Red Dye #40
Aug. 15th, 2009 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerI may have mentioned here before that Molly isn't allowed to eat things that contain red dye #40. There are a couple of chemical dyes that are tied to behavior problems in some kids, but red 40 is the one that gets most of the bad rap. (We let her have yellow 5, which is the distant runner up; it doesn't seem to cause her problems, though her consumption of it dropped off a lot when we took red 40 out of her diet, because so many crap foods contain both.)
Much rambling about red 40 below.
We tried this when she was having behavior problems last fall, and were pretty sure it made a noticeable difference; she was less squirrely and had a longer fuse when someone or something ticked her off. However, there were other things that changed at the same time, so we weren't 100% sure that the red dye was a significant factor until one day this spring when we accidentally let her have some. (It was a fresh strawberry pie from Norske Nook. I should have guessed that the stuff holding it all together was strawberry gelatin, but I didn't make the connection until AFTER she missed a field trip due to a massive meltdown on the bus. And even then I didn't figure it out until I was holding her on my lap and realized she was acting like she wanted to crawl out of her skin, and I hadn't seen her this twitchy since...oh, hey...)
As dietary restrictions go, this is a pretty easy one. Federal law requires labels to disclose red 40 if it's in the food. (In some countries, I think they have to also put a label on the front noting that the food contains a substance that may cause behavior problems in some children. I would LOVE to see such a regulation pass here, because I bet that would eliminate red 40 from nearly everything that doesn't have to be BRIGHT red. However, I am not holding my breath.) The funny thing is where you'll find it, and where you won't.
If it's a pink or red baked good or candy that doesn't say "organic" or "all natural!" in big friendly letters on the front, it's got red 40 in it. Red M&Ms, red lollipops, pink-frosted cookies, Valentine's cakes, candy canes... These all have pretty easy workarounds. I don't buy much store-baked stuff anyway because baking a cake is really not all that hard, and home-baked cake and cookies taste astronomically better. If I'm going to eat something with that much sugar, I want something that doesn't have the hideous chemical aftertaste of store frosting. If I want pink frosting, I use beet juice: grate some beet into cheese cloth or a paper towel, squeeze. The hard part is not overdoing it, as you can go from pink to electric magenta very quickly.
As far as candy goes, she wasn't allowed to eat much hard candy anyway because of her early cavities. However, if I'm going to let her have a lollipop, she can eat the yellow and green ones. You can buy candy canes from a co-op (or Whole Foods or Trader Joe's) and they'll use beet juice for coloring, which gives you a washed-out looking candy cane but it tastes just as pepperminty as the regular kind. Jelly Bellies makes an all-natural variety; there's an organic M&M knock-off carried by my co-op.
You have to be very careful to check when buying juice; even if it says 100% juice, it may have red dye. (That drives me nuts. 100% should not leave any room for weird artificial chemicals.) If it says "all natural," however, you're safe. Pink drinks are a big red flag; it shouldn't surprise anyone that Hawaiian Punch contains it, but there are pink grapefruit juices that also have it, and some but not all pink lemonades. The Target brand of pink lemonade concentrate uses beet juice.
The same rules apply to cereals as baked goods. If it's pink or red and doesn't say ORGANIC in big letters, it's going to have red 40 in it. Even if it's not pink, you always have to check the label, because Cinnamon Life has red 40 in it, and it's not even red. After years of refusing to serve "dessert cereals" as anything other than dessert, we buy Molly organic sugar cereal because she was eating Froot Loops every morning for breakfast at school (Minneapolis kids all get a free school breakfast) and she was really, really sad when we told her she couldn't eat those any more. (And the fact is, we rely on her to comply voluntarily and refrain from eating a lot of treats that come her way. Giving her Cocoa Bunnies for breakfast every morning is a small price to pay.)
Yogurts usually rely on vegetable colorings and occasionally carmine, a natural coloring that originates from insects (you didn't want to know that, did you?) unless they are kids' yogurts (!) or the chocolate-flavored kind. Fluorescent orange crackers like Cheez-Its mostly use anatto.
