One day, a gal came over to visit. As we were chatting, my son kept crawling all over me. I couldn't get him to stop. He just kept being really overly, uncontrollably goofy. I was hiding the fact that I was a little embarrassed and that I was getting a wee-bit irritated with it. The gal who was visiting, being very opinionated and very out-spoken, kept telling me how naughty he was being and kept pointing out his lack of obedience. I assured her that this was not how he normally was. And it wasn't. In fact, I always felt extremely fortunate how well-behaved my child was. He was simply a joy to raise. Again, I stated, just how I had to my husband and my mother before, "something isn't right".
Just then, I glanced over at the kitchen counter and a can of Strawberry Instant Quick glared back at me. Yuck, right? Oh, I hated that stuff, but my husband had recently gotten onto a kick were he had purchased it a few times and proudly brought it into our home and even more proudly shared it with my son. Again, yuck (though admittedly, the rabbit on the can was very cute advertising). It suddenly hit me like a rock into the head. I got up, picked up the can, and looked at the ingredients. This is the very first moment in my life that I ever actually really cared what was on a label outside of 'fat' and 'calories'.
I instantly, for some reason, focused on the red dye in it. It was like the words just popped out to me, waving, or something. I instantly knew, like true mother's instinct, that food dye was the culprit. I started thinking about the red kool-aid drinks, jello...all the other things that kids ate that seemed so "junk-foodly" innocent back in the day. Now, honestly, I hadn't even thought about any other color besides red, just because that was the color in question that day...and most likely because my son always chose 'red' everything. I was fortunate, because for him, "red" food-dye was the culprit. Fast-forward into the future, and all food-dye colors PLUS annatto (natural, right?) were the culprits for my fourth son. Same type of story, same outcome. Except that it took a little more investigation for my fourth. Mind you, for a quick tip: do not ignore annatto!
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Just then, I glanced over at the kitchen counter and a can of Strawberry Instant Quick glared back at me. Yuck, right? Oh, I hated that stuff, but my husband had recently gotten onto a kick were he had purchased it a few times and proudly brought it into our home and even more proudly shared it with my son. Again, yuck (though admittedly, the rabbit on the can was very cute advertising). It suddenly hit me like a rock into the head. I got up, picked up the can, and looked at the ingredients. This is the very first moment in my life that I ever actually really cared what was on a label outside of 'fat' and 'calories'.
I instantly, for some reason, focused on the red dye in it. It was like the words just popped out to me, waving, or something. I instantly knew, like true mother's instinct, that food dye was the culprit. I started thinking about the red kool-aid drinks, jello...all the other things that kids ate that seemed so "junk-foodly" innocent back in the day. Now, honestly, I hadn't even thought about any other color besides red, just because that was the color in question that day...and most likely because my son always chose 'red' everything. I was fortunate, because for him, "red" food-dye was the culprit. Fast-forward into the future, and all food-dye colors PLUS annatto (natural, right?) were the culprits for my fourth son. Same type of story, same outcome. Except that it took a little more investigation for my fourth. Mind you, for a quick tip: do not ignore annatto!
Click Here to go back.