‘No one is saying, ‘I want more cancer with my candy”: Why Peeps are a ‘food chemical success story’ despite RFK Jr’s campaign to destroy their dyes

For years every Easter and spring season, Americans stuff their baskets with Peeps, these little neon marshmallow chicks (and sometimes bunnies) coated in petroleum-based synthetic dyes that the FDA has not formally reviewed for safety since (depending on the color) the 1960s, ’70s, or ’80s. For Scott Faber, senior vice president at the Environmental Working Group, that makes the humble Peep something unexpected: a symbol of progress.

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“Peeps are a food chemical success story,” Faber told Fortune while trying to stifle a chuckle, before adding: “I’m sure no one has said those words before.”

But he meant it seriously. When California passed Assembly Bill 418 in 2023—the law that opponents incorrectly dubbed the “Skittles bill”—Just Born, the maker of Peeps which did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment, was one of the first candy companies to commit to removing Red Dye 3, a synthetic color linked to cancer. “They moved faster than any other company,” Faber said, “and showed that companies can quickly reformulate when they’re required to do so.”

Required. That word is doing a lot of work in the food dye debate right now, and it sits at the center of a major argument over whether MAHA’s approach to cleaning up the American food supply is working.

The Peeps paradox

The candy at the center of this policy fight is, by almost any objective measure, controversial on its own, before anyone mentions a single dye.

New Curion research conducted in February 2026 and drawn from three separate polls totaling more than 19,000 U.S. consumers shows the “Peeps paradox.” Nearly half the country (comprised of 24.2% who love them and 23.3% who like them) hold positive feelings toward the candy. The other side is equally committed: 17.4% don’t like them, 8.1% actively hate them. However, when Curion surveyed more than 8,000 consumers on why they purchase Peeps, personal taste barely made the list. Nearly one-third (32.9%) cited holiday tradition as their primary motivation. Another 28.4% buy them as basket fillers or gifts. Nostalgia drove 23.4% of purchases, and 25.2% buy them for family members who enjoy them. In short, Peeps are less a snack than a seasonal obligation, purchased out of ritual by people who may not eat a single one.

But it was the color, not the texture or taste, that first made Peeps a public health target. In April 2023, Consumer Reports alerted consumers that pink and purple Peeps contained Red Dye No. 3, a synthetic color it described as a known carcinogen, one that had been banned from cosmetics since 1990 due to cancer effects observed in rats, yet remained permitted in food. By 2024, Just Born had removed Red Dye 3 from its formulas. The yellow Peep still contains Yellow 5. The blue ones still contain Blue 1. The neon palette that defines the brand, and the tradition, and the ritual, and the hate, remains largely intact, for now, and that’s because nothing is required to change.

The FDA is making it voluntary

The Make America Healthy Again movement, led by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has called petroleum-based synthetic dyes a public health crisis. But Faber is blunt about what MAHA has actually accomplished at the federal level: nothing. “So far, and I’m underlining so far, the FDA has not banned a single chemical from any of our food,” he said. “It’s been the states that have been leading the way.”

That isn’t entirely a criticism of MAHA. Faber acknowledges that state laws in California, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Texas have created something the food industry privately welcomes: some guidelines. “Food industry leaders are celebrating because someone has finally established a floor,” he said. “Companies aren’t going to create two versions of their food: one for West Virginia and one for the rest of us. In part because other states are starting to follow suit.” Without a floor, he argued, it’s a race to the bottom. Kellogg’s won’t voluntarily drop synthetic colors as long as General Mills still uses them, for example.

The deeper problem, in Faber’s view, is structural. “The FDA has been asleep at the switch for many decades,” he said. “They’ve allowed the vast majority of new food chemicals to enter commerce without being reviewed for safety, and they rarely, if ever, review the chemicals we’re already eating.” Americans eat thousands of chemicals that cannot be added to food in other countries, Faber said, not because the science cleared them, but because no one checked.

At odds with what’s actually safe

Sean McBride, founder of DSM Strategic Communications and former executive vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, sees the same gap, but draws the opposite conclusion. If RFK Jr. believes these dyes are poisoning children, McBride argued, the law requires him to act like it.

“If you determine that a certain food ingredient is poison or is poisoning people, you would be obligated to move heaven and earth to somehow take care of that