This article is about food dye affecting childrens behavior in the LA Time from a few days ago. The authorities claim there is not enough evidence so we might as well continue consuming whatever our hearts desire.
For the real story read the “anecdotal” therefore, not credible, reports of the parents in comments. We have a serious problem with hundreds of environmental toxins in our food, air and surroundings, but the FDA will just sit around scratching it’s butt rather than really protect our children and ultimately our whole population.
Get rid of the food dye and a good number of other toxins added to things we consume and we might not need as many pharmaceuticals. Can’t have that.
And most of us just don’t want to change our diets. Most of us rather pop those pills and eat all that crap, so it’s not hard at all for the FDA to keep big pharma happy while we’re all running around complicit, is it?
That was interesting about Tate & Lyle’s history, btw. The sugar trade has a very nasty legacy in general.
Yeah, I have less sweet cravings than before. I cut chocolate out several months ago and rarely crave it, which is something given I was eating it almost every day for a while. 70% cocoa though, never the junk stuff. Splenda I use hardly ever, and honey just sometimes in my tea. I used to use honey a lot but started noticing how tapped out I would feel afterward so now I use it much more sparingly.
It is amazing, once you get this crap out of your system, that you stop missing it. Or in the case of last night’s treat platter, you learn quickly that you can no longer tolerate it anyway. I broke down and ate a couple of the really junky, super-processed coconut treats before bed and felt immediately ill. Ill enough to drag my plastic garbage pail next to my bed *just in case.* I had hellish menstrual cramps as soon as I got up today.
I will *not* be eating those things again.
We’re lucky Sloopy, I don’t have a sweet tooth either…living without sweets is very difficult for most people…
It’s amazing how the industry paints this as a simply two-way choice of poisons – sugar or artificial sweeteners, both with their own problems.
There is the third way though – use neither! Get to enjoy unsweetened food. It’s not as if we were born with an addiction to sweet things.
It’s strange that Tate & Lyle have branched into artificial sweeteners. They are a centuries-old British sugar producer with Royal Appointment. My grandmother who was born on Jamaica often used to vent about Tate & Lyle, and how it was notoriously ruthless and despised throughout the Caribbean where it owned extensive sugar plantations.
T&L also made extensive use of slave labour, and then bonded labour well into the 20th century. The company colluded with the British Crown in seizing plantations from small landowners and these were then granted to Tate & Lyle.
Reason enough not to eat Splenda!
I don’t really have a sweet tooth but Stevia sounds interest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it for sale in Britain.
basic rule of thumb…if it contains the word artificial…don’t eat it…
Stevia is supposed to be safe…it’s a plant…that tastes sweet, but has no sugar….and it’s not artificial…
I still use very little as it is refined and processed…and I try to stay away from refined foods too…but every now and then I’ll use it for something as a treat…
Oh great, Sloopy Cowbell. I’ve been reading about the dangers of aspartame since early market days, but I thought Splenda was one of the safe ones.
So, no white sugar, no Splenda… I retain my honey! Literally, possibly.
My roommate from Turkey just gave me a plate of sweets. Baklava and coconut swirls. I’ve learned from past experience with a coworker that refusing food in their culture is considered extremely rude, so I took it and now it’s sitting next to me, temptingly…
“Artificial sweeteners are making us fat”..
Another win win for Big Pharma, which gets to pump us full of dangerous diabetes drugs and obesity pills!
Yeah Froscha,
just an anecdote….
we’ll just pretend you didn’t say anything…lived experience and observation is completely unreliable….
I’ve seen this effect myself. I used to babysit for the neighbour’s kids. Great kids, except the boy had food allergies. I was to peel fruit because of his pesticide sensitivity and his mother also avoided anything with food colouring, not sure what else.
Most of the time he was a great kid. But one night I sat for them, some allergen had slipped into his diet. He had the Tantrum of Tantrums, that ended with him slamming his bedroom door in my face, yelling and screaming, and more yelling until he got tuckered out.
This behaviour was a direct result of the artificial/chemical elements added to food.
Had he had less aware parents/doctors, I can’t imagine what awful drugs he could have been put on to deal with his emotional problems.
But that’s just, you know, an ‘anecdote.’ 😉
What a shame…all of these people being dx as mentally ill…when it could be prevented. What a waste! She my post today about an actress who removed dairy and wheat from her son’s diet.
yes mark,
gluten intolerance or celiac disease if often the only reason people are suffering from mental distress and they get diagnosed with all sorts of things….
it sometimes manifests as “schizophrenia” but I’ve heard of people in my groups who have manifested sypmtoms that get diagnosed as all sorts of other things too as a result of celiac…
sometimes the cure is so startling that after only one week of a diet free of gluten the person is free of the mental distress.
I messed up the copy and paste of the think. This one should work.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9408073
Speaking of additives, I would like to complain of wheat gluten being added to next to everything. Removing gluten cured a “33-year-old patient, with pre-existing diagnosis of ‘schizophrenic””
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.ghttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9408073