Eliminating Red Dye

After a particularly bad week with DS, I have been doing a ton of research because I want my sweet little boy back. He is an extremely picky eater and I have realized that EVERY single thing he eats has red dye in it... He won't drink milk, so we would give him strawberry milk all throughout the day. I knew it wasn't healthy, but I figured it was better than him not drinking any milk. Little did I know how bad red dye can be Like I said, this past week was particulary bad. He has pneumonia and I just looked it up and his meds have red dye in it... Has anybody eliminated red dye and seen positive results in their kids? Today, he didn't have anything with it in it and we had a great day except for one minor outburst I think is more related to him not napping... It was so nice to have a good day for once Thanks for listening!

Re: Eliminating Red Dye

Look up the feingold diet, it is a little more detailed than just red dye elimination. I eliminated red dye from my ds diet and saw a huge difference, it seems overwhelming at first but once u get use to it, shopping and feeding are easy. We actually do a modified feingold diet, try to eliminate all dyes and flavoring. Shopping at trader joes and whole foods helps and even organic aisle of shoprite/stop n shop. U can even tell pharmacists and they will note it in record to avoid, most (not all meds) have a dye free version.
Hard part for me is social gathering but if know they won't have something okay for ds (sprinkle cupcakes,etc) will bring own treat. Or let him have a small portion, ds,is getting older (5 1/2) so he understands his limitations and usually ask if allowed first, I don't want him to miss out at school functions(birthdays, holidays ,ex) so I allow if needed him to have "dyes" at those events.

Good luck, my thought is the worst that can come from eliminations dyes/artificial flavoring is a healthier diet so why not.

Re: Eliminating Red Dye

I've never heard of that diet nor have I ever heard anything about red dye. What are some side effects that food dye can have?

Re: Eliminating Red Dye

Re: Eliminating Red Dye

Eliminating Red Dye

We have mostly eliminated food colorings with our son, and I think it makes a difference (he still has it with bday cakes and such, but none day to day). I didn't do Feingold though--that involved eliminating a lot of foods he likes to eat, even some healthy foods like apples.

I would start with food colorings, it's pretty easy once you know where they are. Then try flavorings, that's a little harder.

Eliminating Red Dye

I've recently removed all 'named' dyes from my kids diets. I don't see as big of a difference with the one DS that has behavioral issues (but there are other things going on here too), but even our babysitter has commented on how much calmer and focused my oldest DS has been. Just remember red dye is in SO much - even vitamins and toothpaste.

You can also look into removing gluten since that has also been noted to cause behavioral issues, but this is not as easy to do as removing the artificial dyes.

Re: Eliminating Red Dye