What do you think about Red Dye #40?

Hi 3snugglebunnies. Is Red Dye #40 still in any foods, drinks? I will do some research on it and get back to you. I will also look into other food colorings as well. I suspect my daughter has ADD she has not yet been diagnosed yet. She can sit still, but when she doesn't she has a ton of energy and she becomes the energizer bunny rabbit. Has you daughter consumed Red Dye #40? Just wondering. I'm going to look into it and get back to you. I have also read that there are other foods and additives that play a major role in A.D.D. What does your doctor say? Happy New Year

I have not looked into the food colors, but I know, from decorating cakes, that some of the major companies have removed this from their food bases. This is one reason why some colors are not as vibrant as they use to be! It is very hard now to make a true deep beautiful red. I have had grandchildren diagnosed with the A.D.D. and I know that some foods have to be eliminated from the diet or limited. These include caffinated products and high sugar content.

I remember when they took that off the market--I think it was that one, it could've been something else, but it affected M&Ms, one color was eliminated because of it. I haven't read about the controversy but I know that I fed my children as little processed foods as possible when they were growing up and my youngest has been diagnosed with ADD at the age of 22. He really didn't show signs of it growing up but now that he's on his own he's eating mostly fast food and processed frozen stuff. So that might reinforce the argument for its contributing to ADD. I believe that the less artificial stuff we eat, the better. Not only the dyes but the preservatives and the hormones we add are playing havoc with our bodies. We have children reaching puberty at 8-10 years old! So many young mothers no longer have maternal instincts and can't bond with their babies and I think it's because of the hormones and additives in our foods. So I've eliminated everything artificial I can from my own diet, just as I did with my sons years ago. I feel much better--I spent about a year not cooking, just to get a break from over 20 years of 3 meals a day for my family and I'm back to real cooking now with fresh ingredients.

My 14 year old son had ADD, not ADDH. I will definitely take a look at the link you provided. I am open to any new info about ADD.

Red Dye #40 is something that neither of my children have ever been exposed to. It isn't that I choose to not expose them to it because of problems with ADD or anything like that, instead, they've never been exposed to it because I was violently allergic to it when I was a child and therefore I'm afraid of it now even though I think that the allergy problems that I used to have have been outgrown by now. At this point, neither of my children is ADD, but my son is still far to young to even think about that.

Red #40 is just one of the synthetic dyes made from petroleum. Yes, petroleum! They are all bad but Red #40 gets the publicity because it is the dye most used in products today. Yellow #5 is second. These dyes are so bad that, in Europe, products with them carry a warning label. In March, our FDA is holding hearings on food dyes. I belong to the Feingold Association. It is a support group for those wanting to stay away from these dyes, etc. There is a lot of info on its website about them and the FDA hearings. feingold.org

You know, I've heard about that before but never seriously thought about eliminating it from my diet. I seem to have developed food allergies, and I just wonder... I suspect it would be really hard to eliminate all artificial dyes, but I doubt that any of them are truly safe.

i heard something like this before! i say if there is any truth to it then it's in your best interest to keep it away from your daughter. this companies don't care what they put in their foods and the harm that it can cause. they just want to use the cheapest things to put in there food.

I have a very dear friend who when her son (now 24) was a tot, he was a pretty bright, normal kid, with a little hyperactivity but no attention deficit... One day, at her husband's birthday party they had a really nice cake with bright red on the icing. After "E" at his cake, he got worse and worse, until he was laying on the floor, running himself around in circles while screaming with laughter. She started to apologize and I just pointed at him and said "red dye". Sure enough, they let him eat cake without the red icing on it and it was normal, but the last piece (and she had been kind of saving it as a test piece) was with the red icing, and he again went kind of crazy hyper. After that, for the rest of his childhood, he got no red dye - and that included the red dye in the writing on "conversation hearts" - a note since Valentines is coming up!

I have heard of people being allergic to different dyes but I never heard it effecting people with ADD. I myself can't take cold medicines with color because I break out in hives, but dyes in drinks and other things don't effect me. Hopefully removing it from you daughters diet will help her, best of luck.

I heard about this years ago when one of our friends had a son who was diagnosed with ADD.They tried a lot of things with him. I don't know if it really is the trouble or not as they haven't done a whole of of conclusive research on ADHD either. But I would say to put them on a very natural diet would be beneficial!

I heard something about this the other day and wondered if it actually could be linked. I think as parents we have to do all to try and do what we can to look into all probabilities.

I have to be careful with all the food dyes and try to avoid them at all costs. The worst for me are red 40,yellow 5, blue 1 and blue 5. These are all in Froot Loops. My mom bought a box for us when I was a child and my body could not get rid of the dyes. My kidneys shut down from not being able to filter them out of my body. At the age of 12, I had kidney failure and after a lot of testing the kidney doctor determined the dyes were the cause. Because they are synthetic, some people's bodies do not how to break them down or filter them out and they can cause a lot of problems. You are wise to limit her exposure to food dyes. My son has ADHD and we try to limit his exposure as well.

I have heard this before and I personally don't give my daughter anything with the red dye in it and I have been avoiding it myself since I am currently pregnant.

I haven't, no. No one in my family has any major food allergies or health concerns to make us worry about what we eat. But I do have a friend who's little 3 year old probably has ADHD, though she's not diagnosed due to her age. My friend was telling me that they changed the girl's diet, removed all the red dye and processed sugars and stuff like that, and she's seen a huge improvement. She also has to give the girl a teaspoon of coffee once a day to get some down time. It's odd, but with ADHD (or ADD) kids, sugars and caffeine have an opposite effect, it calms them instead of makes them more hyper.