A combination of cola and certain orange processed foods make my youngest son quite uncontrollable. It can be entertaining for a few minutes but I would hate to have to deal with him in a classroom. Mostly he is deprived of the junk he craves by a puritanical father but I sometimes relent at the cinema with the result that he once had to be physically restrained in the aisle half way through Lord of the Rings. The Food Standards Agency deserves some credit for sponsoring Southampton University to do the research that confirms beyond doubt what many parents and teachers have known for decades; certain additives in highly processed foods send certain children up the wall. Perhaps more disturbing is the finding that these foods can cause a “deterioration in behaviour in the general population”.
How can it be ok to knowingly feed our children unnecessary colourings and preservatives that radically alter their behaviour? How can we be expected to trust our government and its regulating authority the FSA when, after consultation with the food and drink industry but no one else, it refuses to act on its own research? Why has it taken thirty years for science to “prove” what many parents know from their own living experiment of raising children? Isn’t it an abdication of governmental responsibility to suggest that we make our judgements based on labels read by few and intelligible to even fewer?
Very few issues are so black and white and call so unambiguously for government action, NOW. It is all too reminiscent of tobacco and cancer, asbestos and asbestosis, BSE and CJD and more recently the continuing abuse of antibiotics in agriculture, the rise of MRSA and general antibiotic resistance. Commercial interests, protected by cynical PR and intense lobbying, have built expertise at delaying legislative action so that a profit stream can be maintained for a few more years. There is no doubt that these additives will be banned but when the evidence is so clear why does it have to be such a painstaking process, subject to delay at every turn? The FSA was set up after a collapse in public confidence in the old Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food after BSE. It was supposed to be independent of commercial interests. The problem seems to be that the name might have changed but the spineless nature of the bureaucrats hasn’t.
FOOD ADDITIVES by Guy Watson
September 25, 2007 · 4 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
4 responses so far ↓
Mike // March 10, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I suspect the great idol “profit” has something to do with it. Check out what goes into long life bread …. Lets hope some sense will come out of the research … I have tutored ADHD teenagers and appreciate the problem.
Fiona // March 15, 2008 at 3:52 pm
My daughter is sensitive to some food aditives, so we just avoid them all. She doesn’t have ADHD or any other diagnosable condition, she is just a bright energetic soul who becomes despairingly unreasonable under the influence. It just irritates me intensely that anybody could percieve that these aditives are necessary in food aimed at children. She decided to have school dinners 6 months ago (didn’t last long).I e-mailed the company that produces the dinners asking them which products contained additives, and how they justify using them when the evidence is so clear (I included links to the evidence just for good measure). I have not as yet received a reply - although someone did confirm that they had received my enquiry and would get someone senior to reply…
trina hardiman // March 16, 2008 at 8:12 pm
I agree that it is quite despicable how it is still acceptable for these chemicals to be included in edible goods, and still worse for them to be aimed particularly at children’s tastes. I suspect the weakness allowing this to continue is very similar to how the pharmaceutical companies manage to manipulate studies and suppress unfavourable information regarding their products, and basically comes down to the power of money winning over personal integrity. Unfortunately many people are still ignorant of the repercussions of a diet rich in such rubbish, so continue to feed it to their children without realising its effects: if discussed with them they cannot connect the results of individual foodstuffs on their children’s behaviour possibly because their diets are so poor that to isolate one single cause and effect is impossible.
For a long time I was puzzled that my children seemed more susceptible than others to the effects of such chemicals: I now realise that this is probably because they rarely eat artificial sweeteners nor colourings, so when they do the effect is marked. If they ate them frequently, their behaviour would seem “normal” to me.
I have learnt that one way to manage this problem is to educate children about this, so that the foods which may seem desirable such as chemical drinks and gungy sweets are actually associated for them with the effects they cause. On occasions I allow my children to eat such foods, but then monitor their behaviour, moods and co-ordination and foster their awareness of these without making them feel told off. This seems to be working so far, so that my children are actually developing the taste for decent foods and prefer to avoid crap!
Debbie // April 3, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Last summer I watched a child at a family gathering. He had been kept quiet for a while with some white chocolate buttons and as soon as he entered the reception building, he tore up a long flight of stairs, ran around a large landing area and flew back down the stairs. He did this 28 times, then I stopped counting. He didn’t stop running all day long. It was highly amusing!
Normally this little lad lives on organic (mainly Riverford) food, behaves really well and eats and sleeps well. Thank goodness, his parents are wise to the fact that their son would be badly affected by sugar rushes and the inclusion of additives in his diet. Sugary, additive laden foods given to children in order to appease them, leave a legacy of chemical residues which stay in the system and cause a range of effects. Excessive energy is what we often see - what effects do we not notice because they are happening within the confines of the cells of the child’s body?
Having a vegetable box cuts the price of shopping, reduces the temptation to make impulse buys and gives an excellent ready resource. We can encourage children to get excited about eating good food by engaging with them in the process of preparation and cooking.
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