You can find organic versions of Strawberry Jell-O -- my co-op has an all-natural strawberry gelatin (but not cherry) and the Rainbow store brand of orange Jell-O uses just yellow 5. Breyers and Hagen-Dazs ice creams are mostly additive-free, and are also better than the cheap kind. The available item that startled me the most: Popsicles have a bunch of all-natural varieties, including some lovely bright red and orange Popsicles that are all-natural vegetable and fruit-based dyes. (Alas, bomb pops are still loaded with the bad stuff.)
But there are some things you cannot find in a red dye free version, or at least I haven't yet.
1. Ready-made refrigerated pie crust. I make my own crust for fruit pies, but Ed is not a pie-crust maker, and in the past when he's wanted to make quiche, he's used the Pillsbury refrigerated pre-rolled pie crusts. We can't use those any more; they have red 40. My best guess is that it results in a browner crust when it's baked; I mean, otherwise, WTF? The off-brand refrigerated pie crusts also have it. You can buy frozen pie crusts in disposable aluminum pie pans that do not have it, but that sort of pie crust is not nearly as good as the refrigerated kind. My co-op does not carry a ready-made pie crust, probably because the sort of people who shop at co-ops are assumed to be capable of making their own pie crust.
2. Instant chocolate pudding. The cook-and-serve doesn't have it, but the instant kind does. The cook-and-serve kind is also tastier, but you know, if I'm going to stand over the stove stirring for 20 minutes, I'll just make my damn pudding from scratch; I have a recipe for chocolate pudding and it's better than the kind that comes out of a box. My co-op sells cook-and-serve chocolate pudding, but not the instant kind; I'm not sure if this is because (a) to be an instant pudding, the mix has to contain some weird non-organic chemical, or (b) people who shop at co-ops have an intense distrust of instant puddings from a box even though they're OK with strawberrry Jell-O and organic pseudo M&Ms.
You are also SOL if you want pink marshmallows, I think, but I've never understood the appeal of those, anyway.
Much rambling about red 40 below.
We tried this when she was having behavior problems last fall, and were pretty sure it made a noticeable difference; she was less squirrely and had a longer fuse when someone or something ticked her off. However, there were other things that changed at the same time, so we weren't 100% sure that the red dye was a significant factor until one day this spring when we accidentally let her have some. (It was a fresh strawberry pie from Norske Nook. I should have guessed that the stuff holding it all together was strawberry gelatin, but I didn't make the connection until AFTER she missed a field trip due to a massive meltdown on the bus. And even then I didn't figure it out until I was holding her on my lap and realized she was acting like she wanted to crawl out of her skin, and I hadn't seen her this twitchy since...oh, hey...)
As dietary restrictions go, this is a pretty easy one. Federal law requires labels to disclose red 40 if it's in the food. (In some countries, I think they have to also put a label on the front noting that the food contains a substance that may cause behavior problems in some children. I would LOVE to see such a regulation pass here, because I bet that would eliminate red 40 from nearly everything that doesn't have to be BRIGHT red. However, I am not holding my breath.) The funny thing is where you'll find it, and where you won't.
If it's a pink or red baked good or candy that doesn't say "organic" or "all natural!" in big friendly letters on the front, it's got red 40 in it. Red M&Ms, red lollipops, pink-frosted cookies, Valentine's cakes, candy canes... These all have pretty easy workarounds. I don't buy much store-baked stuff anyway because baking a cake is really not all that hard, and home-baked cake and cookies taste astronomically better. If I'm going to eat something with that much sugar, I want something that doesn't have the hideous chemical aftertaste of store frosting. If I want pink frosting, I use beet juice: grate some beet into cheese cloth or a paper towel, squeeze. The hard part is not overdoing it, as you can go from pink to electric magenta very quickly.
As far as candy goes, she wasn't allowed to eat much hard candy anyway because of her early cavities. However, if I'm going to let her have a lollipop, she can eat the yellow and green ones. You can buy candy canes from a co-op (or Whole Foods or Trader Joe's) and they'll use beet juice for coloring, which gives you a washed-out looking candy cane but it tastes just as pepperminty as the regular kind. Jelly Bellies makes an all-natural variety; there's an organic M&M knock-off carried by my co-op.
