Tuesdays I try and put up something worth talking over. Here goes nothing…
I had heard other people say something about red dye and their kids’ insanity. I thought THEY were nuts. Until Keeley went bonkers about 20 minutes after eating fruit loops. Major bonkers, not just a normal bonkers. The next morning, same thing. The third day I figured it out. It had to be the cereal, and she was eating 2 bowls of it (little bowls, but still). So I gave Matt the rest of it and tried the other cereal we had bought with a coupon. Same results. WTH? Then I remembered, ohhh yeah. Label check. Yup. Red dye #40. I guess there’s something to be said for natural stuff, huh? Lots of our food has that red dye in it. When I mentioned it on facebook, I got several shouts outs of ‘oh gosh, they have it banned in other countries’.. REALLY? Ugh. Why still use something that is banned in other countries?
So I check the label on almost everything. She can’t have any fruity cereal, but I did find out that the goldfish crackers RAINBOW COLORS! are dyed with watermelon extract and so on. YESSS!!! Her fruit pops (made with real fruit) also have dye in them, as do the fruit snack generics, so I’m eating those when she doesn’t see me to get rid of them and I guess we’ll look for alternatives. In answer to your silent question, she hasn’t had the huge mood swings since I started doing this.
Do you know anyone with a dye sensitivity? Is my kid just crazy and I’m in denial? Go ahead, talk about it!
Hmmm…I am pretty skeptical about this type of thing, to be honest. I should try it on my little Hulk, though, and see if I notice any difference.
That’s cool that you’ve found something that seems to be helping.
You aren’t alone! And it is not just red dye — all the artificial dyes (Usually labeled FD&C___) are bad. They are made from crude oil and our kids should avoid them. There’s a cool support group that parents organized years ago that tells you all about it. It’s called the Feingold Assoc. We started the diet years ago. Huge difference in our son.
We used to call it ‘asshole powder’. As in, ‘hey, I think this cereal has asshole powder in it, it turned Lyssa into an asshole within about 20 minutes.’
Yep. All sorts of food dyes made her weird. Matt, not so much.
I hate that there are so many horrible additives in our foods. With my allergy to MSG, I am really, really careful, but they sneak it in under other words.