Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate it. I really think I need to try to cut these out my kids are so hyper sometimes. Can anyone recommend some good alternatives to yummy snacks that kids will actually eat. My kids are pretty picky so sometimes its hard to find foods they'll eat.
It isn't hard to avoid food dyes at all. Weve been doing it for years. There is usually a substitute for anything the child would want that does not have food dyes.
If you eliminated red and saw no difference, it could be because it's necessary to avoid all the artificial dyes made from petroleum; red 40 is just one of 7.
How do you monitor what they eat at school? Do they just know what you would allow and what you wouldn't and stick to that? How would you know if they didn't? My kids both do an estimation jar in class, where another child brings in something to fill the jar. It is usually candy, and each student gets a piece. Kids bring in cookies or cupcakes for birthdays. Even if I could completely eliminate them at home, I have no desire to hover at school and monitor these types of things. How do you do it?
Well my 5 and 7 year old are getting better as they get older but my 3 year olds diet consists mostly of peanut butter bread, chili, gogurts, fishies and ranch rice cakes and sometimes cheerios or other cereals. And here I thought gogurts were ok! She won't eat other yogurts like Danimo which my son likes. It seems to be the way its presented. I'm hoping she'll expand her eating like my son did. Right now the only fruit I can get her to eat are bananas.
Those kid yogurts are just the wrong color. That's usually a clear sign that there are things in there that are less than desirable. I give my 19 month old plain Stoneyfield yogurt. And even they put added sugar in the yogurt they market to babies and toddlers.
These are the ingredients for the ranch flavored rice cakes:
Product: More Products from Quaker - Quaker Rice Snacks, Ranch Quakes | QuakerOats.com (http://www.quakeroats.com/products/rice-snacks/quakes/ranch.aspx - broken link)
The insect produces carminic acid that deters predation by other insects. Carminic acid, which occurs as 17-24% of the weight of the dry insects, can be extracted from the insect's body and eggs and mixed with aluminum or calcium salts to make carmine dye (also known as cochineal)
CULTURED PASTEURIZED ORGANIC REDUCED FAT MILK, NATURALLY MILLED ORGANIC SUGAR, ORGANIC TAPIOCA STARCH, ORGANIC CAROB BEAN GUM, NATURAL FLAVOR, ORGANIC CHERRY JUICE FROM CONCENTRATE, PECTIN, CARRAGEENAN, ORGANIC BEET JUICE CONCENTRATE (FOR COLOR), VITAMIN D3. CONTAINS OUR EXCLUSIVE BLEND OF SIX LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES INCLUDING S. THERMOPHILUS, L. BULGARICUS, L. ACIDOPHILUS, BIFIDUS, L. CASEI, AND L. RHAMNOSUS
This yogurt's color comes from organic beet juice.
I think that Goldfish brand uses Annatto for their color as does Annie's.
Get into the habit of reading food labels and compare products. If you don't know what something is, look it up. You might be surprised by what you see. You may need to check and see what the health food store has to find alternatives. Best of luck!
A while back I bought some rainbow goldfish that used natural ingredients for color, but I haven't seen them since. We mostly do Annies for stuff like that now. We get Annies mac and cheese too.
Last edited by Kibbiekat; 03-26-2012 at 10:33 AM..
Reason: typo
Thanks for the information Dorothy,
That is absurd! and here I thought Ranch rice cakes would be ok....what is the point in that...they're colorless for goodness sake!! Call me naive. Sheesh!
We have those rainbow fishies here and there's other things too like fiber gummies I give my kids that have no dye so obviously it's possible. I just don't get it? What's the need for dyes? They've done away with them in Great Britain haven't they?
Out of curiosity I checked my pantry for food dyes. I don't avoid them 100%, so they sometimes end up in our house. Still I have affirmed that almost nothing in my pantry has the standard artificial food dyes (red 40, yellow 5 etc.). Granted some have MUCH better ingredient lists than others, but here is sampling of what I have:
Musselman's apple sauce (one of the only brands made from USA apples!)
Cheddar Goldfish, Trisquits, Sun Chips, Tortilla Chips
Kix Cereal, Barbara's cereal, Honey Nut Cheerios, two types of Kashi cereal, Kellogg's Raisin Bran, Lightly salted rice cakes, Quaker rice cake snacks--apple cinnamon flavor,
Edy's fruit popsicles, Lance malt peanut butter crackers, Enjoy Life cocoa bars
Even the particular type of Gogurt I bought is colored with vegetable and fruit juice rather than numbered food dyes. However, some types of Gogurt have the artificial food coloring. The only things I found with the numbered food dyes were a powdered pink lemonade mix that I bought about eight months ago for my kids' lemonade stand, some mac and cheese I bought for myself and never made and some old Valentine's candy stuffed in the back.
As for other sources, I haven't seen meat with food dye, so I thought that comment was interesting. I suppose there can be hidden sources. I just don't find it too hard though to avoid the labelled artificial food dyes. It is much harder to me to avoid chemicals like BHT and TBHQ that some people also remove from their diets.
! She won't eat other yogurts like Danimo which my son likes. It seems to be the way its presented.
This makes no sense to me. Millions of years of evolution and natural selection brings strong animals capable of finding and eating food only to get here where a kid "won't" eat perfectly good food. Why? Because Mom gives him something else at the slightest fuss.
So you get a kid who really could use a whole foods diet. But they can't because they "won't" eat anything but the three things s/he has been fed.
Spoken like someone who has no children and has no idea how time-consuming and worrisome something like monitoring a special diet is. Especially for a child who is in school and has siblings.
(Sorry to be so grumpy about it but it's really, really difficult. I wish it were as easy as someone saying "Sure you can".)
It's not that hard to avoid food dyes and additives. Don't buy processed food. My son can't have milk, eggs, nuts, or soy. So not only does that rule out nearly every processed item in the grocery store (which has made the whole family healthier), I also have to figure out how to prepare meals from scratch without using those items.
So, a huge PITA at first? Yes. Impossible? No.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
