California has become the first state in the country to ban the use of four food additives commonly found in thousands of products across the United States, including cereals, soda and candy.
The governor of the state, Gavin Newsom, signed the law that has become popular as “Ban Skittles” on Saturday, but are these sweets really banned?
Will California ban Skittles? What you should know about the new law
The new legislation has been mistakenly called the “Skittles ban” because an earlier version of the bill also included titanium dioxide, a chemical found in Skittles candies, as one of the banned substances.
Although the law no longer mentions titanium dioxide, the “Skittles ban” moniker remains, causing social media to go viral and falsely claim that California will ban Skittles candy.
However, although titanium dioxide is no longer included, the new law mentions a substance found in some Skittles, red dye 3, but that does not mean that dulles will be banned. In addition, the law will not be enforced for several years. Here are more details of the law.
California will officially ban Skittles and other candies from the state starting 2027 as Governor Gavin Newsom signed bill AB 418, also known as The California Food Safety Act.
The bill targets food products that contain the substances brominated vegetable oil, potassium… pic.twitter.com/zzLGp3vyel
— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) October 10, 2023
What does the Food Safety Act consist of?
The California Food Safety Act (AB 148) takes effect on January 1, 2027 and prohibits a person or entity from “manufacturing, selling, delivering, distributing, maintaining or offering for sale, in commerce, a product of food for human consumption containing. any specific ingredient,” according to the text of the law shared by the legislature.
The law includes brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben and red dye 3 in the ban.
Once effective, the bill would punish violations of these provisions with a civil penalty of not more than $5,000 for the first violation and not more than $10,000 for each subsequent violation, in an action brought by the Attorney General, a city attorney, county attorney, or district attorney. lawyer
Which products contain prohibited ingredients?
The four chemicals mentioned above are used in more than 10,000 food products nationwide, including snack foods like Peeps, Brach’s Candy Corn, and Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies.
Red dye is found in Skittles, PediaSure and other products aimed at children, while brominated vegetable oil is commonly used to prepare citrus soft drinks.
Although the use of brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben and red dye 3 is prohibited from 2027, this does not mean that products containing them will disappear or their sale will be prohibited.
The goal is for companies to change their recipes as they do in other places where these substances are banned, such as Europe, Canada, the United Kingdom, Brazil and others.
