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A month after food bloggers Vani Hari and Lisa Leake launched a Change.org petition calling on Kraft Foods to remove artificial dyes Yellow #5 and Yellow #6 from Macaroni & Cheese products, the petition is in the hands of Kraft representatives.
Hari, the popular food blogger also known as Food Babe, delivered a petition with more than 270,000 signatures to Kraft’s headquarters in Chicago.
Hari met with Kraft representatives, and following the meeting expressed hope that Kraft would remove the controversial dyes from products sold in the United States.
“In a one-hour meeting with me and Lisa, Kraft told us they ‘can’t predict the future’ of dyes in Macaroni & Cheese,” she wrote in a press release. “I can give them a preview. If Kraft is anything like the hundreds of other companies facing consumer uprising online, they’ll eventually start listening to their customers and work with us to ensure the health and safety of all Kraft Macaroni & Cheese products.”
Hari added that she hopes Kraft will make products sold in the United States as safe as those sold in Europe.Kraft Macaroni & Cheese in other countries such as the United Kingdom do not contain the disputed ingredients.
In Europe, it is mandatory for foods that contain these ingredients to carry a warning label on the packaging. In some countries, such as Austria and Norway, the ingredients have been entirely banned.
“When we started our petition, we knew we wouldn’t be able to change Kraft’s position overnight,” Leake said. “The campaign is one piece of a large-scale food revolutions. People are just starting to learn more about what’s in their food and they don’t like finding out that products they feed to their children contain chemical dyes that Kraft could easily replace with natural substitutes.”
Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant
