Like my all-time hero, Sue Dengate, author of Fed Up and The Failsafe Cookbook; I am fed up. Not with my childrens behaviour (as in her book title) my little munchkins have been doing fabulously, but with the fact that I have to work so damn hard in this day and age to provide food for my family that isn't loaded with chemicals.
As I have written before we are doing a big move and although we have been FAILSAFE (free of additives, salicylates, amines and other food chemicals) for over a year now we decided to get back on the stricter elimination diet in the lead up to the big day. We know it makes an amazing difference to our ability to cope with change, long drives and each other in cramped conditions :-)... it's just the "doing" that has me fed up at the moment.
Being time poor with packing, cleaning and the myrid of other "things" that have to be done in the lead up to moving house it would be nice to not have to worry over meals for the family, however pick up a packet of anything today and you'll find it's loaded with so many numbers and long winded names your head will spin. How did we let things get this way! How on earth did we, as a society allow our food to be filled with so much junk and not once cry foul. The moment of true dispair came when I was re-reading Sue's book recently and found that tests were never carried out to evaluate the effects of food additives on learning and behaviour. How in an age where scientific learning is so valued and sprouted at us, espeically parents at every turn did we miss this. It makes you wonder what exactly the tests did check for, what is the passing grade for a food additive? - Doesn't cause death, blindness, seisures, so tick that one off the list and move on? If additives in our food are not being evaluated on their effects on the brain's development and learning abilities what hope have we for the other environmental chemicals we encounter every day!
There is a new resurgence out that that is focusing on eliminating food additives such as colours and MSG from food, more studies are showing that additives are effecting learning, behaviour and mood, however as quickly as one number is taken out, another one is introduced. A new name, new number... you may find me in the supermarket waiting patiently on my mobile for customer service at some food company to tell me eaxctly what colour is caramel IV today - which usually ends up being annanatto or 160(b) - one of the very nasty "natural" colours that skims through the "no artifical colours" labelling yet has my children swinging from the ceiling in an amazingly short amount of time.
The time has come for us to fight back against the war on food so that we can shop at our leisure without having to label search and interrogate customer service lines before taking home a tub of yogurt. There are many ways of effecting change but the biggest one is with your wallet and your pen (or keyboard). Email or wite to companies with additives and inform them of their error and the fact that you and your many online friends will not be purchasing their product until it is clear of garbage. In the meantime my kiddies and I will be bunkering down with our Brumbry's bread and golden syrup and feeling all the better for it.
For more info on food chemicals check here
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