Seeing red.

A few years ago, we started wondering if Terrific T had an allergy to red dye. It was through many tears (his and ours) and lots of trial and error that we have figured out that this is the cause of his extreme anger issues. It is amazing, really. One bowl of Apple Jacks for breakfast (shouldn't have even been in the house but I wasn't thinking and got overcome by the awesome cereal sale recently) and he was a mess this morning. I was sending my "YOUR kids are crazy" form email to Big Daddy at work (I know he loves getting these) and he asked what he had for breakfast. OOPS. It hit me...not the poor kids fault :( He is good about not eating things that are red. That should be easy enough. But nooooo. I found a site today that lists tons of other things that you wouldn't even think of, that contain red40. Like Pillsbury crescent rolls, pizza crust, and white frosting, Hershey's Lite chocolate syrup, Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls, and even Twinkies. UGH. I am so frustrated. I called Pillsbury and she said the reason is to get the color just right. duh ;) But WHY? I would rather have pale rolls than a possessed acting child. How many other kids does this effect? I know of several, myself. I wonder how many "little brats" are really just having a reaction to something and can't control it? People just write kids off as a brat and don't look into it. It is like living with Jeckle and Hyde around here. I'm so glad we know, but frustrated that it is everywhere (meds...must have a pleasing color for our spoiled generation), yellow cake mix, candy, and even a lot of vitamins, for crying out loud.

Feel free to contact Pillsbury and others too to ask them to please consider finding a different method of coloring their foods. A natural way.

In a perfect world, I would make all our food from scratch and this wouldn't even be an issue. I am trying to do better and we don't eat most of this stuff listed (I don't think the kids even know what a Twinkie is) but it still gets my goat (is that the saying?)that they sneak it in things - the medicine, especially. We also found today that it was in our strawberry yogurt the kids eat. Can't the strawberries color it enough? So, we will stick with vanilla and mix in our own strawberries.

Today, T got a lesson on label reading and what to look for. Also got the lesson that just because it doesn't look red, doesn't mean it isn't hiding in there.

** A friend just told me to be watching for it in his shampoo and soaps. I never would have thought of that but sure enough, in his child's shampoo....red40 :o(