleum-based supplements in petroleum-derived capsules — all while burning paraffin wax candles under the illusion of “all natural” wellness purity.
This isn’t about science. It’s about vibes, fear, and wellness disinformation. RFK Jr. cares about one thing and one thing only: profiting by exploiting your fears.
It’s long past time we called it what it is: hypocrisy that undermines science and public health.
Now, more than ever, we all must join in the fight for science.
Thank you for supporting evidence-based science communication. With outbreaks of preventable diseases, refusal of evidence-based medical interventions, propagation of pseudoscience by prominent public “personalities”, it’s needed now more than ever.
More science education, less disinformation.
- Andrea
ImmunoLogic is written by Dr. Andrea Love, PhD - immunologist and microbiologist. She works full-time in life sciences biotech and has had a lifelong passion for closing the science literacy gap and combating pseudoscience and health misinformation as far back as her childhood. This newsletter and her science communication on her social media pages are born from that passion. Follow on Instagram, Threads, Twitter, and Facebook, or support the newsletter by subscribing below:
Great stuff Dr. Love! I am terrified of RFK Jr. and his ilk. I really hope information like this can get to enough people (but me thinks its a steep uphill battle.)
Thank you for you continued work to clear up all the misinformation! I share your posts regularly and hope that some people read them.