Cereal: why the vibrant colors?

Wow, this was very well done.  CNN student news.  An update on food colorings in our food.

"Welcome to a special edition of CNN Student News! On today's show, we're taking you inside part of the U.S. food industry, focusing specifically on cereal: What is it made of, how has the industry changed, and what gives the popular breakfast food its vibrant colors? We also give you a sense of how consumer demand still has the power to influence the industry."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/07/studentnews/sn-content-mon/index.html

New Bloggish Blog that I will update more often

Hey all loyal followers. :) I have the dumbest reason ever for not updating this blog. I lost my super old password and couldn't figure this out for years. Hahaha. How horrible is that? Anyway, I might update this here and there now that I've finally figured it out. But, I'm also starting another little blog catering to my diabetes and low carb Feingold style eating. Not everything mentioned is Feingold approved but, it's all read clean items.

 http://locarbworld.blogspot.com/

Here ya go and happy reading.  :)

Homemade candy corns!

http://www.littlehomesteaders.com/2013/10/homemade-candy-corns-with-less-of-junk.html How cute are these great little homemade candy corns??? Someone had the idea to do cocoa powder for a black, thin stripe on top and turmeric for the middle stripe. I think that's a great idea and no need to find bottled natural food coloring. We use turmeric a lot for yellow but I don't know what would make that great orange color except bottled in this particular application. And, if you have an asian store nearby you can probably find cheap tapioca flour. I order big bags at Azure Standard or they are also in health food stores or in the gluten free aisle of the grocery store.

10 Scary Reasons To Avoid Artificial Food Coloring! Just in time for Halloween.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/10-scary-reasons-to-avoid-artificial-food-coloring.html Scary things in American food!!!

100 days of real food Kraft mac and cheese petition

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2013/03/08/kraft-petition-update/ AMAZING ladies!!! Keep doing what you're doing. Awareness is the key and as we can all tell by ignorant comments, people just have no idea how these petroleum based food dyes and artificial nasties are affecting our foods in America. If Europe did it we can certainly do it.

Meadow Gold Dairy gets with it!

YAY! Alyssa came home yesterday so excited to tell me that they had a little celebration at Weber State University when her friend went in to buy strawberry milk and saw that the red #40 had been replaced with beet root powder. Alyssa is a vocal advocate for no petroleum so the friends all knew. I contacted the great people at Meadow Gold Dairy and am pleased to report that indeed, the colors AND artificial flavoring have been replaced in Strawberry and Chocolate milk. Also, the corn syrup has been replaced with sugar. We're not big on sugary milk in general but we'll definitely have a celebration at home for that! I urge you to contact your local producers of flavored milk, especially at schools, to see if this is a possibility for them as well. Here is the response to my question. Danika, We have made some changes to remove artificial colors and flavors out of our formulas as much as possible. Our Tru Moo line, chocolate and strawberry milk now have all natural colors and flavors. This is a permanent change, not going back. We have also replaced HFCS on all the Tru Moo line of flavored milk with sucrose (sugar). You can read the ingredients on the label of the Tru Moo line, see attached nutrition facts. Thank you. Max Torres Quality Assurance Manager Meadow Gold Dairies 3730 W. 1820 S. Salt Lake City, Utah 84104 Email: max_torres@deanfoods.com Office: (801) 907- 0558 Fax: (801) 973- 2750 Cell: (801) 634- 4277

GMO foods and autism?

http://geneticroulettemovie.com/ Not Petroleum but part of the big picture. This is a free streaming movie about GMO foods and how they create food allergies. This goes along with my thoughts that petroleum is not a food and our bodies can't process it well. If GMO foods are also hurting our processing abilities it goes on that this would be an accounting factor in the rise of autism and other brain disorders.

http://www.diefooddye.com/2012/09/11/why-synthetic-food-coloring-is-like-a-horror-flick/comment-page-1/#comment-881 I haven't posted on this blog for ages but looks like this is a great new blog to follow! Die, food dye!

2011 TEDxManhattan Fellow: Stefani Bardin

It's only a 4 minute video so I can't say how accurate it is but I do think it's really cool to watch and makes us think. It's a scientific study using processed and artificially colored foods vs. real foods PLUS a tiny swallowed camera. Love it.

5 things to never feed your kids

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-kirkpatrick-ms-rd-ld/5-things-never-to-feed-yo_b_1229682.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009#s644610&title=Anything_With_Extremely
I admit that we'll splurge on some of these so I can't personally say never but, I do agree that they are terrible food and it's always nice to hear others in agreement.

