Food & Kitchen
Food dyes, cans, and what you store and cook food in — the three questions that account for most of what parents ask us about the kitchen.
What makes this department different
The kitchen is where labels are most readable and most misleading at the same time. An ingredient list is a real disclosure; the claims on the front of the box mostly are not.
An environmental risk score for your ZIP.
Water quality, radon zone, air quality and wildfire risk for every major metro and ZIP code — pulled from EPA SDWIS, AirNow and the USFS, not estimated.
Tell me when it launches
One email when the ZIP lookup goes live. Nothing else.
Why this department exists
Numbers worth knowing
the deadline for food makers to remove FD&C Red No. 3 - the only dye deadline with a rule behind it
FDA to Revoke Authorization for the Use of FD&C Red No. 3, 2025
Which dyes are actually leavingmore petroleum-based dyes are going by request only - no revoked authorization, no compliance date
FDA, HHS and FDA to Phase Out Petroleum-Based Synthetic Dyes from the Nation's Food Supply, 2025
Read the panel, not the boxof Americans aged 6 and over had detectable BPA in their urine, in the first nationally representative measurement
Where BPA actually isEvery figure here links its source. We don't cite a statistic we haven't read in the original.
Start here
What's in Food & Kitchen
Food Dyes
Artificial dyes, the 2025-2027 regulatory phase-out, and dye-free alternatives.
13 guides · 27 products
Free change first: Read the ingredient panel, not the front of the box.
- ExplainerRed Dye 3: Is It Banned, and What Does the 2027 Deadline Mean?
- ShoppingThe Red Dye 3 cheat sheet
- ExplainerRed Dye 40: What It Is, Which Foods Have It, and Is It Banned?
- ShoppingCandy without Red Dye 40
BPA & Canned Food
BPA in can linings and safer pantry choices.
7 guides · 26 products
Free change first: Choose fresh or frozen where you can — no can lining to ask about.
- ShoppingCheat Sheet: BPA-free canned food
- ShoppingBPA-Free Canned Tomatoes? What Each Brand Says About Its Lining
- ShoppingBPA-Free Canned Salmon and Tuna
- ShoppingBPA-Free Sardines: What Each Brand Says About Its Cans
Food Storage
Non-toxic storage, sippy cups, and lunch gear.
6 guides · 20 products
Free change first: Never microwave in plastic — move it to glass or ceramic first.
- ShoppingSafer Cookware Cheatsheet
- ShoppingSafer Ice Pop and Popsicle Molds: What the Material Actually Tells You
- ShoppingLead-free dishes: what you can actually verify
- ShoppingSafer lunch gear cheat sheet
Know the risks
Room by room
The same products, sorted by where they actually sit in your home — what tends to be a problem in each room, and the swap worth making first.
Print and go
Cheat sheets for this department
Worth reading
Related
Read the back, not the front
The ingredient list is the part of the package that has to be accurate. The front is marketing, and most of the words on it — including several that sound like standards — are not defined by anyone in particular.
If you only change one habit in this department, make it that one. The Label Dye Checker exists because that specific list is tedious to scan by eye.
Storage and cooking are their own question
What food touches on the way to the plate is a separate matter from what is in it, and it is often the easier thing to change. Containers, cookware and the lids on everything get their own guide rather than being folded into the food itself.
What changed recently gets said
Regulation in this department moves, and when it does we would rather update a page than leave a confident sentence standing that was true two years ago. Where something changed, the guide says when and what.
Every source we cite is checked against our criteria first — see how we check our sources.