Foods

Dyes in cookies and biscuits

Cookies are colored by their fillings, icings and sprinkles rather than their dough, and that is where Red 3 still shows up.

Search labeled products by category and dye

Cookies: products whose label lists a tracked dye or additive

3,586 of 14,740

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USDA FoodData Central, Branded Foods, release of 2026-10-29. The label date is when the record was submitted: recipes change, so check the package in your hand.

Of the 14,740 cookies and biscuits in the USDA data, 24% name a tracked substance. The four main certified colors are close to one another, Yellow 5 at 17%, Red 40 at 17%, Blue 1 at 15% and Yellow 6 at 15%, because colored cookies usually combine several. The notable figure is Red 3: it appears on 11% of cookie labels, one of the highest rates of any category, mostly in pink icings, sandwich creams and holiday sprinkles. Those products must change before January 15, 2027, when the FDA order removes Red 3 from food, and two weeks earlier in California. Titanium dioxide, on 8%, whitens icings and fillings. Plain cookies, butter biscuits and most chocolate chip cookies list none of these.

How common is this ingredient in a food category?

Cookies whose label lists Red 40

17%

Products listing it2,478
Products in the category14,740

USDA FoodData Central, Branded Foods; labels were submitted over several years and recipes change.

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Seasonal products

Many of the most colored cookies are seasonal and are filed with USDA under a separate barcode each year, so the count of distinct products is higher than the number of lines on a store shelf at any time. The search above shows each label's month. The FDA phase-out page explains what is required by order and what is only requested.

What the labels list, substance by substance

14,740 products, 14,739 with an ingredient list; USDA FoodData Central, Branded Foods, release of October 29, 2026.
SubstanceProductsShare of the category
Red 402,47816.8%
Red 31,61010.9%
Yellow 52,56017.4%
Yellow 62,21715.0%
Blue 12,24415.2%
Blue 21,0697.3%
Green 390.1%
Potassium bromate630.4%
Propylparaben380.3%
Titanium dioxide1,1397.7%
BHA1350.9%

Questions people ask

How many cookies products were counted, and how recent are their labels?

14,740 products, one per barcode, from the USDA FoodData Central Branded Foods release of October 29, 2026. 3,586 of them list at least one of the 14 substances tracked here. Most labels in the data set were filed in 2021 to 2023, so recipes may have changed since.

Which dye is listed most often in cookies?

Yellow 5, on 2,560 labels or 17.4% of the category, followed by Red 40 (2,478) and Blue 1 (2,244). A product often lists several at once, so the counts overlap. The table on this page gives every tracked substance. Counts come from the labels, not from tests of the products themselves.

Are cookies with these dyes legal to sell?

Yes, in stores, except for substances whose federal date has passed, such as BVO, or will pass, such as Red 3 on January 15, 2027, and from January 1, 2027 for the four substances of California's Food Safety Act in that state. School rules in several states limit what schools serve or sell, not what stores sell.

Check next

Foods with Red 40

Search US products whose label lists Red 40 or another tracked dye, by category, from USDA FoodData Central, with each label's date.

Ingredient list checker

Paste an ingredient list: every tracked dye or additive found, by FD&C name, lake, E or INS number, with its status in your state.

Dye laws by state

Pick a state and a dye or additive: the FDA rule, every state law that names it, and the date each one starts.

Natural food colors

The colors exempt from certification that replace synthetic dyes, the new ones the FDA approved since 2025, and two still on hold.

Laws and official pages behind this page

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Independent publisher of a state-by-state tracker of food dye and additive laws in the United States, with an ingredient-list checker built on USDA FoodData Central

Laws and FDA orders checked on · Editorial policy · Contact

Food dye and additive rules 2026, read in each state law and in the Federal Register, last checked on