Talk to me about red #40

[diamond lil]

I was talking to my daycare provider the other day and she mentioned that she doesn't give her kids anything with red #40 in it. I didn't want to seem stupid at the time, so I said, "Oh, of course."

Then I went home and Googled it. I plowed through a lot of information about how red #40 negatively affects children. Then I went through my cabinets and was surprised to see it listed on a few of our foodstuffs like:

Jello No Bake Cheesecake with Cherry Topping (no real surprise there)
Go-Gurts made by Yoplait (blueberry and strawberry) that I give to my toddler (18 months)
Special K Fruit Crisp Bars (that I LOVE, and occasionally will allow Olivia to nibble on)
V-8 vegetable juice

Yikes. I give my toddler one of those go-gurts everyday. She loves them, but honestly, I don't think the red #40 affects her in a negative way.

I'm interested in your experiences.

[elmh23]

Red 40 doesn't affect my kids, but I know it does affect some friends kid in really negative ways (she gets extreamly violent and stops sleeping.)

That said, I try to stay away from it, though I don't stress out if they have it (cause really that crap is in everything!)

If you want to replace the go-gurts since she eats those frequently, I think Stonyfield Farm yogurt makes a similar product and I bet it doesn't have Red 40 in it.

[SashaBear]

My nephew and my friends kid have had problems with dyes. My nephew is very sensitive to dyes. Major night terrors that even began to affect him during the day. He became scared of the bedroom and insisted on sleeping in the living room. My friends kid had night terrors if he had the highest (is that #40?) and if he a lot. He's outgrown it but my nephew has not.

[tanyalynn]

The thing about chemicals like red #40, whether you see a reaction in your child or not (mine don't seem to react either) is that they deplete nutrients that your body uses to excrete those chemicals. All the weird chemicals in our food that our bodies don't use need to be excreted, and it's via chemical pathways that use vitamins and minerals.

Those foods are often a double-whammy, because they're processed so much that many of the nutrients are stripped out, and then they require extra nutrients in order to deal with the added flavors and colors.

Some people can gain a bit of tolerance to those types of chemicals by supplementing some of the vitamins and minerals that their bodies need to deal with them. It may just be to lessen the intensity or the duration of the reaction, but when kids sometimes grab things before we realize, that can still help.

[Mrsboyko]

My niece actally gets hives if she has red #40. That along with behavorial issues is enough for even her super mainstream family to stay away from it.

[justmama]

My younger two don't seem to have issues with it but my ADD oldest daughter has MAJOR behavioral changes with it. She gets really out of control and wild and has even less impulse control than usual and even less focus than usual. She lashes out when she's angry and hits her younger sisters even though she knows better and can usually control herself. She backtalks me even though she has been taught better and usually does not act that way. She has these absolute nuclear meltdowns that start with her blowing up over something really silly, something that would not normally set her off or anybody off for that matter. And she will start hysterically sobbing and screaming and having a tantrum worthy of a toddler over something that really should not upset her. We avoid red#40 as a life and death issue.

[Llyra]

Frankly, we've eliminated almost all processed foods, because my oldest DD is very affected by so many of these artificial colors and flavorings. When she's eating a good whole-food diet, I see a different child from the one I saw when I was allowing her access to processed foods. I can't say for sure WHICH ingredients cause her problems-- it's not worth it for me to try and figure it out. I say eat real food, and feed real food to your kids, because we don't know for sure what those non-food ingredients do to us, and until we do, we should be deeply suspicious of them. Even if there's no effect in an immediate sense, nobody has adequately explained skyrocketing cancer rates in our parents' generation, and that's good enough reason for me to avoid them.