Tag: Red 4

Made from crushed cochineal beetles, red #4 is not a vegan ingredient. This natural red dye is derived from insects and is used in a variety of foods, beverages, and cosmetic products.

It takes approximately 70,000 cochineal beetles to produce just one pound of the vibrant red dye known as carmine. This fact makes answering the question, "Is Red 4 vegan?" far more complex than many realize, as this insect-derived ingredient is also known as Natural Red 4 and E120.

In 1976, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the synthetic dye FD&C Red No. 4 from all ingestible products due to safety concerns raised by scientific studies. The answer to whether red number 4 is bad, however, depends entirely on which version of the color additive you are asking about, a crucial distinction that most people are not aware of.