what can be done about food dyes?

There are lots of things the average person can do to help with this problem

1. Eliminate dyes from your family's diet. Use your consumer power to buy only dye free products. Don't bring dyed food into the house.


2. Tell your friends/family/neighbors to try going dye free. Let families know they can do something to help their own children and that it really makes a difference.


3. Contact food companies. Make a formal request to take food dyes out of their products. Call or email to do this. Consider calling or emailing Kraft, General Mills, Nestle, etc.


4. Contact grocery chains such as Kroger, Meijer, Walmart, or whatever store you frequent. Let them know you would like to see naturally colored products and suggest your favorite items.


5. Contact restaurant chains like McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King etc. and ask for natural drink choices for kids, pickles that are free of yellow dye, etc.


6. Sign the Petition to ban food dyes


7. Contact your state and federal representatives and tell them you would like to see legislation to remove food dyes from food.


8. Report you child's response to dyes at CSPI's site.


9. Request your school to provide dye free foods in the school lunches.


10. Talk to people about food dyes. Explain why you avoid dyes. Let them you know they can do the same.
11. Teach your children to avoid foods that contain food dyes. Make it a rule that colored foods are off limits unless proven safe, rather than assuming they are OK.

picture of what NOT to buy

I've been looking for an update on the Maryland food dye bill and finally found another CSPI article. Check out the nice picture of all the products I no longer buy since they contain food dyes that make my kids crazy. I wish more people would take this issue seriously. We do fine avoiding dyes most of the time, but I know lots of other families simply do not have the perseverance or the supportive family, daycare, teachers, etc. that help us be successful. It helps me more than anything that my husband is devoted to the cause. He understands how much the dyes affect the kids and works hard to make sure they stay off them. Valentines Day gave me a good opportunity to appreciate the good man I'm married to.

great news

I hadn't been to CPSI's site for a while and just happened to check it out today. I was excited to see a new article just out today indicating that Maryland may ban food dyes. check it out here.

concerned enough to write to congress

I've never written to Congress in my whole entire life, until now. But since I've seen for myself the HUGE effects of food dyes on my children and lots of others' too, I've decided to make some noise. It's honestly that big a deal to me. I can't even begin to describe how significantly better my kids are off the stuff, and how every little thing breaks down into various levels of chaos when they consume dye.

You don't have to take my word for it. Try it yourself for a week. Remove all food coloring from your family's diet. Keep it out several days. Then serve them something nice and red. Watch for 3 whole days after that. Comment back on my blog when you see what happens. It took me several months to really believe what I saw and experienced. It was the same with my friends. So many people have seen the same crazy behavior with red and yellow dye, as well as the research published a year ago, that I just hope our food standards here will change someday soon like they already have in Britain.

It's easy to contact government officials through Center for Science in the Public Interest. http://www.cspinet.org/takeaction/index.html I used their form contacts but wrote my own quick statement requesting foods with artificial coloring have warning labels.

The more parents that get involved, the sooner our foods standards will improve.