Dying from Dye

A bowl of high-sugar, multi-colored grain pellets marketed as breakfast cereal, with a silly, cartoon rabbit on the package.  A dish of fluorescent orange macaroni and ‘cheese’ (although, many packaged brands don’t actually even have real cheese in the ingredients…) with the image of Spiderman on the box.  A chilled glass of Kool-Aid to provide ‘refreshment’ to kids after a day of playing outside.

What am I referring to?

All are typical ‘food’ items that grace the plates of kids across the country on a regular basis and we’re not even thinking twice about giving it to them.

As a society, we train our children to eat and then covet these foods (after they become addicted to the sugar they provide) at a very early age, simply because we seem to believe that ‘kids need to eat these things’.

I’ve actually had several clients tell me that they used to eat in a very healthful manner, but after the kids were born, and they started buying all the kid-food, they no longer have a clean kitchen and they, too end up eating the leftover Goldfish crackers, the kids’ pudding cups and the dessert treats.

As if, by default, when children are born, one suddenly needs to begin purchasing a plethora of garbage marketed as food towards children?

Says who?

Who’s running the show?  The parents or a one-year old?

What on earth is going on?

Somehow, the mere fact that there is a cartoon image on a box of anything or a that product contains all the colors of the (synthetic) rainbow, makes the items within the package something to ingest?

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has published an alarmingly insightful article on the prevalence of artificial dye in products marketed toward children.

Aside from the fact that these drugs, I mean ‘foods’ (note my use of quotes; I can hardly bring myself to refer to macaroni and cheese or Trix cereal as food as neither are remotely nourishing and do nothing more than create addiction, inflammation and sickness) are off the charts in their sugar content, the food dyes alone are reason enough to not touch them with a ten foot pole.

The article goes into great detail, listing the levels of dye in many popular brands including:

• Target Mini Green Cupcakes, which have Yellow 5, Blue 1, Yellow 6, and Red 40, had 55.3 mg of artificial dyes per serving, the highest level found in any food. Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6 are the three most widely used dyes in the United States.
• Skittles and M&M’s, which are dyed with Blue 1, Blue 2, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Red 40, had the highest levels found in candies. Skittles Original had 33.3 mg per serving; M&M’s Milk Chocolate had 29.5 mg per serving. Both candies are made by Mars, Inc.
• Kraft Macaroni & Cheese was found to have 17.6 mg of artificial dyes per serving. Keebler Cheese & Peanut Butter Crackers had 14.4 mg of artificial dyes, and Kraft’s Creamy French salad dressing had 5 mg.
• Beverages, including 18.8 mg in Full Throttle Red Berry energy drink, 22.1 mg in Powerade Orange Sports Drink, 33.6 mg in Crush Orange, 41.5 mg in Sunny D Orange Strawberry, and 52.3 mg per serving in Kool-Aid Burst Cherry.

It goes on to say:

“Until now, how much of these neurotoxic chemicals are used in specific foods was a well-kept secret,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. “I suspect that food manufacturers themselves don’t even know. But now it is clear that many children are consuming far more dyes than the amounts shown to cause behavioral problems in some children. The cumulative impact of so much dyed foods in children’s diets, from breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, is a partial reason why behavioral problems have become more common.”

Need any further reason to discontinue the use of anything, ever that contains dye?   To repeat what the director of the CSPI said, these dyes are neurotoxins.

The idea that giving little Johnny or Jenny a bowl of Trix to start the day and then a nice, wholesome snack of macaroni and cheese as their lunch, along with just a few cookies as a snack is a nice, healthy way to provide ‘everything in moderation’  is not only ludicrous, it’s toxic, dangerous and the antithesis of what we as humans are meant to be eating.

There were no Blue 1, Blue 2, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Red 40 in the Paleolithic era, in case you were wondering…

Fearful that the kids are going to throw a  tantrum when you clear out the kitchen of all this poison and no longer allow these items in the home, or in the body?   Well, so be it.  What parents eat themselves and provide to their kids is their choice, and if you have the choice to not proactively set the stage for becoming very sick, why would you choose anything else? 

Click here for the full article.  

Want color for the kids?  How about a ripe orange in season if you live in Florida, or a crisp, Red Delicious Apple if you’re in NY State in the fall?    Everything we need to nourish ourselves can be found in nature, and not in a manufacturing plant.

Think.