My Thoughts on Artificial Colors

Why are there so many things with artificial colors in them? It drives me crazy. For example, the popcorn at Target...it has artificial colors in it..WHY? If you buy Nutrigrain Bars or Quaker fruit bars..unless you're buying the apple flavor watch out, the other varieties have a ton of food coloring in them. OH, and don't get me started on those colored Peppridge Farm Goldfish!

My oldest son has ADHD. I've done alot of research on it and found that there are studies that show there is a link between hyperactivity and artificial food coloring. One time last year he came home from school, neck to ankle in red, raised hives. I frantically called his teacher to see what he came in contact with at school..he ate colored goldfish for snack. Hmmmm..he's never had hives at all before let alone this bad. So I gave him Benedryl and the hives went away. The next day he came home with hives again. I asked him what he had for snack...he had more colored goldfish. Recently we've been having trouble with him at school. So, I did an experiment. All week he had absolutely nothing with food coloring in it. I separated all the Halloween candy that has coloring in it and only gave him chocolate. The next Saturday, after lunch, we let him have some Skittles. He was bouncing off the walls he was so hyper! Maybe it's the sugar some of you might be saying. I highly doubt it. He had sugary things all week and not once was he hyper. Now that we've removed it from his diet, his hyperactivity has dropped amazingly! Now it's just the attention deficit we need to work on.

Ok, I do make colored icing for my sugar cookies at Christmas. I only let him have food with artificial colors on Friday night and Saturday. That way it's out of his system by Monday.

Oh, and once I contacted the Quaker company to ask them why they put food coloring in their products. Their answer was that "we've done extensive testing on all our products and the coloring makes them more appealing." Yeah only if you don't read the ingredients. It makes them more appealing.....not to me.

This also goes for my bath and body products. Honestly, if it smells good and works well, I don't need no stinking colors in it. Don't bother coloring mine when I order please.