How much do E numbers actually affect young children?

[Gateau]

My 20 month old DS has been very hard to settle the past few nights and I think I am to blame. On Friday I - very stupidly - gave him a chocolate lolly, which was laden with hundreds and thousands and had a lumimous marshmallow interior. I didn't realise what the inside was like until he bit into it but I naively thought a one-off wouldn't do any harm. On Friday night, we couldn't get him to sleep until midnight, and then he was up again at 3.30 and again at 4.30, finally going to sleep at 5.45. His mood was awful most of Saturday and the next two nights have been better, but still not great.
Could this evil lolly be the culprit? I feel so stupid writing this.

I believe they do. DD has a swimming lesson every sat morning. If she has been good and paid attention dh buys her a chubba lolly from the vending machine. She decided they should get one for ds to. So for several saturdays they did and sat afternoon ds would be meshugana. After a few times I realised it must be the lollies.

Thanks everyone.
Meshuga - brilliant word! Have noted that one. How do you pronounce it?

muh-shoog-uh-nuh

Yiddish for a crazy person

It isn't E numbers as such - some E numbers are entirely harmless. But the coal tar food colours (like E101) are awful, & so are some of the preservatives etc.

There was a looong piece about these in the DM recently, it all used to be fairly common knowledge but I think a lot of that knowledge has kind of lapsed & it is worth knowing so...read this!

"The chief villains - the ones everyone agrees are dangerous - are mainly colours derived from coal tar. These are known as the 'Dirty Six' and go under the names sunset yellow (or E number 110), carmoisine (E122), tartrazine (E102), ponceau 4R (E124), quinoline yellow (E104) and allura red (E129)."

carmoisine is used to colour Calpol, FFS

They are banned in many countries & "should not be in sweets" here apparently.

E for additives has all the information you could possibly want

Sorry, NOT E101! That's perfectly OK (which is confusing)

Oh - the E for Additives book is nearly 20 years old now.

What's Really in your Basket might be more useful.

Most helpful, Ponders. Thank you. Will have a read.

DS goes up a freakin' wall if he has too much in the way of e-numbers/preservatives. A bit is OK but anymore than say three sweets or a small glass of fizzy drink and my chilled out happy little boy becomes a screaming demon from hell.

Just consider it a lesson learned. Milk helps I find. If he is having a sweet then having a glass of milk with it seems to calm him somewhat - I don't know if there is any sort of scientific reason as to why, but it works so that is what we do.

My 2 DS'S are very sensitive to additives. I don't let them have coke as they start talking in tongues. I have wondered if you can build up a tolerance to additives as some children who have them all the time don't seem to get any reaction.

I think it depends on the individual child. My DS2 can't tolerate additives and actually some natural colours ( like blackcurrant) and his reactions include self harm so they are not something we can be casual about. DS1 was quite sensitive when smaller but has no problems at all now with any old shit he cares to eat

DD is prone but I am hoping she is like DS1 and grows out rather than DS2 who at 12 remains hugely sensitive.

FWIW I don't think it is anything to do with building up tolerance. I think you either have a system that can get rid or you don't