Look me in the eye

http://jerobison.blogspot.com
I know I have a lot of readers who have family with autism/aspergers. I just had to share this blog. It's by one of my very favorite authors who changed my life with my family. :) If you have people with autism in your life please read "Look me in the eye".

Merry Christmas from Ana

This is the picture that's in the little contest. Ana took it when I left the camera on the piano after an exchange student party. I found it when I uploaded pictures to my computer and had a nice laugh. hahaha.
The exchange students made some super yummy foods and most of them were very natural. We've gotten into some great foreign cooking and I'm going to be updating my blog with some of their fun recipes. We'll also have a South Korean exchange student here in a few weeks, maybe she'll help me learn some of the delicious foods.

Thanks so much guys! Ana's picture won the contest and she got a whole box of "Liken the Scriptures" DVDs for Christmas! YAY!

Artificial coloring in olive oil?

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/12/143154180/losing-virginity-olive-oils-scandalous-industry?sc=fb&cc=fp
Ahhh, the joys of labeling laws.

"Extra-virgin olive oil is a ubiquitous ingredient in Italian recipes, religious rituals and beauty products. But many of the bottles labeled "extra-virgin olive oil" on supermarket shelves have been adulterated and shouldn't be classified as extra-virgin, says New Yorker contributor Tom Mueller.

Mueller's new book, Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, chronicles how resellers have added lower-priced, lower-grade oils and artificial coloring to extra-virgin olive oil, before passing the new adulterated substance along the supply chain. (One olive oil producer told Mueller that 50 percent of the olive oil sold in the United States is, in some ways, adulterated.)

The term "extra-virgin olive oil" means the olive oil has been made from crushed olives and is not refined in any way by chemical solvents or high heat.

"The legal definition simply says it has to pass certain chemical tests, and in a sensory way it has to taste and smell vaguely of fresh olives, because it's a fruit, and have no faults," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "But many of the extra-virgin olive oils on our shelves today in America don't clear [the legal definition]."

My mom ate all my halloween candy

This was too funny, especially the ending boys. My kids commented that the logical kids at the end said they only ate two pieces of candy. :)

US vs UK Kraft Mac and Cheese

read the full article here.

U.S. Version of Kraft Mac & Cheese:
Enriched Macaroni Product (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate [Iron], Thiamin Mononitrate [Vitamin B1], Riboflavin [Vitamin B2], Folic Acid), Cheese Sauce Mix (Whey, Modified Food Starch, Whey Protein Concentrate, Cheddar Cheese [Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes], Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Chloride, Contains Less Than 2% of Parmesan Cheese [Part-Skim Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes, Dried Buttermilk, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Blue Cheese [Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes], Sodium Phosphate, Medium Chain Triglycerides, Cream, Citric Acid, Lactic Acid, Enzymes, Yellow 5, Yellow 6).

U.K. Version of Kraft Mac & Cheese:
Macaroni (Durum Wheat Semolina), Cheese (10%), Whey Powder (from milk), Lactose, Salt, Emulsifying Salts (E339, E341), Colours (Paprika Extract, Beta-Carotene)

Kelly the Kitchen Kop

http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/09/got-petroleum.html

Cool! Thanks for blogging about us Kelly.

Carly's voice

http://carlysvoice.com/
Wow! This was such a great surprise this morning. I loved hearing Carly speak as a teenager without oral verbal ability but plenty to say.

Wow, New York Times too!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/health/policy/30fda.html

msnbc review on the FDA trial of food dyes

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Washington Post

I got this in my email today and don't have a link. Please post a comment if you have one. :.)

The rainbow of food dyes in our grocery aisles has a dark side
By David W. Schab and Michael F. Jacobson, Friday, March 25, 8:51 PM

Today’s supermarket is a fun house of hues. Its aisles feature a kaleidoscope of processed foods perfectly engineered to appeal to the part of your brain that says “yum”: Technicolor Starburst candy. Polychromatic Froot Loops. A rainbow of flavored juices.

Those hyper-saturated colors have come to seem normal, even natural, like the come-ons of tropical fruits. But they are increasingly produced through the magic of artificial food dyes, applied not just to candies and snack foods but to such seemingly all-natural products as pickles, salad dressing and some oranges.

Artificial dyes aren’t just making your Yoplait Light Red Raspberry yogurt blush and your Kraft Macaroni and Cheese glow in the dark. They are causing behavioral problems and disrupting children’s attention, according to a growing number of scientific studies. On Wednesday, following the lead of European regulators, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee will begin a review of research on the behavioral effects of artificial dyes. In a significant turn from the agency’s previous denials that dyes have any influence on children’s behavior, an FDA staff report released last week concluded that synthetic food colorings do affect some children.

