informing teachers about food dyes

As my children get ready to go back to school this week, I am composing a letter to the teachers. I like to introduce our family and tell a little about my child's interests, but I will also be making my preference to keep my children "dye free" known in writing. I am hopeful that having the preference known in writing will help prevent problems. I also found it helpful last year to voice the concern out loud to other parents at the "meet the teacher" night and request that it be treated as a food allergy. We had many parents who did remember about the need to be "dye free" when they chose birthday treats for their own child's party. Some went to great lengths to make sure my son had a dye free snack.

My letter to the teacher will go something like this:

Dear teacher,

I wanted to let you know that my child is not able to eat anything with the following artificial food coloring ingredients: red #40, yellow #5, yellow #6 and blue #1. These petroleum based chemicals have been found to negatively affect children by provoking emotional and behavioral responses. The response to these chemicals can last up to 3 full days. These food colorings are banned in Brittan and other countries, since research has proven their ill effects on children. As I want my child to be at his best for school work, I hope you will assist me in making sure that my child does not consume any artificially colored products in class. I will be happy to provide alternate treats so that my son can enjoy treats with the class. If you could please let me know of any special parties or activities in advance, I will be happy to send in appropriate substitutions for my child. I have collected a great deal of information and research on this topic on my blog: fooddyediaries.blogspot.com. You could also say: I have found a blog that explains more information and research about food dyes.

Lets hope for safe eating and a successful dye free school year!

dye free lollipops at Amazon

My friend found Yummy Earth on sale at Amazon. They have really good dye free candy. The Amazon link actually has a video where you can watch how they make them. The kids enjoyed hearing them talk about how they don't use red #40 and all that yucky stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HDK0D2/ref=s9_top_bw_tr01?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-7-1&pf_rd_r=1FM3S25V0V7A2X4TFNNB&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=482672651&pf_rd_i=51537011

Feingold on youtube

Why is your child irritable, angry, hyper or upset? This is really worth checking out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uptp94xLchk
Feingold has short video clips on youtube about food dyes and reasons to avoid them. This is a nice clip to pass along to teachers or family members who do not understand about keeping children off food dyes. Pass this along to anyone who is interested!

surprising dye free cereal

While shopping at Kroger today we noticed a large display at the end of an aisle of a new line of natural cereals from Mom's Naturals. They actually have an all natural substitute for Lucky Charms, only without the junk. No kidding. I always loved them as a kid, so of course we bought them and tried them already. Picking the crunchy little marshmallows is still just as fun, only now without all the side effects of the dyes. Here's a link to the company where you can even get coupons: http://www.momsbestnaturals.com/all-natural-products/mallow-oats.php

I've heard that the demand for natural foods has finally increased such that companies are able to produce foods in larger quantities pushing the price down. Kroger is now offering more and more natural foods because the lower prices also make it more likely the average Kroger shopper will buy them. Isn't that a nice change.

imagine paint poured over a cookie

That's what the snack at daycare looked like today. I should have taken a picture. They apparently mixed food coloring (the entire bottle from the looks of it) with sweetened condensed milk and poured it over a pan of bar cookies. I planned ahead and expected myself to forget to pack the cookies this morning so I packed up my own plain old chocolate chip cookies ahead of time and already had them in a bag in the car (Luckily it's been cool here). That way when I walked into the daycare kitchen this morning and saw today's cookies, all I had to do was go back to the car to get safe cookies for my kids. I wonder how many kids are going to be cranked up all weekend? At least it won't be mine.

I also think it's time to search for new info on how many countries have actually banned food dyes and their reasons for doing so. Of course I'll post whatever I find on that, but I'm thinking I need to print it out and hand it to the director of my daycare/summercamp/preschool just for good measure.

So today's lesson about avoiding dyes at day care. Always look ahead at the menu and always have a safe snack.

what are the odds of this?

We rarely eat any restaurant food anymore. It's just easier not to. However, tonight Alex had a cello recital and we wanted to celebrate how well he played, so we stopped at McDonald's. We were originally only going to get fries, but Ben wanted a chocolate shake and that sounded good so we both got one. I was driving home drinking my shake when I suddenly found myself chewing on a piece of strawberry. Just as I was starting to grumble, Ben says, "Mom I think my shake tastes like strawberry."

You know what that means. McDonalds only has strawberries with red #40 in them. Of course they make dye free strawberry sauce for Britan. If you have not read my whole blog then you may not know that food dyes are banned in Britain and other countries. Those countries acknowledge the research that indicates negative health effects on children from consuming food dyes. I'm still wondering how our own FDA gets away with ignoring the same research and allowing neurotoxins in our food.

In the mean time, I'm trying an experiment. I told Ben I'll pay him 5 dollars if he shows no sign of irritability, defiance or the other negative results of food dyes for the next 3 days. I'm curious if he's old enough to summon the effort to over-ride it. We'll see how I do too. My guess is that Friday and Saturday will the "hot days." So the contest is on to see who can keep their cool longer, me or my son.

How is this legal?

I was cleaning through m medicine cabinet last week when my boys had poison ivy. I came across a package of Benadryl tablets that look hot pink and contain. D & C red #27. I found that interesting as I know only red #40 and Red #33 are approved for food. Tuns out this one's in lipstick and lip gloss despite it being known as a neurotoxin. Check out the link I found about that: http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ingredient.php?ingred06=701794&nothanks=1

Now obviously I threw it all out before anyone in my family could accidentally take it, but how many people take that on a regular basis? Hmmmm.