Anyone used the Feingold diet?

[Anonymous]

I've been noticing that my 3 yr old DD reacts badly after eating candies that are different colors. The other day, she had a treat of ice cream w/ mini M and Ms all over it. The rest of the afternoon, she was completely out of control! I don't think it's a sugar problem but my neighbor suggested looking into the Feingold diet which helped her oldest who also reacted badly to dyes and food additives. Does anyone have any experience w/ using this diet?

[Anonymous]

Yes! It worked GREAT!

My son reacts extremely poorly to certain dyes, and especially artificial flavorings. Removing them from his diet reduced his tantrums, explosiveness, and out of the blue moodiness considerably. My daughter reacts a little bit to the dyes and stuff, so I keep her off of them as well. As their pediatrician said, it's not like anyone NEEDS red dye.

I did sign up for the Feingold program the first year and found the shoppers guide invaluable. I did the full step one diet for 2 weeks, saw such an improvement, that it is a relatively easy thing to just stay on as much as possible.

Shopping at Trader Joe's makes life easier -- most of the foods you can buy there do not have artifical additives. Some kids react poorly to apple juice and organge juice. My son has no problems with apple juice, but OJ is a big problem, so we try not to drink that. Lemonade is an acceptable substitute to my son. We also drink only whole milk. Apparently the 1% and 2% milks have to have vitamin A added to them (by law?) and the vitamin A is preserved with an artifical preservative that some kids react poorly to. (I am not 100% sure I am correct about that but it is what I recall from the program.) We don't drink a lot of milk or juice anyhow -- I stick to water and whole fruits, which do not seem to cause a problem for my son. So, I'm not too concerned about the fat in the milk causing obesity in my skinny child!

I do let my kids eat the junk food/cupcakes/etc. around Halloween, Christmas, and school parties, including school cupcakes, just because it is a part of life, and as he grows up, he is better at being able to manage his reactions. However, he is now of the age where he can tell me that he feels bad -- ansy, uncomfortable, cranky --- when he eats too much of the artifical stuff, and he doesn't object to eating the healthy food, as long as I get him nice treats from time to time. (Nice, meaning, packaged from the store!) And with the Feingold shopping guide, you can find healthy versions of every processed food. For example, I bulk buy naturally flavored lollipops from an internet store, and just use them whenever the kids are somewhere and the store owner wants to give them a lollipop.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks so much for your post. I ordered the program materials and am waiting for them to arrive. I am glad that there is a Trader Joe's fairly close by so I don't have to go to too many stores. I think I will have to wait until after XMAS to start the program since the candy is flowing these days from school, neighbors and sometimes Grandmom Whole milk is fine w/ us since my DC is pretty skinny. I'd love to hear of anyone else who has tried the diet too. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

How much does all of this cost?

[Anonymous]

The Feingold organization is a 501-c-3 non-profit.

http://www.feingold.org

They have a lot of information available for free. Here, for example, is the "Blue Book" which you can download for free.

http://www.feingold.org/pg-blue.html

If you sign up for the full packet of information it costs about $85. I found the shopper's guide to be invaluable when I was just getting started, but you don't need it.

You can simply read labels on products you buy, and avoid anything with artificial dyes (red #4, yellow #6, etc.) "artificial flavors", vanillin, and artificial preservatives such as BHA, BHT and TBHQ, and that will be a big step.

I have found that the cost of packaged foods with no artifical ingredients DOES cost more than the cheapest foods with artifical stuff in it. Eating less packaged foods in general does help keep costs down, tough; as does buying in bulk when the stuff you know is OK goes on sale. One example is chocolate chips for home baking. Nestle's has artifical ingredients, Ghiradelli's has natural. Ghiradelli's is more expensive, so when it goes on sale, I'll buy 6 and keep them in the freezer.

(Trader Joes oat-circle cereal is way cheaper than Fruit Loops, though. And so is oatmeal!)

The overall extra cost is not an issue to me, because I probaby would have had to have my son in expensive therapy, treatment and special schools if we hadn't figured out what his problem was.

