Is Our Food Trying to Kill Us?

8 min readDec 10, 2020

Urban legend or cancer scare? A tale of two snacks: red M&M’s and microwave popcorn.

There is an iconic scene in the 1986 movie, Peggy Sue Got Married. The main character Peggy Sue travels back in time to 1960 and gives her little sister the following sage advice:

“Don’t eat the red M&M’s, they give you cancer.”

A rainbow of problems

The concern started with orange dye. Specifically with Orange №1 which gave certain candies that distinctive Halloween color in the 1950s. Reports began to surface of children complaining of stomach cramps and diarrhea after consuming the candies.

The cause was eventually traced back to the dye and in 1956, Orange №1 was outlawed for use in food.

Out of the scandal emerged a silver lining, the FDA would assume control over food dyes, a task which included reviewing the current list for safety.

Dyes that passed were assigned the status of “generally recognized as safe (GRAS).” Meanwhile, dyes currently in use but under investigation were awarded provisional use status for a period of two and a half years. An extension could be granted if tests were still ongoing.

Red is the new orange

Red №2 was one of the dyes awarded a time extension. In fact, the extensions were extended, a total of 14 times.

Food manufacturers were already angry about the loss of so many coloring options. They relied on dyes to make products more visually appealing and to replace natural colors lost during processing. The delay in approving Red №2 sent industry leaders into an uproar. As one of the most widely used food dyes, Red №2 provided color for profitable junk foods like candy and soda.

It wasn’t until 1969, under enormous industry pressure, that the FDA officially approved the red dye.

However, in 1971, disturbing reports came out of the then Soviet Union. Two studies appeared to link Red №2 with cancer in lab rats. Although the FDA admitted that the studies appeared flawed and the Soviet dye wasn’t structurally identical to Red №2, a nervous public demanded action.

The most studied dye

Alexander Schmidt, Commissioner of Food and Drugs at the time, protested, “Red №2 is probably the most studied chemical in the food supply… There are no studies that prove that Red №2 causes cancer.”

Advisory groups were hastily assembled, experiments shoddily performed, and large sums of money exchanged hands. Fingers were pointed, data was challenged, and in the end, the FDA gave up and banned the dye.

No case studies of humans being harmed by Red №2 have been found, and the safety of its replacement, Red №40, has also been questioned.

Image/ Berenice Calderón/https://pixabay.com

A candy caught in the middle

Enter M&M’s.

The candy maker Mars did not use Red №2 to color its chocolate candies (it used Red №40). However, public fear caused the company to err on the side of caution, and they stopped producing the red ones. A package of M&M’s from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s contained a boring assortment of brown, tan, green, yellow, and orange.

Society for the Restoration and Preservation of Red M&M’s

A single man changed the candy giant’s mind.

One evening, Paul Hethmon and a group of college buddies sat around complaining about how deadly food had become. As a joke, he created the Society for the Restoration and Preservation of Red M&M’s and mailed letters asking friends to sign-up for a mere $0.99 membership fee.

The prank caught on, received attention from local news stations, and eventually got noticed by the Wall Street Journal.

From there, things turned serious. Society President Hethmon even wrote a letter to United States President Ronald Reagan petitioning for the return of the red candy.

Fortunately, the External Relations Director for Mars, Inc., Hans W. Fiuczynski had a sense of humor. He wrote to Hethmon, enclosing $0.99, and asked for permission to join the Society.

In 1987, Hethmon received a second letter and a surprise from Fiuczynski. The letter announced the long-awaited reintroduction of the now-famous red M&M.

The surprise? A 50-pound package of the red chocolates.

Today, the red M&M is a star and candy-lovers can’t imagine opening a bag and not seeing the bright color spill out onto their palm.

From dyes, we move to flavorings.

They are also regulated by the FDA and given the GRAS designation if determined safe to eat.

But what if the harm comes not from ingestion but inhalation?

Popcorn lung

This story begins in the late ’90s in Jasper, Missouri. A handful of employees at the Gilster-Mary Lee popcorn plant displayed identical symptoms of lung disease.

They began to experience shortness of breath, wheezing, dry cough and complained about constantly feeling tired. Their symptoms worsened enough for the Missouri Department of Health to call in the experts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

The employees all had one thing in common — they worked as mixers of butter flavoring and soybean oil.

The verdict?

Obliterative bronchiolitis caused by exposure to the chemical diacetyl found in the butter flavoring.

The workers’ health continued to decline, some ended up needing lung transplants, and workers from other popcorn plants across the country also began to fall sick.

Due to the high prevalence among popcorn workers, the disease earned the gruesome moniker of popcorn lung.

Popcorn Factory/Corey Coyle / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)

A rush for a replacement

Soon lab studies on rats confirmed the hunch, diacetyl was responsible for the lung disease.

Popcorn makers turned to a similar product, acetylpropionyl. Unfortunately, their new choice appears to be too similar, as complaints of lung damage and abnormal lung function tests have appeared.

Could this be a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire?

Only time will tell.

3-D model of the perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS)/R8R Gtrs / CC0/Wikimedia Commons

Is there Scotchguard in food packaging?

There may be a more insidious way microwave popcorn is harming our health.

Popcorn makers coat the kernels with oil to prevent sticking, scorching, and for more even cooking in the microwave. However, they realized that the paper bag would simply absorb this oil.

Therefore, companies coated the interior of the bag with an anti-stick product similar to 3M’s Scotchguard.

This chemical, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), has recently been associated with hormonal imbalances, stunted growth, and cancer.

The bad news- PFOS are everywhere, in our water, wildlife, and our blood.

The good news- PFOS have been banned since 2000 in most countries, including the U.S., but there is concern that they may be present in food packaging from countries that have not.

What did they replace PFOS with?

Same story, different scene.

The FDA has approved a slew of “new-generation” perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) to replace the PFOS.

“We know very little about the safety of these next-generation PFCs in food wrappers,” said EWG Senior Scientist David Andrews, who analyzed the more recent FDA approvals. “But their chemical structure is very similar to the ones that have been phased out, and the very limited safety testing that has been done suggests they may have some of the same health hazards. To protect Americans’ health, the FDA and EPA should require that chemicals be proved safe before they are allowed on the marketplace.”

What ‘s the verdict?

Did Red №2 cause cancer?

Is fake butter flavor safe to eat?

It is impossible even today to answer those questions, as studies remain inconclusive.

One thing is for certain, testing of chemicals found in food additives and packaging needs to improve. The results of the studies, and the associated risks, must be more transparent.

Like it or not, the food industry is here to stay.

Packaging has done wonders for keeping food fresher longer, and we are now able to transport food all across the globe.

But at what point does it become a choice between convenience and our health?

If we could go back in time like Peggy Sue, what would we tell our ancestors?