Synthetic food dye and adverse neurobehavioural outcomes
Let’s breakdown what “adverse neurobehavioural outcomes” after eating synthetic food dye, actually means. Because what is behaviour except our entire personality, how we act and speak and move, how we function through our daily lives?
For the 2 years before we discovered our daughter couldn’t tolerate food dye, she moved through this world so differently. We thought it was part of her personality. There was a freneticness to her movement, an urgency to her. She overwhelmed me on a daily basis, her body had a mind of its own, legs tapping uncontrollably, busy, busy, busy. But there was something else which I couldn’t say out loud, an inabililty to connect with her on a regular level which I chalked up to a failure of mine.
Our day to day had a chaoticness, but I can only say that now that I know I know it’s not her personality but a neurological response to her diet.
The chaoticness escalated until one day, October 2nd 2022, it morphed into violence, seemingly overnight. From that day forward, her tantrums were out of this world. At it’s very worst, her safety and the safety of others were our biggest concerns.
The violence she was capable of surprised us all as she was only 44 lbs. She would take her seatbelt off and hurl herself around the car. She smashed in the heat vent in the back seat with more power than I knew a 5 year old was capable of. Several times I was forced to pull over and spend an hour on the side of the road talking her down so she wouldn’t do it again. At this point, I was considering getting rid of her booster seat and going back to a 3 point harness carseat.
Of course all of this was before I knew the cause, the candy cane wrapper still lying at her feet.
I remember calling my sister crying every week, feeling so wildly out of control. Sending my husband in to her room keep her “contained” while she begged for me. But I couldn’t go in there when she was like this as she would kick and punch and hurl things at me. The entire family was falling apart as a result of her tantrums. My parenting classes couldn’t even touch the level of “tantrum” that was happening. I now know that’s because parenting classes are meant to help with average child’s tantrums, not “adverse neurobehavioural outcomes”.
It's a wonder I even discovered it.
Then I discovered the correlation between coloured food and her behaviour. Looking back, the first tantrum was after some coloured powder candy from Dollarama. The car tantrum after a sucker from the librarian. The tantrum at Grandmas when she broke the chalkboard, after a candy cane at the craft show. It was speculation at first, and took a lot of trial and error before we figured out that her responses came after exposure to all synthetic colours (red, blue, yellow) and sometimes natural colour as well (annatto).
I can’t put into words the overwhelming relief we felt that this was not a permanent state of being. The reality was that we could very easily avoid this and get our child back. It seemed too good to be true.
Not only did the tantrums stop, but the freneticness that I had thought for so long was her personality, also left. Her ability to focus sharpened. Her attention span increased, her connection to me strengthened and my anxiety went down as a result. Our family was completely turned upside down before this, and completely fixed with the removal of dye.
After this, I was prepared for regular kid tantrums, but all tantrums disappeared. She was able to regulate herself without any help from me. The last tantrum we experienced was on January 12th of this year after an accidental exposure to titanium dioxide (white) in yogurt covered raisins. That was 4 months ago.
Often parents ask me how I avoid candy and cookies and drinks with dye considering how much kids love colourful treats. But I don’t have to forbid them, my daughter is terrified of them. Being unable to control your emotions and your actions after consuming something is a terrible feeling, and one that she remembers too well. She acknowledges that she has a “sensitivity” or an “allergy” to them, and steers clear without any guidance from me.
If this was our experience, what is happening with the rest of society?
The FDA says 8% of children have “adverse neurobehavioural outcomes” after consuming synthetic food dye. That’s 2-3 kids in her class potentially. Coincidentally, there are 2-3 kids in her class with a tendency to lash out, get flooded with emotion a few times a day and get sent to the hall. Is it after snack time, after lunch time? Is anyone paying attention? Did the parents get the memo? Likely not. I don’t feel like I’m in any place to tell them what to feed their child. But the FDA knows, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency knows, they were all present at the meetings. They have a responsibility, and they’re failing these children by not viewing this issue from a larger lens. How do I replace the words “adverse neurobehavioural outcomes” at their meetings, with a visual of a 44 lb girl hurling herself across the backseat of a moving car? I guess with this essay.
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