[Anonymous]

Also may be of interest, from the AAP Feb 2008.
http://www.feingold.org/aap.html

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is the organization that recommends practice parameters for pediatricians to follow. A review published in the AAP Grand Rounds in February, 2008, has noted the adverse effects of artificial additives on the behavior of children in the general population as reported by a British study in the Lancet in September 2007. We encourage parents to print this page and share it with their pediatricians, in case they have not seen this article. [full report attached]

The reviewer, Alison Schonwald, MD, FAAP, is an expert in developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Children's Hospital in Boston. Dr. Schonwald writes:

Despite increasing data supporting the efficacy of stimulants in preschoolers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) parents and providers understandably seek safe and effective interventions that require no prescription. A recent meta-analysis of 15 trials concludes that there is "accumulating evidence that neurobehavioral toxicity may characterize a variety of widely distributed chemicals." [Schab DW, et al. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2004;25:423–434] Some children may be more sensitive to the effects of these chemicals, and the authors suggest there is a need to better identify responders. In real life, practitioners faced with hyperactive preschoolers have a reasonable option to offer parents. For the child without a medical, emotional, or environmental etiology of ADHD behaviors, a trial of a preservative-free, food coloring–free diet is a reasonable intervention. (emphasis added)

And the Editors' Note which follows states:

Although quite complicated, this was a carefully conducted study in which the investigators went to great lengths to eliminate bias and to rigorously measure outcomes. The results are hard to follow and somewhat inconsistent. For many of the assessments there were small but statistically significant differences of measured behaviors in children who consumed the food additives compared with those who did not. In each case increased hyperactive behaviors were associated with consuming the additives. For those comparisons in which no statistically significant differences were found, there was a trend for more hyperactive behaviors associated with the food additive drink in virtually every assessment. Thus, the overall findings of the study are clear and require that even we skeptics, who have long doubted parental claims of the effects of various foods on the behavior of their children, admit we might have been wrong.

[Anonymous]

We started with Feingold, and then went further. We took all food additives including artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, and excitotoxins (read Russell Blaylock's book about MSG hidden in nearly all processed food) out of our whole family's diet, and the change was amazing. We've almost stopped eating out, except at restaurants that say they use organic ingredients. No sugar, no junk food ever. We have cleaned up our entire household -- we only use all natural cleaning products, laundry detergent, personal care products. No SLS, parabens, etc. We pulled up our carpets (huge source of toxins) and our chemically-sensitive child has been 100 percent better, no -- 1,000 percent better. I never thought we could do it, but it's made all the difference.

[Anonymous]

To the PP. What kind of symptoms did you notice in your child to make this decision? I have no idea if my DD (I am the OP) is reacting to the junk in the food she is eating but I thought I would start the diet to find out. Plus when I read a list of ingredients in foods and don't recognize 75% or more of it, it gives me the creeps.

[Anonymous]

It wasn't a decision, it was a gradual process. First we took artificial preservatives and flavors out of DC's diet, and we noticed a change for the better. Then we started reading labels and reading books and websites, and started taking more things out of DC's (and our) diet, and things got better. Tantrums were the biggest problem, which stopped when we took all dairy out of DC's diet, but there were problems with attention that improved more and more when we took more chemicals out of our house and our child's diet. It took years. Also, we went to an allergist who suggested many changes, such as getting rid of carpets, plastics, all food additives, all processed food. For a busy, exhausted mother, being told to take sugar, breakfast cereal and pizza out of her child's diet was like being told to sew a flight suit by hand and put DC on a rocket ship to the moon. My first reaction was NO, I can't do this. But I made little changes, one by one.

Once I bought a new, washable cotton rug from Crate & Barrell, brought it home and put it down in the kitchen. Immediately, DC started acting up -- yelling, running around, not paying attention, getting upset about little things. I thought it was crazy, but I took the rug to the basement, washed it a couple of times, put it back, and DC was fine. From that day on, I washed every single new item I brought into the house, got rid of all chemical cleaning products, and became hyper-vigilant keeping chemicals out of the house. I got rid of toys with pthlates (sp?), use low VOC paints, made the contractors use only non-toxic products when renovating our kitchen (they loved that!), and so on. It seemed impossible at first and has taken a long time, but the change in DC is miraculous.

[Anonymous]

OP -- did you order the materials?

If so, can I ask you a favor? When you get the newest shopping guide, will you check and see if brands from Aldi's have been listed? I think they mention the stores reviewed in the first pages. If not, I can look up the actual store brand name -- I think Contessa was one, and Primo was another. If they have reviewed a lot of Aldi's foods I might sign up to get an update version. Thanks so much!