I’m going to share a personal story here about my own observations of the effect of food dye on my own child. It turns out that there is a fair amount of research out about these dangers, and other countries have actually outlawed the use of the very same dyes that are used in American foods mostly marketed to children! After church yesterday we went to eat at Chili’s and my little boy sees a “blue” colored drink on the kids’ menu. When we order from the kids’ menu he usually orders real food and apple juice. But, in a moment of weakness and simply a desire for our child to try something new, we allowed him to order it. What we observed in our child over the next 3-4 hours was interesting and disturbing to say the very least. You’ve heard the expression “bouncing off the walls”…it was that times 10. He was literally a different child. He couldn’t listen, he couldn’t stop talking, and certainly couldn’t sit still. My husband and I just watched him wide-eyed. Now, our little guy is almost 6, so he’s normally wild and loves to run & play and have fun like a little boy should, but this was craziness. It was SO evident to me that this blue drink had completely changed his chemistry…brain chemistry, and led to a complete personality and behavioral change. Immediately, I sat him down as best I could and I pointed out to him what was happening, I want him to be aware of how a simple food/drink choice had massive consequences in his life…and he recognized it, too! I share this story with you to say that perhaps he was effected like this because we’ve avoided most dyes in his life up to this point…BUT how many children are exposed to these chemicals daily and their parents have no idea how it’s effecting them. Worse yet, how many children receive a label of a diagnosis that may be based on their diet more than anything else. If you want to read more, here are some resources. This is just 1 small example of why we should eat things that are REAL and not artificial!
57 page report on the most common food dyes used in the USA: https://cspinet.org/resource/food-dyes-rainbow-risks.
Scientific Journal entry: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261955/.
The Feingold program was developed to help parents eliminate the foods and products full of artificial ingredients that may be effecting their child’s health and/or behavior in a negative way: https://feingold.org