Jessica Knurick, who IMO posts great content on social media, has a great take on this.
The whole MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement is an absolutely brilliant masterstroke by corporate interests. Get people up in arms about pseudoscientific bogeymen like artificial dies. Then claim as a major win how you've gotten big food companies to pinky promise that they'll stop using these dyes in Fruit Loops and sodas in a few years - because of course we'll all be super healthy once we're downing naturally dyed Fruit Loops and soda. Meanwhile, gut environmental regulations that actually do have a measurable positive impact on health, make healthcare even more unaffordable, and kick lots of people off Medicaid so rich people can get a tax break. But hey, at least you'll be the beacon of health since you can now gobble your fries cooked in lard instead of those naughty seed oils.
A minor improvement to your argument here- artificial dyes are legitimately harmful in many cases. There are good reasons why the EU had already banned multiple chemicals that were still allowed in the US, and it's a good thing to update the American standards to the EU ones (which are generally more focused on human health as opposed to corporate profits).
The focus and prioritization is definitely out of line though, and it's particularly absurd in the face of the rolling back of pollution protections and removing access to healthcare.
Basically, it's focusing on a minor problem rather than the major ones. (But the minor problem is a legitimate one, and we should be solving all of them).
Which food dyes are you referring to specifically that are banned in the EU but used in the US? The 5 major food dyes that are actually used in the US (red 40, blue 1, blue 2, yellow 5, yellow 6) are all allowed in the EU, some at higher concentrations. Red 3 was already banned (though with a phaseout period to 2027) in January by the Biden admin. There are lots of things thrown around on social media that there are all these common food dyes used in the US that are banned in the EU, and that's just not accurate.
That said, definitely in agreement about the major point that it's a distraction, and Knurick says many times she's not advocating for food dyes, rather that the bigger issue is the overwhelming prevalence of ultra-processed (i.e. high calorie but devoid of other nutrients and fiber) foods in the US first.
The whole MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement is an absolutely brilliant masterstroke by corporate interests. Get people up in arms about pseudoscientific bogeymen like artificial dies. Then claim as a major win how you've gotten big food companies to pinky promise that they'll stop using these dyes in Fruit Loops and sodas in a few years - because of course we'll all be super healthy once we're downing naturally dyed Fruit Loops and soda. Meanwhile, gut environmental regulations that actually do have a measurable positive impact on health, make healthcare even more unaffordable, and kick lots of people off Medicaid so rich people can get a tax break. But hey, at least you'll be the beacon of health since you can now gobble your fries cooked in lard instead of those naughty seed oils.