creative cookie bars!

There is just no convincing some people that food dyes are a problem. Offer the research, it's ignored. Explain that other countries have banned them, so what. Giver personal testimony of how it affects my own children and every family I know, it still lands on deaf ears. How many Americans still think that if it's in everything and we've eaten it for years, it must be OK? Sometimes I honestly wonder, what's the point?

To what do I owe this new wave of pessimism? Today's summer camp menu included creative cookie bars, which I was told were chocolate chip cookies covered with condensed milk with red and green food coloring UUUUUUUHG! Now, it's not really that bad. It's not like my kids ate them or anything like that. I shouldn't complain too much. I looked ahead on the menu. Heaven help me on the morning I don't have my act together and forget to look at the menu, but I looked at the menu before leaving the house and was prepared and left my own cookies for my little darlings to eat for snack. I just get so annoyed that the same people who have helped me check every menu ingredient for the past 2 years still keep finding "creative" ways to add extra unnecessary food coloring into the menu. Clearly I've been written off as an extreme nut case who knows nothing. Maybe that's why everyone smiles when they say hello.

Win some, loose some, I guess I'll call this one a draw. They all work well enough to make sure my kids don't eat any dyes. But unfortunately, this day care's one battle for dye free foods that will apparently never extend beyond my own children.

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.

So much effort to avoid food dye

Well, we survived a bouncy weekend. Alex and Lindsey both had all the typical characteristics of consuming food dye, but I'm not sure where it came from. It sounds like everyone has been making good efforts.

Lindsey's preschool teacher made a special effort and checked the ingredients of the biscuits and margarine used to make a special pizza in class. Alex's OT at the school specifically picked out a white jelly bean for him. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it probably had traces of color that really would effect him. Sometimes it's all just so much work.

Another school staff sent a note home saying that Alex earned a piece of candy but she didn't give him any due to the dye issue. I was a little frustrated as I specifically sent in a whole bag of organic dye free candy to that staff member 2 weeks ago. Apparently she never got it. It seems I've won half the battle about people understanding what my kids can or can't have. But somehow the logistics of it all still seems to get messed up. Sigh, it could be worse, much worse.