How food additives can affect your child
We all want to feed our children a nutritious diet, but food is like an iceberg: two-thirds of what it contains is hidden below the surface! So while you think you might have given your toddler a perfectly healthy snack this morning, you may well have served up a batch of food additives instead.
There’s a subtext to most of the food we give our children and although sunset yellow may sound like the colour you used to paint your kitchen, you may well be serving it up to your toddler on a regular basis. And if your toddler spends her afternoons careering around the house and ignoring your pleas to calm down, then the additives in the food you give her may be to blame, as many have been linked to hyperactivity and ADHD.
Are E numbers really necessary?
Try looking at the list of ingredients on the food that you buy and you’ll find you’d need a chemistry degree to figure out what some of them are. Those lists of numbers and letters might have you scratching your head and wondering why a strawberry yogurt needs flavourings when it seems like the sensible thing is to actually put strawberries in it.But then again, you like the food you buy to stay fresh, don’t you? And you like having a wide variety of quality foods to choose from? Well, it’s the much-maligned additives and preservatives that keep the bread you buy mould-free, the ham in the fridge safe to eat, and the butter that attractive yellow shade, that enable you to choose from a huge variety of food options at your local supermarket. And it’s worth keeping in mind that not all additives are bad – vitamins and minerals are added to milk, flour, cereal and margarine to make up for any that might be lacking in your diet or lost in processing, and in the long term this has helped reduce malnutrition. And preservatives can help prevent bacterial contamination that could cause illness.
Are food additives safe?
The possible health risks of food additives have long been debated, although they can only be used after thorough safety tests. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) sanctions the use of additives to keep food fresh and attractive looking and points out that testing additives to ensure their safety can take years: ‘Additives with E numbers have passed safety tests which demonstrate that they do not compromise food safety and are approved for use in the UK and European Union’.However, it’s food for thought that some of the additives our children are consuming here in the UK are banned in other countries. And while individual substances are checked for safety, the ‘cocktail effect’ of children eating so many additives each day is unknown.
Additives and your child’s behaviour
Some research has linked additives to hyperactivity, allergies and asthma, and more and more studies are backing up the theory that food additives cause disruptive behaviour and tantrums in young children.Research carried out in 2004 on behalf of the FSA came to the conclusion that significant changes in children’s hyperactive behaviour could be produced by the removal of food colourings and additives from their diet. Part of the problems lies in our ‘snack culture’. Toddlers and young children need to graze during the day to keep up their energy levels but often they are filling up on convenience foods instead of eating a balanced diet. And it’s snack foods that tend to contain the most additives – in fact some studies suggest that pre-schoolers may consume up to 80 additives a day, mainly in the form of snack foods.
Avoiding additives in your child’s diet
It’s all but impossible to avoid additives altogether although buying organic produce should at least ensure that the fruit and vegetables you give your children haven’t been sprayed with pesticides or grown using chemical fertilisers. Take these precautions too…- Avoid giving your child convenience, ready-made or mass-produced food. Instead, prepare as much food as possible from fresh ingredients.
- When buying pre-prepared food, check the labels and as a rule, choose the simplest.
- Choose the best quality food you can – for instance, 85 percent meat sausages instead of 60 percent – to minimise the amounts of fillers, binders, salt and preservatives your child eats.
- If a label states that the food contains no artificial flavours, don’t let it throw you off your guard – check for artificial colourings.
- Offer healthy snacks, such as fruit and vegetables in toddler-friendly bite-size portions. Store them in airtight containers in the fridge, so they’re ready when you need them.
- Select only juices that are 100 percent fruit juices, and avoid soft drinks.
- Limit crisps – instead, offer your child healthy snacks, such as home-made popcorn, rice cakes, dry cereal and whole grain crackers.
Understanding food labels
There’s only one way to check the what’s actually in the food you give your children, and that’s to look at the ingredients list. If you bear in mind that ingredients are listed in descending order of weight (biggest first) you’ll be able to work out what the main ingredients are. Remember though that not all E numbers are bad – antioxidants, which are natural and are not linked to problems, include ascorbates/vitamin C (E300-E304) and tocopherols/vitamin E (E306-E309). But try to avoid giving your child too many foods containing these:- E102/Tartrazine This food colouring is thought to provoke asthma attacks and is linked to hyperactivity. It’s found in juice drinks and squashes, sweets, crisps and jam, and is actually banned in many countries.
- E110/Sunset yellow Used in cereals, baked goods, sweets, snack foods and ice cream and linked with allergies and hyperactivity.
- E200/Sorbic acid This preservative is included in a range of flour-based foods as well as cheese, dried fruit and fruit juices. It has been linked to skin irritations, asthma and hyperactivity.
- E210/Benzoic acid Added to baked goods, cheeses and ice cream, this has been linked with asthma and hyperactivity.
- E220-228/Sulphites (such as sodium sulphite, calcium sulphite) These are used to prevent discolouration, and are often found in dried fruit, salad and fruit juice concentrates.
- E320, E321/Butylated hydroxyl-anisole and hydroxyl-toluene In margarine, nuts, baked goods, cereals and snack foods, these have been linked with skin rashes and hyperactivity. There are also concerns over cancer.
The information in this feature is intended for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about your health, the health of your child or the health of someone you know, please consult with a doctor or other healthcare professional.
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