Mom’s Soap Box

Regular readers know my daughter Maegan is ADHD. I’ve gotten a lot of recommendations from other Moms of ADHDers to try this diet. I found a copy of Dr. Feingold’s book “Why Your Child Is Hyperactive”. He has a fairly convincing argument against artificial flavors and colorings. I don’t know that our family can manage a diet as strict as that given by Dr Feingold in his K-P Diet.

A less rigorous approach than the Feingold Program, given that many studies have shown the sensitivity of some children to dyes, is to start by eliminating only those foods (and vitamins, drugs, and toothpastes) that contain artificial colorings. It is important to use a diet diary or journal.

If that doesn’t help, the Feingold Association recommends eliminating:

* Corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, and corn sugar (in soft drinks and other sweetened foods)

* MSG (monosodium glutamate) and HVP (hydrolyzed vegetable protein, which contains some glutamate)

* Sodium nitrite (in luncheon meats)

* Calcium propionate (in baked goods)

After several weeks, if the child’s behavior has improved, every few days restore one eliminated food or ingredient at a time. Repeat that two or three times if a problem occurs, to confirm that the food is really a culprit. Studies show that some children are sensitive not just to food additives but also to such foods as:

* Wheat

* Eggs

* Milk and other dairy foods

* Chocolate

* Soybeans/tofu

* Corn products (including corn sugar and syrup)

Eliminate as many of those foods as possible, plus artificial colorings and other additives. Children can eat fresh meat and poultry, any vegetable (except corn and soybeans), fruits and fruit juices (but not citrus fruit/juice and not beverages normally consumed daily), rice, and oats.

Which sweetener to use?

There’s so much we don’t know about sweeteners, but the Association does have the accumulated experience of many thousands of families. Combining experience with what we do know, here’s a suggested guideline for choosing sweeteners:

* Acceptable choices

· Sugar - granulated, confectioner’s, or brown

· Cane sugar crystals

· Turbinado and various raw sugars

· Honey, Molasses, Pure maple syrup

· Rice syrup and similar syrups

· Stevia (an herbal no-calorie sweetener found in the supplements section of your supermarket or a health food store)

* Acceptable, but don’t overdo

When a sugar name ends in “ol” that means it is an alcohol sugar. Too much has a laxative effect.

· Sorbitol

· Mannitol

· Xylitol

· Hydrogenated starches

* Less desirable

· Corn syrup, corn sweeteners, dextrose

* Questionable

· Acesulfame-k (Sunett, Sweet One)

· D-tagatose (Naturlose)

* Do not use

· Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal)

· Neotame

· Alitame

· Cyclamate

· Saccharin (Sweet ‘N Low),

· Sucralose (Splenda)

· High fructose corn syrup

I don’t how easy it will be to remove all artificial colors and additives. I do know it is a major chore just finding products at the grocery store that don’t contain high fructose corn syrup. I spent two days shopping at five different store (not different locations for the same store, different stores) with my Mom. We found one brand of ketchup without HFCS and one barbecue sauce without HFCS, out of dozens of brands and flavors of ketchup and bbq sauces. That is ridiculous. We spent 20 minutes just reading the labels on various brands and flavors of bbq sauce, because Maegan has to have it. Forget about buying ready-made sweets at the bakery or the grocery store. You are setting yourself up with an impossible task, trying to find anything there without High Fructose Corn Syrup in it.