You have to be very careful to check when buying juice; even if it says 100% juice, it may have red dye. (That drives me nuts. 100% should not leave any room for weird artificial chemicals.) If it says "all natural," however, you're safe. Pink drinks are a big red flag; it shouldn't surprise anyone that Hawaiian Punch contains it, but there are pink grapefruit juices that also have it, and some but not all pink lemonades. The Target brand of pink lemonade concentrate uses beet juice.
The same rules apply to cereals as baked goods. If it's pink or red and doesn't say ORGANIC in big letters, it's going to have red 40 in it. Even if it's not pink, you always have to check the label, because Cinnamon Life has red 40 in it, and it's not even red. After years of refusing to serve "dessert cereals" as anything other than dessert, we buy Molly organic sugar cereal because she was eating Froot Loops every morning for breakfast at school (Minneapolis kids all get a free school breakfast) and she was really, really sad when we told her she couldn't eat those any more. (And the fact is, we rely on her to comply voluntarily and refrain from eating a lot of treats that come her way. Giving her Cocoa Bunnies for breakfast every morning is a small price to pay.)
Yogurts usually rely on vegetable colorings and occasionally carmine, a natural coloring that originates from insects (you didn't want to know that, did you?) unless they are kids' yogurts (!) or the chocolate-flavored kind. Fluorescent orange crackers like Cheez-Its mostly use anatto.
You can find organic versions of Strawberry Jell-O -- my co-op has an all-natural strawberry gelatin (but not cherry) and the Rainbow store brand of orange Jell-O uses just yellow 5. Breyers and Hagen-Dazs ice creams are mostly additive-free, and are also better than the cheap kind. The available item that startled me the most: Popsicles have a bunch of all-natural varieties, including some lovely bright red and orange Popsicles that are all-natural vegetable and fruit-based dyes. (Alas, bomb pops are still loaded with the bad stuff.)
But there are some things you cannot find in a red dye free version, or at least I haven't yet.
1. Ready-made refrigerated pie crust. I make my own crust for fruit pies, but Ed is not a pie-crust maker, and in the past when he's wanted to make quiche, he's used the Pillsbury refrigerated pre-rolled pie crusts. We can't use those any more; they have red 40. My best guess is that it results in a browner crust when it's baked; I mean, otherwise, WTF? The off-brand refrigerated pie crusts also have it. You can buy frozen pie crusts in disposable aluminum pie pans that do not have it, but that sort of pie crust is not nearly as good as the refrigerated kind. My co-op does not carry a ready-made pie crust, probably because the sort of people who shop at co-ops are assumed to be capable of making their own pie crust.
2. Instant chocolate pudding. The cook-and-serve doesn't have it, but the instant kind does. The cook-and-serve kind is also tastier, but you know, if I'm going to stand over the stove stirring for 20 minutes, I'll just make my damn pudding from scratch; I have a recipe for chocolate pudding and it's better than the kind that comes out of a box. My co-op sells cook-and-serve chocolate pudding, but not the instant kind; I'm not sure if this is because (a) to be an instant pudding, the mix has to contain some weird non-organic chemical, or (b) people who shop at co-ops have an intense distrust of instant puddings from a box even though they're OK with strawberrry Jell-O and organic pseudo M&Ms.
You are also SOL if you want pink marshmallows, I think, but I've never understood the appeal of those, anyway.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 11:05 pm (UTC)or, (c), strawberry Jell-O may be one of those foods that the co-ops have to stock so that they can continue to take WIC. I have no idea what the list is, but I know that's why they have some of the less-hippie cereals.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 12:44 am (UTC)(It does stuff that is almost that crazy. Like it covers juice, but minimal fruit, IIRC. But not quite that crazy.)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 01:35 pm (UTC)I'm blown away by the red dye in pie crusts. Could you make and freeze your own ahead of time? I mean, part of the reason I use those is to save time when I make quiche. I'd hate to have to bake the crust and then make the quiche. :-/
no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 10:08 pm (UTC)I'm glad it's working out well for Molly. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-20 03:36 pm (UTC)