In british accent - Ello ello ello, you got a permit for those sprinkles?

Yes that’s right, stop the presses, shoot the messenger hawks, we’ve got a crime worthy of the front page of every news publisher in the world - A UK bakery is going to stop making its best-selling cookies, because it was using illegal sprinkles as the topping. Not to be overdramatic, but I’d say the damage that the loss of this cookie will cause to society is on-par, if not greater, than the loss of the Library of Alexandria. I mean books can be rewritten, but will we ever reclaim the taste of their popular Raspberry Glazed Donut Cookie? You’ve got to respect the owner of the bakery’s stance on this:

So this brings up the question, how exactly can sprinkles be illegal? Well this bakery was caught using american sprinkles, which contain the red food colouring E127, which the use of is heavily restricted in the UK, EU and Australia. E127 was banned from most foods (except cherries and dog food for some reason?) because the colouring is thought to have a negative effect on attention and behaviour. It’s also cancerous, so it’s honestly shocking that it’s still allowed to be put in any food at all. Imagine getting cancer and mental health issues from the overconsumption of cherries.

How exactly does the evil red E127 produce this effect? Well like a lot of things in science, it’s not completely clear, but there are a number of mechanisms. First of all, it turns out that Joe Biden’s forced feminisation scheme hinges on red food dye, because it can apparently bind to estrogen receptors (although this study was done in the context of breast cancer cells, so it might not be applicable to the rest of the body). This study also found that E127 can cause cancer damage by inducing p53-DNA binding (p53 is basically the big cancer gene). E127 also appears to be cytotoxic, and can bind directly to DNA, and can be toxic to human lymphocytes (which are immune cells) in-vitro (in isolated cells).

If cancer wasn’t a big enough of a bummer, E127 also may have an effect on male reproduction, having been found to impact the production of sperm, the quality of the sperm produced, and the genes that the sperm are carrying, in mice.

As for the effects on attention and behaviour, the results are mixed. So the first problem with this hypothesis is that it was essentially created by a conman in 1977 trying to sell a book. In 1973, Dr. Benjamin Feingold presented the claim that childhood hyperactivity and learning problems are caused by the consumption of certain foods and additives. Low and behold, he also happened to figure out a diet free of these substances, which he claimed successfully treated 60 to 70%, which he wrote a best-selling book on titled “Why Your Child is Hyperactive”. Shockingly, a later meta-analysis on his work found that his effect size was too small to make any conclusions from, and that even if you were to make any conclusions, it would be that diet modification is not an effective intervention for hyperactivity.

However, later studies did find that E127 and other food colourings did have a small effect on child hyperactivity, regardless of whether or not the child met the diagnostic criteria for ADHD. So, as this review article concluded, food dye is less of an ADHD problem, and more of a public health problem.

As far as I can tell it’s unclear how exactly E127 has an effect on attention, since the chemical seems to affect the function of so many different systems in the body. But it may be caused by: the inhibition of serotonin neuron function, impacting liver function, causing histamine release by degranulating mast cells, mimicking the effects of corticosterone, or by any of the cancerous effects that I mentioned above, OR by effects that I haven’t listed because this food dye is apparently straight-up poison.

So the UK government was absolutely justified in putting a stop to this bakery using E127 containing sprinkles on their cookies. But I don’t know, maybe numerous health risks are just the cost of having good looking sprinkles. As the owner of the bakery eloquently put it: