Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese Causes Hyperactivity? Oh, no!!

Kraft Macaroni and Cheese

Look good to you?

Are you surprised?  To achieve that oh so yummy, rich and appetizing color in its macaroni and cheese, Kraft uses both Yellow #5 and Yellow #6 food colorings; at least it does here in the U.S.  Both of these dyes have been outlawed in Norway and Austria.  In Great Britain they have been replaced with the more natural  paprika and beta carotene and few consumers seem to detect any difference in taste.  The rub with these colorings is that one of them, the ubiquitous #5, has been linked to ADHD in kids by a study done by researchers at Southampton University between 2004 and 2007. (1)

Perhaps consuming products tinted with Yellow #5 just doesn’t register very highly on your cause for concern list.   How about if we called it by one of its other many names:  Trisodium 1-(4-sulfonatophenyl)-4-(4-sulfonatophenylazo)-5-pyrazolone-3-carboxylate)?  After working your way throught that alphabet soup, you won’t be surprised to learn that FD&C Yellow #5 is a petroleum derivative, a kind of non-food that way too many of us are prone to consume in this era of better living through chemistry.

So who’s taking Kraft to task over this possible contributor to what seems to be an uncontrollable epidemic of ADHD among America’s kids?   North Carolina blog moms Vani Hari from Food Babe and Lisa Leake from 100 Days of Real Food, that’s who.  They are quite fed up with it all and are calling out Kraft on the issue.  I highly recommend you read more about their crusade by visiting their blogs.   Their on-line petition is at Change.org

By the way, here are a few other “foods” you might want to reconsider.

Foods using Yellow #5

But will they stain my teeth?

(1) http://www.southampton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2008/apr/08_65.shtml

 

About Meg Rayborn Dawson

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