Red dye??

[reindeer878]

Sorry if this is weird? But I saw a couple of people commenting on a fb post saying ever since they cut out red dye foods from their children's diets they've become better behaved? Is this bs? Or true? I take it things like watermelon are red dye? Or is it something completely different?

Do they mean artificial colours rather than naturally occurring red foods?

I think thats its name in the US. In the uk it seems to be E129 and is an artificial colour

Some artificial food dyes can affect children's behaviour, I have a feeling though there are some in the US that aren't in foods here. It's the sort you get in really brightly coloured sweets.

What the Food Standards Agency says:

Food colours and hyperactivity

We funded research into possible links between food colours and hyperactivity in children. It found that consuming certain artificial food colours could cause increased hyperactivity in some children.

These artificial colours are:

sunset yellow FCF (E110)
quinoline yellow (E104)
carmoisine (E122)
allura red (E129)
tartrazine (E102)
ponceau 4R (E124)

Food and drink containing any of these six colours must carry a warning on the packaging. This will say ‘May have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children’.

We encourage manufacturers to work towards finding alternatives to these colours. Some manufacturers and retailers have already taken action to remove them.

It’s important to remember that hyperactivity can also be caused by other things. So being careful about what a child eats may help manage hyperactive behaviour but it may not stop it.