Red 40 food dye

[momshell7]

Has one had any experience with food dye red 40 causing their children to get hyper? My son gets so out of control if he has anything with red 40 in it. I talked to my son's doctor and he said his daughter breaks out if she has red 40. He is about the only other person who believes me about the red40 having an effect on my son. My father-in-law completly disbelieves me so he doens't hesitate to give my son red stuff

Just curious on others thoughts.

Michelle

 

[Ross]

Umm, huh, what? First I've ever heard of it. I suppose you've done some internet research on it? This is interesting to say the least.

 

[JimL]

He sat on the floor, back against the wall, banging his head repeatedly against the wall. He was below normal body weight. He would get bronchitis every other week, all winter long.
That was our son, before we discovered by accident that he had a very low tolerance for food coloring -- I remember Red no. 5 as being a special culprit. And, he was especially attracted to red foods, like red jello, pure poison for him.
We tried hard to avoid preprepared foods, made things from scratch, and he settled right down (didn't do the rest of us any harm either), and grew bigger than his dad.
I thoroughly believe you!

 

[Harpoon]

It's a (more or less) common allergy for food dyes.

A cousin of mine and her kids have it along with allergies to a few other dyes and chocolate (milk and dark, not white.)

Set up an appointment to see an allergy specialist because if he's sensitive/allergic to Red #40 he might also be allergic to other things that might prove to be more serious if he's exposed...


Get it checked out to be sure..

 

[azpam]

i like alternative medicine and have read alot about the negative aspect of food dyes,processed foods,and sugar on alot of children. it is connected to the ADD in kids and if parents would control their diet,alot of their behavior will settle down naturally. we live in a very fast paced world of quick food,junk foods, food additives,dyes,fillers in food that just wasn't there 30-40 years ago. our world is full of toxins! the studies out there are probably low because we would be opening up a can of worms in the food industry. if you go to a naturopathic doctor, i'm sure they would agree that all those things should not be in the foods we eat. so i don't think you are crazy. just catching on to the diet connection!

 

[momshell7]

Thank you all for your responses.

Thank you all for your responses.

It's nice to know that I am not alone in my belief of the connection between the red dye and behavior. It drives me crazy that there are so many people to think I am just making it up. I see the results when he has red. He is literally bouncing off the walls. He goes out of his way to pick on his brother, won't listen to anything we say and is in general a maniac. We try to limit the red he gets, but sometimes it's not possible. We can't always control what he eats at school and such. He is pretty good most of the time about not eating red stuff, but every now and then wants the red jello or fruit snacks etc.

Thanks again for the responses. I think I will make an appointment with an allergist to have him checked out.

Michelle

 

[Yaps]

Oh my...my son who is 30 today, as he was growing ..give him KOOLAID , the poison.. (my opinion) he'd turn within 30 mins from just the sweetest child ..to a heathen !!! It wasnt sugar..it was the dye... old time hotdogs and some store bought taffy's did it as well. But KOOLAID was the worst, he would babble like a maniac!..oh yes I still avoid all of the above foods..lol bad memories ..lol

 

[momshell7]

We have a lot of foods that we avoid due to the dye. It's kind of strange how it seems like it is only the red that causes problems. I wonder what it is about it that causes such a reation. I remember years ago when M & M's stopped making the red ones because of the dye they used. I guess that is something we may never know since red dye is used so much. No one would want to challenge the use of it.

Last year we found some white popsicles for our kids. They were great because they had no dyes at all. It was fun for the kids too since they didn't know ahead of time which flavor they were picking. My son loved it too because he could have any of them. This year they seem to have disappeared. I can't find them anywhere.


I keep hoping he will outgrow its allergy but so far he hasn't.

 

[Mary]

We learned the hard way about red dye with our last child. Our daughter, being the good sister she is, bought him a sack of "Red Hots" candy. He went from being a calm, easy going child to a tornado of frenzied activity that prevented his sleeping (and ours too!)

Thank goodness, we figured it out! That was 15 years ago, and we still remember that lesson!

 

[JimL]

Red dye seemed to be the worst, but the others, like yellow, were also troublemakers. I think all the food colorings are poisons, but they come in such small quantities that most people can handle them.

I think of the various receptacles the body has for dealing with poisons like a cup: as long as the cup doesn't overflow, you're all right, that is, as long as the amount of poisons (and your peck of dirt) you take in fit in the cup, you're healthy. But if you take in more poisons than your cup can hold, and it overflows, then you get sick. Some people, like one of our sons, are born with a smaller size container than others, which overflows more easily.

When we dealt with this twenty years ago, we were able to get a couple of helpful books through the local library. One was called Sugar Blues (do you know that they put sugar in everything, even in salt?); the other helpful book was on Hyperactivity, but I don't remember the title enough to distinguish it from the hundreds of books with similar titles. Maybe Shirley remembers, although she forgot her password, and so can't log on...