Often taken for granted or overlooked, food dyes play a crucial role in how we taste and enjoy what we eat. This has been shown time and again, from ancient history to the margarine war to Crystal Pepsi. While we may still view the certified coal-tar colors with a note of mystery, we can rest assured of their safety due to the complex regulatory regime in place. It is hard to believe that only a century ago, our ancestors were eating food dyed with highly toxic color additives. From that auspicious starting point, we have come to a time where a food colorant with a 1 in 19 billion chance of causing cancer is legally considered too dangerous. What we use to dye our foods and how we regulate it may continue to change, but there is no end in sight to the
timeless practice of coloring our food