On an ongoing basis, each and every day, we are bombarded with advertisements that grab our attention and try to get us to buy something. We see them on television, the Internet and hear them on the radio. They are even hidden throughout the area and we may be bombarded with that message as we go about our day-to-day life.
One of those types of advertisements is for our food choices and those companies spend about $10 billion a year to make sure that we are buying what they offer. They bombard us with advertising for sugary sweet cereal for children and fruit snacks full of artificial sugar and preservatives. Unfortunately, this type of marketing works quite well and we know that those choices fall into the junk food category, but we may not know how severely they are affecting our health.
According to research, many popular snacks that children love contain artificial food coloring to make them look more appealing. It allows them to have fun with their food but those dyes can be made from petroleum. Some of the products that may be affected include Kool-Aid, Jell-O, Fruit Loops, macaroni and cheese, fruit roll ups, popsicles and Nutri-Grain cereal bars. To be honest, this is only scratching the surface. Those additives have been linked to health problems, including hyperactivity, allergies and cancer.
Two of the six colorings that are banned in the UK are yellow 5 and red 40. They are still available in the United States, however, and companies use them in their products regularly. In fact, it is estimated that almost 15 million pounds of different types of synthetic dyes go into our food every year. The FDA acknowledges that they may impair the behavior of some children but they do nothing to remove them from the foods that they eat.
Here are the Top 5 children snacks That Are Made with Petroleum-Based Ingredients:
Pop Tarts
Frosted strawberry, which is the most popular type of pop tart, includes corn syrup, dextrose, sugar and high fructose corn syrup. All of those have been linked to sugar addiction, liver problems and diabetes in children. They also contain TBHQ, a petroleum-based product that could lead to cellular dysfunction. Laboratory testing on animals shows that it is linked to a loss of vision, liver enlargement, tumors, convulsions and paralysis.
Fruit snacks
The food color used in these fruit snacks is red 3 or erythrosine, a petroleum-based product that is banned for use with cosmetics because of thyroid tumors. You can’t use it on your skin but you can eat it without any problem? Avoid the gummy bears.
M&Ms
There is more than chocolate in this popular snack. It includes blue 1, which could lead to malignant tumors and blue 2, which could increase hyperactivity and cause brain tumors. Red 40 can damage DNA and yellow 5 and 6 have been linked to cancer.
Cheetos
Yellow 6 is the artificial coloring for this snack and it is derived from petroleum. The cheese flavor also includes methyl benzoate and ethyl methylphenidat.
Teddy Grahams
These innocent looking bears are laced with TBHQ that has been shown to cause stomach cancer, fragmented DNA and could damage umbilical cells and human lungs. It can cause anxiety, restlessness and intensifies symptoms of ADHD.
Using artificial dyes in children’s foods poses unnecessary and dangerous health risks. It really is just a matter of being conscious about what your children are eating, including the possibility for artificial coloring. They can still taste the rainbow, so to speak, if you feed them fruits and vegetables.
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