He's allergic to what? ...Oh that's not so bad... wait... WHAT!?

Last week I got the call I was really hoping I would never get while my son was visiting his father in Pittsburgh (6hrs away) “Don’t freak out… We’re taking little man to the Emergency Room.”  Don’t freak out? Seriously? 

You really just said that?

So what happened? After much speculation the ER doc has decided that he had an allergic reaction to something he ate. Interesting. He eats about 70% organic at home… and when he’s there almost everything is made from scratch (no preservatives, no spices, most is gluten free due to another family member’s allergies)… so it was a bit of a puzzle to figure out what he could have possibly reacted to, but I think we figured it out. 

Red food dye. 
Now he came home Friday and saw his allergist Tuesday and they ran a test for the food dye—we’ll get the results back next week. 
However, the dye can be both artificial and synthetic.  

 

Carmine is red coloring, & it naturally occurs in insects (particularly in their “shells”)…  yes, ‘natural’ red coloring in food is in fact from bugs! Yummy!

 

The point of this post is that while eating as natural and organic as possible is best for you (albeit requires far more effort), you can still get added obstacles.  Though the test results haven’t come back yet I seriously considered cutting out all dyes—‘natural’ or otherwise—from our diet. OMG do you realize how much food contains natural/artificial ‘coloring’!? Even the ‘natural’ & organic stuff! It’s stunning!  Now the coloring could be from beets, or a dozen other things, but they don’t specify it on labels 99% of the time. 

It’s shocking to me that we still do not demand full disclosure and absolute transparency when it comes to what is in the things that we put in our mouths!!  It’s mind blowing that a vast majority of people don’t realize where their food comes from, or how it’s made, grown or processed…. And we won’t even get started on Monsanto.  Why do we allow this?  How are we supposed to make informed decisions on what to feed our families?  Is it just that we are satisfied living ignorantly or is it just that we have yet to put our money where our mouth is and actually DO something other than bitch?

What do you think?