Thursday, April 26, 2012

Dear Americans, WAKE UP!!!

This article on toxins in our food made its way onto my Facebook newsfeed today. My favorite part has to be the leading paragraph:
Yesterday, in the face of a just-released report by the National Cancer Institute that showed a 9.4% increase in childhood cancer between 1992 and 2007, the FDA let moms and dads all across America down. Instead of making the long overdue move to do something serious about getting rid of toxic food dyes so ubiquitous in our food supply, they instead fell back on those two simple words so often used to stall, delay and deny: "more research."

There once was a time I thought my son had Sensory Processing Disorder. He fit the bill. We even had him in regular therapy to help all of us deal with his "sensory issues."

I don't remember exactly what happened, but he was improving and I decided to leave therapy. Having people over to my house frequently was more stressful than dealing with his possible SPD. And he was doing SO WELL and seemed to be getting better. However, there was one weekend I realized his behavior was going downhill and he was sensory seeking (touching everything, throwing himself around, etc) like CRAZY. As I sat and sobbed to my husband about how overwhelmed and helpless I felt we tried to figure out what had changed in the last week or so. We figured it out...

We'd introduced gummy fruit snacks into his diet.

I'd read the articles about high fructose corn syrup and artificial dyes. I didn't go out of my way to avoid them but we did when we could find an alternative. I never questioned feeding my son bag after bag of these snacks.

We did a full purge and removed all HFCS and artificial dyes from the house. We read labels on our next shopping trip (it's shocking what has this CRAP in it! Food dye in jelly and jam. HFCS in CRACKERS)

A few weeks later a change happened. I realized I was cleaning his hands more frequently than ever. He seemed to be seeking out mess. This is the child that ate his 1st birthday cake with poise like the Queen of England. Now he was seeking out things to squish and get messy.

Right after cutting out HFCS and Dyes...

The sensory stuff was almost GONE. He wasn't spinning, he wasn't throwing himself on the floor (he still jumps but not like he was), he wasn't running his hands over every surface as he walked...and he was pleasant to be around.

When he had a single popsicle on vacation it all went back to how it had been before....the explosive anger, the sensory seeking...all because of ONE dose of that junk.


Have you cut anything from your diet or your family's diet? What changes did you notice?

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