California's 'Skittles ban' doesn't ban Skittles, but you might want to hide your Peeps

So California’s liberal Gov. Gavin Newsom has enacted a law known as the “Skittles Ban,” and it cruelly attacks the four thing all righteous Americans hold dear: brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben and Red Dye 3.

The law will ban the sale, distribution and production of these traditionally delicious food additives, which are used in thousands of products we eagerly put in our mouths. Newsom’s attack on tastiness doesn’t actually impact Skittles – thank the rainbow! – because brave candy advocates persuaded lawmakers to exclude titanium dioxide from the list of banned additives. (Everyone knows it’s the titanium dioxide that gives Skittles their flavorful pop.)

Still, the four unjustly targeted additives will require producers of certain food-like comestibles to change recipes by 2027 if they want to sell their products in the most-populated state in the country.

California's so-called Skittles ban actually goes after Peeps and Yoo-hoo

What kind of newfangled communism is this? And since when does a governor have the power to tell me when and where I can guzzle brominated vegetable oil?

Here are a few of the endangered products: Peeps; Pez; Fruit By the Foot; Hostess Ding Dongs; Brach’s Candy Corn; and Yoo-hoo Strawberry Drink.

THAT’S MY FOOD PYRAMID, YOU NANNY STATE MONSTER!!!

Gavin Newsom's food-additive ban is an assault on my right to junk food

Like most sensible patriots, I start each day pounding five seasonally appropriate Peeps and washing the marshmallow-like goop down with a bottle of Strawberry Yoo-hoo, the only beverage bold enough to look like milk while actually being water and high-fructose corn syrup.

It’s delicious, nutritious-ish and causes an insulin surge that keeps the walls of my arteries in a state of constant inflammation or, as I like to call it, “readiness.”

But Newsom and his propylparaben police want to rob me of that breakfast tradition. Am I now supposed to start eating fruit NOT by the foot?!?

Experts say the 'Skittles ban' will protect us, but what if we don't want protection?

Brian Ronholm, director of food policy at Consumer Reports, said in a statement about the new California law: “We’ve known for years that the toxic chemicals banned under California’s landmark new law pose serious risks to our health. By keeping these dangerous chemicals out of food sold in the state, this groundbreaking law will protect Californians and encourage manufacturers to make food safer for everyone.”

Well, lah-di-dah. I don’t recall asking for government protection from chemicals I don’t understand and didn’t technically realize I’m eating. But if you think knowing that Red Dye 3 has been found to cause cancer in animals and has been banned from use in cosmetics for more than three decades would stop me from making my annual Thanksgiving candy corn casserole, think again.

Look, California, if I’m Hoover-ing Pez into my pie-hole and washing Ding Dongs down with Yoo-hoo, as is my God-given right as a corn-syrup-based citizen of this world, I’ve pretty much committed to a ride-or-die lifestyle.

So you’re going to have to pry the Peeps and potassium bromate from my cold, dead, Red-Dye-3-stained hands. Which, according to these actuarial tables, you should be able to do in about a month and a half.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on X, formerly Twitter, @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk