Food Additives Affects Behavior

If you are a typical American, at least 30% of your daily diet is from processed foods. Most processed foods come in a box or a can, and contain food starches, gums, preservatives, and colorings. Many processed foods have to be enriched, adding inorganic nutrients to compensate for the vitamins and minerals lost in the processing. Some people believe enriched foods are good enough. But what about the great increase in Type II Diabetes recently, especially now in children? Plus the growth of children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder from behavior problems in schools? And now adults are complaining of memory loss and sleep problems more often than before, and are suffering from chronic diseases earlier in life.

The first suggestion I tell parents who are struggling with a hyperactive child is to avoid all food colorings, especially the added colorings in juices, cereals, snacks, and vitamin supplements. These food colorings affect the functioning of the nervous system. Our liver cannot break down these chemicals and they affect our nervous system. It is amazing the amount of food coloring found in processed foods. Significant increases in hyperactivity occur after getting only 20 mg. of food coloring per day, which is much less than the amount found in many processed foods today.

When food additives are added to natural foods both physical and behavioral problems can occur. The three most common symptoms caused by too many food additives are headaches, anxiety , and upset stomach. Other common food additives to watch out for are preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, or artificial sweeteners, and caffeine. Preservatives are chemicals that prevent the food from spoiling as it moves from the farm to the grocery store.

The FDA generally regards each food additive as safe, at least in small quantities. But when combining them in foods and then looking at the cumulative effect, we have to realize that the more preservatives and food additives we get on a daily basis, the more our liver has to detoxify. That is why head pain and bloating are common symptoms of too many food additives.

Good nutrition plays a critical role in the health and behavior of our children. What children eat during their growing years has a great effect on the way they think, learn, and act. Many studies have found, for example, that children with higher intakes of antioxidants, B vitamins and minerals from a whole food diet , do better in school than those children whose diets are lower in these nutrients. Others studies show that children who are exposed to many environmental chemicals or heavy metals in the air and water have more trouble learning and remembering, and have more nervous system disorders.

Numerous research studies show that hyperactivity symptoms improved between 50 and 70% when a diet based on foods without artificial flavors, preservatives, and food colorings is followed. One study, published in Lancet in 1985, showed that 79% of hyperactive children had symptoms reduce when food chemicals were removed from their diet . Then when the food chemicals were re-introduced the symptoms returned.

Many health issues are caused by lack of bioavailable nutrition in our diet. Our digestive system tries to absorb nutrients from the foods we eat. Depending on the amount of artificial chemicals in our food, we can actually get more stressed eating foods that are hard for our liver to metabolize. This is why the National Cancer Institute keeps raising the number of fruits and vegetables recommended daily to prevent cancer, and keep our immune system healthy. This is another reason we are seeing earlier signs of indigestion and heartburn in children. Build your diet around whole unprocessed foods, so that you can get real nutrients in your daily diet to feed your mind.