In accordance with the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, Health and Human Services has banned artificial food dyes from the nation’s food supply. That decision had brands scrambling to reformulate their products. One of those companies is Mars, which produces Skittles, Starbursts and M&Ms. Now that the company has new dye-free versions of the candies, you may be wondering how they’ve changed.
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If you’ve ever confused a grape-flavored Skittle for brown, the artificial dye-free version will make things much clearer with its lighter, clearly purple exterior. The trend continues with other colors, too. The dye-free red, orange, yellow and green are all lighter, with an almost chalky or cloudy-looking finish compared to their more saturated, shiny original counterparts. In terms of taste, there’s no detectable difference. Those who have tried them say the texture seems a bit different, but hardly noticeable. |
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| Both versions of Starburst were securely snuggled inside identically colored wrappers, but once opened side-by-side, the color matching was a Star-BUST. Similar to the Skittles, the dye-free versions were lighter than the iconic pink, red, orange and yellow sugary squares we're used to seeing. Despite the less saturated color, the taste didn’t change. |
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| If you’re a fan of blue and brown M&Ms, you’ll be disappointed opening a bag of artificial dye-free M&Ms — both colors are missing. Mars previously warned about this omission, noting that the blue and brown M&Ms were not able to be replicated in the dye-free versions. Of the remaining dye-free colors, red and yellow were a close match to the originals, while green and orange were more muted. Fortunately, there’s absolutely no difference in the taste, much to the delight of M&Ms fans. |
Now for the bad news: Don't expect to see these candies in your Halloween basket this year. While all were launched by parent company Mars in summer 2026, they're currently only available for purchase through Amazon, so you won't see them on store shelves. In addition, they’re only available in family size bags, so there won’t be any individually wrapped treats for trick-or-treaters.
