Color Johnny Hyperactive/ADD by Jane Hersey

June 14, 2005

Color is an important part of food – alerting us to the time when fruit is ripe, making it easy to obtain needed vitamins and minerals by selecting a diet made up of foods of different colors. But Mother Nature didn’t stop with mere eye-appeal; she saw to it that things that are good for us also taste good. Does that mean healthy eating simply requires us to follow our eyes and palate?

Unfortunately, this approach, which has served humanity well for thousands of years, has recently been upset by the wonders of modern food technology. The problem began when a chemist first discovered how to change coal tar oil into brightly colored liquids which then found their way into virtually everything we use, including food.

More recently, chemists have managed to unlock some of the secrets of nature’s flavorings, and can now come very close to mimicking the real thing. All this is great news for food manufacturers. Synthetic colors and flavorings are cheap, remain stable in food, and do not depend upon the whims of season or harvest. Today most food colors are made from petroleum (crude oil), and flavorings can be made from thousands of natural and artificial chemicals. So what’s wrong with a bit of petrol in your popsicle? Does it matter that cherry gelatin doesn’t contain any cherries, and grape drink mix has never been near a grape? If fluorescent cereal will get breakfast into little Johnny, do we really need to be concerned? Absolutely!

Humans have a remarkable ability to tolerate exposure to harmful substances, but we’re not identical, and some of us can handle more than others. In a world where neither our water nor our air is pure, where food is laced with pesticides, antibiotics and growth hormones, where excessive processing has removed essential nutrients and fiber, many of us are already having a tough time coping. Then add some of the more troublesome chemicals: synthetic food dye, artificial flavoring and the sweetener aspartame, plus the petroleum-based preservatives BHA, BHT and TBHQ, and feed them to a small child. It’s a recipe for disaster. Johnny might have a physical reaction to such a chemical stew. For example: stomachache, bedwetting, hives, poor muscle control or earache. He could have a behavioral reaction: becoming easily frustrated, overactive, aggressive, or excessively talkative. Or he may have a hard time paying attention in school, reading a story, remembering a spelling word, doing a math problem, or writing.

Parents and teachers searching for answers seldom consider that Johnny may be a normal child who is merely sensitive to some of the abnormal substances in his food or environment. The first place to begin is to rule out a chemical reaction, and this is not as difficult as it sounds. While supermarkets contain thousands of foods that are treated with these additives, they also offer a surprisingly large selection of ordinary brand name foods that are free of them. A food company may make one product that contains the unwanted additives, and a nearly identical product that does not.

A non-profit support group, called the Feingold Association, shows parents how they can easily determine if their child is reacting to the most troublesome of the food additives. The Association researches brand name foods and prints books listing those that are free of the worst of the additives. It offers comprehensive information and support for families of hard-to-raise kids, as well as chemically sensitive adults. This information is also available for those of us who would just rather not eat crude oil. See the website for more information, http://www.feingold.org

Jane Hersey is the National Director of the Feingold Association and the author of the book, “Why Can’t My Child Behave?”

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."-- Mahatma Gandhi