We are making an effort to eat healthier. Not that we eat that horribly (really) but let’s just say there’s room for improvement. So what prompted this health kick? Well, I read several articles in the past two weeks that got me thinking about the connection between food and not only our physical health, but also our emotional and behavioral health. I refer specifically to the suggestion that food dyes contribute to hyperactivity and other behavioral problems in children. (Pretty much every major news source ran a version of this article recently; you can check out two links here and here.) The short story is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined this issue needs to be “evaluated” further before specific recommendations can be made (click here).
Well, the FDA’s indecisiveness notwithstanding, eliminating food dyes seemed to make intuitive sense to me . . . and I figured it couldn’t *hurt* . . . but I had no idea where to start. I asked around and Googled a bit and discovered the following:
A good overall resource on not only food dyes but also food additives in general can be found at The Center for Science in the Public Interest.
I also recommend checking out this website about Red 40 for a list of foods containing FD&C Red 40, just one of the primary culprits. Some are obvious (Skittles, anyone?), some not so much (vanilla frosting? really?).
Another good resource for an amateur like myself has been The Feingold Diet. An excellent overview can be here. In addition, a list of symptoms that may be helped can be found here.
We’ve commenced with Step 1: remove “colors with numbers” from our diet. In other words, anything we purchase that has FD&C #X on it must get booted from the grocery list. This will eliminate some of the processed foods we buy, although there will be several remaining on our pantry shelves. Sigh. But it’s an easy and relatively painless start. I cannot believe we didn’t try this sooner. (To my crunchy friends: I hang my head in shame.) So far I’ve only discovered a few items I’m a little sad over “losing” . . . a certain flavor of crackers, pancake mix, and some instant jello pudding (goodbye pumpkin spice pie, I’ll miss you, sniff). I did willingly toss the food coloring bottles that lived in my kitchen for an unknown number of years, as well as some “sprinkles” . . . festive but completely unnecessary.
To be honest, I’m not sure what our next step will be. However, I will periodically blog about our efforts over the next several months. Stay tuned.
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