Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary announced on Tuesday the exciting news that the Trump administration is banning all petroleum-based food dyes. These dyes — Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 40, Yellow 3, and Yellow 5 — are joining the ranks of Red 3, which was banned earlier this year. According to Kennedy, the goal is to phase out these dyes from the food supply as soon as next year, but certainly after the next four years.

This is a huge accomplishment for the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement and for concerned mothers everywhere. These dyes — often put in candy, cereal, snacks, drinks, and even vitamins — are mainly found in products marketed to children, which is extremely troubling. The million-dollar question is: Why?

Well, children love bright colors, and these dyes certainly provide that. But the trade-off is terrible.“We’ve got the highest chronic disease burden of any country in the world,” noted Kennedy. “When my uncle was president, 3% of Americans had chronic disease. Today, it’s 60%. Seventy-four percent of our kids cannot qualify for military service. We have fertility rates that are just spiraling.” Kennedy has long believed that the chemicals added to the food supply have contributed to the unhealthiness of our population.

Banning these unnatural substances is good. Some government regulation is needed for things like food. Otherwise, many companies would leave no stone unturned to achieve the highest profit. Greed is a stronger motivator than altruism.

Kennedy is going about this the correct way as well. He is working with companies to bring about this phaseout and giving them time to switch over. “I want to commend food companies for working with us to achieve this agreement or settlement,” he stated. “When I went in a few months ago to meet with food companies, I was talking with my staff about this … and I said, if they want to eat petroleum, they ought to eat it themselves at home and they shouldn’t be feeding it to the rest of us. Four years from now, we’re going to have most of these products off the market, or you will know about them when you’re at the grocery store.”

Many of our food dyes are banned in other countries, so many U.S. companies already have dye-free versions of their products. In other words, they are not having to reinvent the wheel. Also, aren’t Democrats always telling us that we should be more like Europe? Notice that no one is caterwauling about the loss of dyes in American food. And if they do, it’s only because they see Kennedy as disloyal to the Democrats, not because they are desperate to keep these dyes in our food.

As for banning seed oils and sugar alternatives, this would definitely be a challenge because there is an element of trying to avoid being a nanny state and allowing Americans the freedom to make decisions about the food we eat. Providing better education about food ingredients is the most effective way to combat this, though RFK and company may decide regulation is the way forward.

Another element to combating the poison in our food supply is ousting the food lobbyists who are bribing lawmakers. Famously, that’s what happened to the original food pyramid. Lobbyists in favor of carbs and against fat convinced government officials that carbs were the most healthy, and that is simply not true.

This great step by Kennedy and Dr. Makary will tremendously help this next generation. Let’s get back to natural food dyes and start weeding out the ultra-processed garbage from our diets.