Is This Even Food?

By Chris Joseph and Marji Keith

Under consumer and political pressure, Kraft Heinz recently removed artificial dyes from some of its most iconic products, including Jell-O, Kool-Aid, and Lunchables. Headlines framed the move as progress—a step toward “cleaner” food. But the change was reactive, not proactive. The company didn’t reformulate until it had to, and even then, the update was more about optics than substance.

Removing dyes like Red 40 and Yellow 5 is not the same as creating nutritious, whole-food products. It simply makes highly processed foods look slightly less artificial. The fundamental issues remain: Jell-O and similar products are still industrially manufactured substances made primarily of sugar, synthetic flavorings, and chemical additives.

Here is what’s in a standard box of dye-free Jell-O:

• Sugar

• Gelatin

• Adipic acid (a synthetic acidulant derived from petrochemicals)

• Disodium phosphate (a synthetic buffering agent)

• Artificial flavor

• “Natural” colorings (e.g., beet juice or turmeric, depending on the variety)

Even without artificial dye, nearly every ingredient on this list raises questions—not only about health, but about whether these ingredients should even be considered food.

In his book, In Defense of Food, author Michael Pollan draws a simple distinction: food is something your great-grandmother would recognize as food. If it comes in a box with a long ingredient list, contains items you can’t grow, cook, or pronounce, or requires a lab to create, it may not be food at all. Pollan challenges us to stop confusing food with what he calls “edible food-like substances.”

Jell-O, in any form, fits squarely in that category. Its components are chemically processed, nutritionally empty, and exist solely to mimic flavor, texture, and appearance. Artificial flavors are not made from fruit—they’re synthesized in a lab to imitate it. Disodium phosphate and adipic acid are not culinary ingredients—they’re industrial ones.

The human body was not designed to metabolize this type of input. These substances weren’t part of our evolutionary diet. They offer no vitamins, minerals, fiber, or phytonutrients, and they do not nourish. Instead, they contribute to the growing body of ultra-processed foods linked to obesity, metabolic dysfunction, inflammation, and chronic diseases like autoimmunity and cancer.

Even sugar-free versions of Jell-O, often marketed as a “healthier” choice, contain synthetic sweeteners like aspartame or maltodextrin—additives that spike blood sugar, disrupt the microbiome, and stress liver detox pathways.

It is important not to confuse a shorter or more natural-sounding ingredient list with nutritional value. A dye-free label may be reassuring, but it doesn’t mean the product supports health. It simply means one problematic ingredient was replaced with another that sounds more familiar.

This is a common pattern in modern food marketing—or perhaps more accurately, the marketing of non-foods. Packages often boast about what’s not included: soy-free, gluten-free, egg-free, vegan. But absence is not the same as presence. The exclusion of a known allergen or synthetic dye doesn’t make a product nutritious. It doesn’t even make it food.

There’s a risk that minimal changes like removing yellow number 7, create a false sense of healthfulness for well-meaning shoppers trying to do better. A cleaner label may seem like progress, but it can also obscure the fact that the product underneath is still industrially engineered, nutritionally poor, and unnecessary.

This isn’t just a criticism of Kraft Heinz, it’s a call for greater awareness.

If we are to truly support health—our own and our families’—we must become more skilled at reading labels. That means pausing to ask: Is this something I would find on a farm or in a home kitchen? Is it something I can cook with? Do I know what it is, or what it does in the body?

If the answer is no, we should be cautious. Because many of these substances may not be food at all. They are non-foods—edible simulations that confuse our biology and overwhelm our systems.

As Pollan famously wrote, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” But before we can eat real food, we have to know how to recognize it. That starts with curiosity, awareness, and a willingness to question the marketing messages that tell us otherwise.