Welcome to my third blogging experience...created in order to keep my other blogs free of my crazy rantings. This space will be dedicated to the day to day trials and tribulations of motherhood and life in general...as well as the experiences that come with trying to rediscover the many basics of life that have been lost to the constant hullabaloo and cookie cutter mentality that has become the 21st century.

I am a proud mama to our first born, Gracie, who waits for us in Heaven, and her very lively little sister, Jenna. I am a semi-crunchy mama who works full time outside of the home. If you come here to read, expect to find posts related to cloth diapering, breast feeding, homemade baby food, organics, cooking and recipes, day care & working outside the home, baby wearing, natural childbirth, general fitness, general nutrition, environmental topics, etc.


Feel free to ask questions, share valuable information that you might have or share your thoughts and/or opinions. Please do not come here to attack the things that I believe or the way I live. I will respect your opinions as long as you respect mine, even if it means agreeing to disagree!! :-)



Saturday, March 26, 2011

Artificial Food Dyes

Much like high fructose corn syrup, many of the packaged foods found on U.S. shelves today contain artificial coloring.  Candy, Dor.itos, cheese curls, cheese, juice, cookies, yogurt and much more.  The artificial coloring serves no purpose other than to enhance the the appearance of the food we buy...to make it look the way we think it should look.  For most of the last decade, there has been much public and scientific banter regarding artificial food dyes, primarily red #40, yellow #5 and #6 and blue #1.  There has been much speculation about the connection between artificial dyes and numerous health issues, including cancer, autism spectrum disorders and ADHD.

In 2010 the European Union mandated that foods containing artificial dyes have warning messages on the labels.  Over the last week, the FDA announce that perhaps the concerns regarding these artificial dyes just might be founded after all.  They have released statements indicating that artificial dyes "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children."  Funny...that's the same quote found in the article (above) regarding the European Union's 2010 decision.  Perhaps the folks at the FDA are getting caught up on their reading...  Perhaps, within the next few years, we may see a step toward making the food on our shelves a little safer.  While it would be nice to see a ban on the artificial colors, mandated label warnings would be a nice start. 

4 comments:

Holly said...

scary!

Big Love, Big Acceptance - or so I say said...

This is so maddening! I could probably go on a rant about this, but I'll leave it at that. :)

Just Wedeminute said...

Hi, I'm following from the Mom Blog Monday hop and just wanted to say HI. If you get a chance hop over to http://wedemeyerfamily.blogspot.com/
and introduce yourself.
My poor son is allergic to red dyes all of them not sure red dye 40 so we have to be super careful about what he eats. Red dye is also in things that are yellow like pudding some cupcakes and cake recipes, it's so frustrating to find it in something as innocent as vanilla pudding!

Quirky Homemaker said...

It's crazy the things we eat! I'm guilty of buying things every now and then that have all kinds of additives that I don't really want my kids to have. I've been especially busy lately and that's when I fall into those traps. I try to make a lot of stuff homemade when I have the time exactly for the reason of trying to stay away from all of the chemicals though. Really, really need to start again. Thanks for posting. I'm following you now from a Monday hop!
Michelle
http://www.heartfeltbalancehandmadelife.blogspot.com