Red 3, formally known as FD&C Red No. 3 or erythrosine, is a synthetic food dye that gives foods and drinks a bright cherry-red color. It has been used in the United States for decades in products like candy, cakes, frozen desserts, and certain medications. In January 2025, the FDA moved to revoke its authorization for use in food and ingested drugs, making it one of the most talked-about food additives in recent memory.
Where Red 3 Shows Up
Red 3 has been primarily used in candy, cakes and cupcakes, cookies, frozen desserts, frostings, and icings. If you’ve eaten a bright red maraschino cherry, a festively colored holiday cookie, or certain brands of candy corn, there’s a good chance Red 3 was responsible for the color. It also appears in some ingested drugs, where it serves no purpose other than making pills and liquid medications look more appealing.
The dye was already banned from cosmetics and topical products in the United States back in 1990 due to cancer concerns. For over 30 years after that ban, it remained legal in food, a regulatory gap that drew increasing criticism from consumer advocacy groups.
The Thyroid Tumor Concern
The core safety issue with Red 3 is its link to thyroid tumors. Studies in male rats found that high doses of erythrosine caused follicular cell tumors in the thyroid. Under a provision of U.S. food safety law known as the Delaney Clause, any additive shown to cause cancer in humans or animals cannot be approved for use in food. This was actually the same legal basis used to pull Red 3 from cosmetics in 1990.
The doses that caused tumors in rats were far higher than what any person would typically consume. The international acceptable daily intake set by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives is extremely low: 0 to 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. For a 150-pound adult, that works out to roughly 7 milligrams per day. This limit was reconfirmed as recently as 2018 after reviewing new data.
Whether Red 3 poses a meaningful cancer risk to humans at normal dietary levels remains debated. But the legal standard in the U.S. doesn’t require proof of harm at typical doses. If the substance causes cancer in any animal at any dose, it technically cannot be authorized.
Effects on Children’s Behavior
Beyond cancer, Red 3 is part of a broader conversation about artificial food colors and children’s behavior. Animal studies have shown that erythrosine can interfere with serotonin activity in the brain and affect stress hormone levels, both pathways that could influence behavior without the dye even needing to cross the blood-brain barrier directly.
A large meta-analysis of 24 double-blind, placebo-controlled studies found that artificial food colors as a group have a small but statistically significant negative effect on children’s behavior. The effect size was modest, and researchers noted it wasn’t limited to children with ADHD. The finding suggested artificial food dyes are more of a general public health concern than something specific to any one diagnosis. Red 3 was one of several dyes studied, so isolating its individual contribution is difficult, but it belongs to the same chemical family under scrutiny.
The Path to a Federal Ban
California passed the California Food Safety Act in 2023, banning Red 3 in foods sold in the state effective 2027. That move reignited national debate and prompted 24 organizations to push for federal action. The FDA’s decision to revoke authorization followed, applying to both food and ingested drugs nationwide.
The revocation doesn’t take effect overnight. Manufacturers have been given time to reformulate their products, which means you may still see Red 3 on ingredient labels during a transition period. Foods already on shelves aren’t being recalled.
How Other Countries Handle It
The European Union has taken a far more restrictive approach for years. Red 3 is authorized only in a very narrow set of food categories, primarily cocktail cherries, candied cherries, and bigarreau cherries in syrup. Maximum levels are capped at 150 to 200 milligrams per kilogram depending on the product. You won’t find it in European candy, cakes, or frozen desserts the way it has been used in the U.S.
What’s Replacing It
Food manufacturers are turning to natural pigments to fill the gap. Anthocyanins, the compounds that give blackberries, red cabbage, and grapes their deep colors, are one of the most promising alternatives. Researchers at Ohio State University have developed modified versions of these pigments called pyranoanthocyanins that hold up better under heat, light, and exposure to common additives like vitamin C, which has historically been a weakness of natural colorants. These compounds can produce stable shades of red, orange, and yellow suitable for commercial food production.
Other natural options include beet juice concentrate and carmine, a red pigment derived from cochineal insects. Many “clean label” brands have already been using these alternatives for years, so the transition is less a technological leap and more a matter of wider industry adoption. The color may look slightly different from the bright cherry red that Red 3 produced, but functionally, the replacements work.
How to Spot It on Labels
Until products are fully reformulated, Red 3 can appear on ingredient lists under several names: FD&C Red No. 3, Red 3, Red Dye 3, erythrosine, or the European designation E127. If you’re trying to avoid it during the transition period, checking the ingredient panel is the only reliable method. “Artificially colored” on the front of a package doesn’t tell you which specific dyes are inside.