Local businesses react to Senate Bill 4, proposed food additives ban

A bill is making its way through the legislature that would ban synthetic ingredients like food dyes and chemicals.

Senate Bill 4 would prohibit any person or entity from manufacturing, selling, brewing, or distributing certain dyes and substances in food products as outlined in the measure. The measure directs the State Board of Agriculture to promulgate rules to enforce the provisions of the bill.

News On 6's Sam Carrico spoke to a local business that sells items with some of those ingredients.

Q: What ingredients would the bill ban?

A: It would not allow food in Oklahoma to have additives like red dye 40 and Aspartame, or require warning labels that say the food contains those ingredients.

Q: Where does the proposed bill stand now?

A: Lawmakers are still working out the final wording before the bill goes to the Senate floor. If passed, the law would take effect November 1st.

Q: How are local businesses reacting?

Randy Page, the owner of Cricket and Fig Chocolate in Tulsa, says he believes this is a step in the right direction.

"I just absolutely think we as people have changed so much in my lifetime, and I've got to believe that a lot of it has come from a combination of our culture's reliance on pharmaceuticals and on our food chain and the food that we're putting in our bodies and in our children's bodies," he said.

Q: How would your business be affected?

A: Page says there are some ingredients in their food colorings that would need to be changed. "There are some artificial colorings in those bright, beautiful colors that we that we put on the outside of our chocolates," he said.

Q: How would your process change by this?

Randy Page says they've already begun to move away from artificial food additives. This would just expedite the process. "That same company that we buy, the ones we're using that are artificial sourced, that same company makes a line of natural products, and what I see, and they're the price is about the same," he said.

If the bill passes, the state board of Agriculture would enforce it.

What chemicals/dyes would be banned in the bill?

1. Aspartame;
2. Azodicarbonamide (ADA);
3. Blue dye 1;
4. Blue dye 2;
5. Brominated vegetable oil (BVO);
6. Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA);
7. Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT);
8. Ethylene dichloride;
9. Green dye 3; 
10. Methylene chloride;
11. Potassium bromate;
12. Propyl gallate;
13. Propylparaben;
14. Red dye 3;
15. Red dye 40;
16. Sodium benzoate;
17. Sodium nitrate;
18. Titanium dioxide;
19. Trichloroethylene;
20. Yellow dye 5; or
21. Yellow dye 6.