The agency should take action. Allowing the use of artificial dyes violates the FDA’s mandate to protect consumers from unsafe products. It also runs afoul of the agency’s mandate to crack down on food that has been made “to appear better or of greater value than it is.”

Concern about food dye is long-standing. In the 1800s, American food manufacturers began doctoring their wares with toxic pigments made from lead and copper. In the second half of that century, a revolution in organic chemistry brought artificial dyes made from coal tar — a relative advance over lead.

At the turn of the 20th century, margarine producers were making the most of the technology: They added new yellow dyes to their colorless product to better compete with butter. But the dairy industry lobbied for bans and taxes on colored margarine, and state legislatures and Congress obliged. Consumers who wanted their margarine yellow could open a separate packet of dye and mix it in themselves.

In 1906, Congress took up the question of whether artificial dyes were bad for consumers, with the first of several major acts. The most recent and stringent of them, passed in 1960, banned color additives that caused cancer in humans or animals. But the fate of one such additive, Red 3, illustrates how even strong legislation can be thwarted. Lab rats that were fed large amounts of the dye developed thyroid cancer, so in 1984 the acting FDA commissioner recommended banning it. However, fruit-cocktail producers, who relied on the dye to brighten maraschino cherries, pleaded with the Department of Agriculture to block the move. As a result, the FDA banned Red 3 only in cosmetics and topical drugs.

In the early 1990s, FDA and Canadian scientists found that Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6, the three most widely used dyes, were contaminated with likely human carcinogens. And while many foods, such as M&M’s and Kellogg’s Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tarts, include as many as five different dyes, even today the carcinogenic potential of such combinations has not been tested.

Despite those concerns, parents continued to serve up meals and stuff their children’s lunchboxes with more and more processed foods colored with dyes, stoking a five-fold increase in the per-capita production of food dyes over the past 50 years.

Over the same period, psychiatrists and teachers were seeing more attention and behavioral problems, while allergists were raising concerns about Yellow 5. Physician Benjamin Feingold’s 1975 book, “Why Your Child Is Hyperactive,” along with the additive-free diet it promoted, spawned numerous studies on the effect of additives on attention-deficit disorders.

In 2004, one of us co-authored an analysis of the best studies of food dyes’ effects on behavior. That analysis found striking evidence that hyperactive children who consumed dyes became significantly more hyperactive than children who got a placebo.

At the same time, the British government funded two studies, each involving almost 300 children. Their results were even more startling: Artificial food dyes (in combination with a common preservative) could make even children with no known behavioral problems hyperactive and inattentive.

Health officials in the United Kingdom urged manufacturers to stop using the six dyes — including Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 — involved in those studies. Next, the European Parliament required that foods containing those chemicals bear a label warning that the dyes “may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children.” That is seen by some as the death knell for artificial dyes throughout Europe.

Beyond the behavioral problems and cancer risks, the greatest hazard that dyes pose for children may also be the most obvious: They draw kids away from nutritious foods and toward brightly colored processed products that are high in calories but low in nutrients, such as fruit-flavored drinks and snack foods. Those types of foods are a major force in America’s obesity epidemic, which, according to the Society of Actuaries, costs the nation $270 billion a year.

Artificial colorings are explicitly meant to manipulate consumers’ perceptions. Manufacturers tout research showing that redness enhances the impression of sweetness, and that in tests with beverages and sherbets, the color of the product did more to influence consumers’ perception of the flavor than the flavor itself. One dye marketer states that its colorings offer “a limitless palette, unmatched technology and the emotional connection between people and color.”

A world without harmful dyes does not mean a future of blandly beige snacks. A range of vivid natural colorings, made largely from plant extracts, is already in use in Europe and to a lesser extent in the United States. In Britain, for example, McDonald’s Strawberry Sundaes are made without artificial coloring; here, Red 40 adds to the strawberry color. Both the British and American formulations of Nutri-Grain Strawberry cereal bars contain strawberries, but in Britain plant-based colorings add extra color, while in the United States Red 40 does the job.

Fortunately, some U.S. companies are switching to colorings found in nature. The bountiful shelves of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s are devoid of dyes, Necco has dropped artificial dyes from its iconic wafers, and Starbucks has banned dyes from its baked goods and drinks. Most companies will resist, because artificial dyes are brighter, cheaper and more stable than natural colorings. It’s also a nuisance for them to reformulate their dyed products — and the government has given them no incentive to change.

Today, Britons enjoy all the colorful foods they have come to expect without many of the health risks they learned to avoid. Here, we get the same foods — but until the FDA bans synthetic dyes, we get them with a side order of dangerous and unnecessary chemicals.

aspand@cspinet.org

David W. Schab is a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. Michael F. Jacobson is the executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

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