Carolyn Cobbold, A Rainbow Palate: How Chemical Dyes Changed the West’s Relationship with Food
Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Recently, lives have been powerfully shaped by interactions between health expertise and public policies on Covid, with shifting assessments of scientific knowledge. From this perspective, Carolyn Cobbold’s study of the adoption of new food colourings and their regulation in Britain, Germany, France and the USA between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century resonates with present concerns, but demonstrates the far greater force of the pandemic. Earlier policies were hesitant and gradual, reflecting contested debates over food quality and diets, requiring recurring crises to trigger any action. The book focuses on the adoption of coal tar dyes (aniline and azo dyes) as food colourings from the 1870s and the patchy and cautious scientific and regulatory responses to 1914. Initially developed for colouring textiles, the new dyes interested food manufacturers looking to create products with a consistent, even ‘naturalistic’, appearance appealing to consumers. Their use was part of the emergence of volume production and distribution and more advanced technologies in the food trades. Although very obvious in vivid colours, such as reds in confectionery or yellows in margarine and butter, the presence of specific chemicals was harder to detect or quantify scientifically. The consequences of consuming colourings and food preservatives for extended periods were equally indeterminate so there was no agreed risk. Instead, dyes added to long-running debates over food adulteration, food quality and relationships between diets and health. Public policy responded weakly, reacting to sporadic exposes of risks to consumers, to episodes of poisonings or severe illnesses and to disputes between suppliers of rival products such as margarine and butter. Generally, food colourings received limited attention from scientists and even more infrequent interest from politicians and administrators. Inertia and gradualism were the norms.
Source: Social History of Medicine
DOI: 10.1093/shm/hkac024
Author: Michael French
Institution: University of Glasgow
Language: English
Topic: Dye analysis and toxicity
Subfield: Analytical Chemistry
Field: Chemistry
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4226199592