I HATE ALL Things with DYE

Yup I used the word hate, and it was in all caps! In the land of the Interweb, I just yelled that out!I HATE Dye in our foods. There is no need for it. It just makes it look good, well at least that is the food companies think. Here is the background on this rant for me...Sit back it is a long one :)

Youngest has something called Sensory Processing Disorder. Its talked about more now, but many MANY people do not know what this is. His little brain does not process sensory input properly.  There are several types of SDP kids, there are kids that hide and kids that seek... lucky us, Youngest is a seeker. Think adrenaline junkie on steroids and like 3 years old. No sense of what could hurt him,. because his body says he needs that to feel.  It has been a LONG ride but with years of therapy and food changes we have him happy and feeling good.

One of his biggest sensory issues is his head and mouth, which makes him a VERY picky eater. He was at the point that he would only eat cool, sweet, soft things. This KINDA limited my meals for him. Mac and cheese, apple sauce, pancakes, yogurt... those were his meals. When we started therapy we put him on a sensory diet. Basically this was trying to target his mouth and make him FEEL things and this would, in theory, make him less picky.

Fast forward a year with little progress and I am on a field trip to a farm with Oldest. Picture your stereotypical granola farmer. I mean pigtails and overalls and everything. She was talking about how the kids should eat all natural and grow their own food. None of the first graders care at all and are looking at the wasp flying near her. I am not going to lie.. I was not listening at all. I was on my phone on Facebook. Then she said something that made me perk up. She was showing the kids a cucumber and asked if any of them liked cucumbers. They all made faces and said no. Then she asked if they liked pickles . Many said yes and she connected the dots there for them.  (I am still on fb at this point in the back) She then told the kids she makes her own pickles and will not buy them from the store. She said hey moms! You should listen to this....NEVER BUY PICKLES FROM THE STORE. I am waiting for the "Buy them from me" bit, but that never came.  She then goes off on a tirade on how they are only that color green because of the yellow dye they put in the pickling process. AND MOMS YOU KNOW ABOUT YELLOW DYE AND ADHD RIGHT?? That was the part that got my attention. SPD and ADHD are very very very often  mixed up. I asked her and she said to google it. Well I did!!! OMG!

Yellow dye 5 and 6 have been tied to escalating ADHD symptoms in kids.  There was a study in Europe that pulls together many of the food additives and negative behavior in kids. I will post it below if you are bored and want to look it over. SO I think to myself, nothing else is working why not try this with Youngest. Well... easier said then done! IT IS IN EVERYTHING. Kraft mac and cheese (his dinner almost nightly), Cheetos  Doritos, Kraft shredded cheese.. everything.  I started to look at food labels and changed what he ate for a month. Guess what? He was not diving off the couch anymore. he was not biting us anymore. He was not getting in nearly as much trouble at school. I found a freaking gold mine here... I found something that worked.

This was the start of a huge life changer for us. The boys already were not having juice with Red 40 in it, they always threw it up. I pinned it as they were just allergic to it. HA now looking back I don't think so. So started my mission to cut dye from both boys. I will make another post to go on about everything that has dye in it. TRUST ME this is a major soapbox for me and has been for over a year now. I see a major difference in both kids when they have dye. Oldest gets  moody and Youngest goes completely insane. Yelling, running, jumping, hitting, spinning as he walks.. its scary.

Here is the link to the research. With all the news about Kraft and the dye its hard to find REAL research.. its mostly mommy blogs (hehe) whining about how bad dye is. Well it is see below :)

http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/mccann.pdf

Thanks for reading. I feel better :) I will make a page that lists all the foods I know of that have dye(did you know most PANCAKE MIXES have dye don't even get me started on that)  and some of the brands you can use to replace them :)