Last updated on August 21st, 2022 at 06:11 pm
I ran across this article regarding food dyes and hyperactive children a couple of weeks ago. It’s one of those articles that leave me feeling very wordy, so I put it aside for a while to try and collect my thoughts on the matter.
In short, the L.A. Times spins the article to make you believe that artificial coloring may not affect children:
The FDA still considers the nine synthetic colors allowed in food — in grocery stores and restaurants– as safe as long as each production batch has been certified to meet composition standards.
On its website, the agency points to a consensus report by the National Institutes of Health in 1982 that, the FDA says, concluded there was no “scientific evidence to support the claim that food dyes cause hyperactivity.”
When the FDA is involved in making decisions based on “scientific studies”, there’s a certain level of distrust on my part.
The article is confusing at best.
Can Food Dyes Lead to Hyperactivity or Not?
Here’s the deal, the artificial food coloring (dyes) in conventional food, be it yellow lake #44 or some long name that you can’t pronounce to increase the shelf life of a product, are not derived from nature. They’re science.
It makes your food less natural, leaving your body with fewer nutrients to absorb. When your body reacts to it, be it feeling bloated, lethargic, or even hyperactive, it’s trying to tell you something.
A child’s immature and smaller system reacts to this much more sensitivity. I know people who have seen a world of difference when their kids were given a more natural diet.
Why do kids need artificial coloring in their food?
If you read this site regularly, you’re here because you’re trying to do something better for your family. Cutting out artificial colors, dyes, flavors, and preservatives is not that hard.
Our motto is, if you can’t pronounce it, do you really want it anywhere in or on your body?
A List of Research Regarding Food Dyes and Behavior can be found in our Food Dye Resource Roundup
