Pretty Pink Poison

Since I’ve been gluten & dairy free for 20 years, my binging on candy and baked goods has been a lot more challenging.

This is a good thing of course.

I found out about celiac disease, the gluten allergy, before most heard of it, in 2004. People would look at me like I was nuts when I told them.

It wasn’t that big of a deal at first because I still had the option to binge on dairy products like ice cream, gluten-free pizza, Frappuccinos, cheese, & yogurt.

Then I kept getting these scorching sinus infections & migraines, so I went to the doctor. She suggested I try no dairy for a while because it’s mucus producing. Dairy is also a huge trigger for migraines.

Unfortunately, that was the solution. I felt fantastic physically, however, mentally not so good..

I went into a deep depression induced by cheese-withdrawal.

(I still have reoccurring dairy-free-depressive episodes, intermittently triggered by not being able to eat pizza or a grilled cheese etc.)

Dairy-free cheese has not been able to cut it…Cut the real cheese. 😔

Dairy, soy and gluten/wheat is in almost everything, especially most delicious candy bars and chocolate.

Since then, my occasional go-to favorite candy is pink starburst.

I savagely rip through my kids Halloween candy each year.

*Never realized that Andy’s dress resembles a PINK STARBURST* 🤩 *She looks delicious*

I’m usually irritable the next day if I eat a lot of sugar. Sugar hangovers are real. I do my best to limit it. However some days I cave if I’m really tired.

Anyways, my son bought me a huge bag of all pink starburst. It was a sweet gesture, yet I was furious with him.

“Don’t bring that shit in the house, you know I can’t control myself!“

I say this to him as I am shoving pink starburst into my mouth & frantically unwrapping more.

The binge began…

The scrumptious starburst were gone in about eight days.. Everybody in my house had some, but I consumed the most. I was pushing them onto my family like a crack dealer.

I was so crabby each morning.

I was in a steady, simmering rage for four days, irate, snapping at everyone, & ready to pounce.

Whenever I would have these episodes in the past, I would chalk it up to my period.

However, I had a hysterectomy in November 2023.

Can’t use my period as an excuse anymore. ….(next post will be about the correlation between diet, menopause & hormones).

I felt like I couldn’t sit still, couldn’t focus and I was so agitated.

If I am a 49-year old woman experiencing this type of chemically-induced rage, what do you think would happen to a toddler/child/teen if they consumed these products.

I used to think red 40 and behavioral problems was a bunch of baloney. I am humbled to admit that I believe the chemicals, artificial colors, flavors & Red#40 in our food is poison.

It may not be the instant, fatal poison. ☠️ However, it is clear in how the body reacts to these ingredients.

There are tons of tik toks, articles, & posts about the correlation of diet, red #40 & behavioral problems in kids/teens.

There is also concrete, scientific evidence that this is true here and article at the end.

This guy below is a doctor (@docamen) and boldly posted this, so there must be some truth to it:

Garbage in, Garbage out.

Terrible chemicals in our food combined with overstimulation from electronic devices sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Where do you think these episodes cause the most issues?

At school, where you need to focus, sit still and be receptive to learning.

Sitting still in a desk for hours is already difficult, why add anything to make it worse?

Maybe after kids consume starburst, skittles, nerds, twizzlers, fruit snacks, cheetos, doritos, pop-tarts, gatorade, sour patch kids, gummy bears, fruit roll ups, pudding snack packs, jello, powerade, high-C, juice etc, at breakfast or lunch-you may see behavior like this:

I am communicating this because I clearly overdosed on red 40. As an adult, who forgets sometimes and eats this crap; it’s obvious some people are very sensitive to this FDA permitted junk.

The FDA to consumers:

A friend of mine, a teacher of kindergarten, sent me this text after my last post.

Another teacher friend replied:

*We can’t keep dumping this on*
*teachers & schools.*

I won’t bore you with the details and the conspiracy theories. Instead, wondering if collectively, we ALL could stop purchasing products with red 40. Hopefully companies will stop making it the poisonous way.

Or perhaps, it can be banned like it is in Europe & other countries.

It’s all really confusing:

These products are fast and cheap but there is no food in your food.

Looking at the ingredients in products before you purchase them is frustrating and time consuming, however, if it prevents us and our kids/teens from behaving like assholes, isn’t it worth it?