MURRELLS INLET, S.C. (WMBF) – A Murrells Inlet ice cream shop is working to rid its products of synthetic food dye, many of which have been linked to health issues.
Owner Haley King said that they’ve been trying to be as dye-free as possible since the beginning.
“Chocolate peanut butter, salted caramel, toasted coconut, peanut butter oreo, chunky road, and butter pecan, all of those are dye-free,” King said.
Those are just a handful of ice cream flavors that Stella’s Homemade Ice Cream offers that don’t have synthetic food dyes.
“A lot of it was just because of the health and the behavior aspect of how artificial dyes, kind of affected personalities and the health of people and our customers, consumers, my niece, my nephew,” King explained.
Around 150 of the nearly 200 flavors of ice cream are dye-free at Stella’s.
Ice cream isn’t the only product containing those synthetic food dyes. Others include Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch Doritos, Skittles, M&M’s, Welch’s gummies, Mountain Dew, Fanta, etc.
Jilian Sansbury, a doctor at Grand Strand Medical Center, said that the side effects of these dyes aren’t well-researched.
“A lot of these things are not natural. They come from a scientific lab somewhere and a lot of these things that are added to our foods, we really don’t have a great understanding of the kind of secondary effects,” Sansbury said.
She said dyes like Red 3, Yellow 5, Blue 2, and Red 40 have been shown to worsen symptoms of hyperactivity and food sensitivity, and some have even shown links to cancer.
King said they are working to eliminate synthetic dyes from as many of the flavors as they can.
“That’s why we’re able to work on dye-free because we’re one of the only ones that make our ice cream here in-house,” King said.
Sansbury said there’s always been some discussion about food dyes. She said recently, though, patients have been looking to do away with them more and more. She explained that as research develops, so should conversations around whether or not these products should continue to be used.
“It’s probably time to relook at these things and make sure that what we’re putting in our bodies are, you know, not causing things like hypersensitivities or creating unnecessary carcinogenic effects,” Sansbury said.
While King started this journey for family reasons, she said she’s glad to see our leaders addressing these issues.
She said it’s important for folks to know what they’re eating.
“Definitely do your own research. See what’s out there, what each color does, look on the back, look at your ingredients, and see which ones have colors in them,” she said.
King said they’re working to transition more flavors to be free of synthetic dyes.
She also said that they recently found out they can use the same natural food dye alternatives on their cakes, so she said they’re working to transition that side of things, too.
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