About Time!

Back in the 1970s two of our foster kids had been diagnosed with ADHD and we tried putting them on the Feingold diet. That meant no artificial coloring or flavors, limited sugar, and no preservatives or foods high in salicylates.

I kept careful records of what they ate and how they behaved since results could take several days to happen. We found that eating sugar made no difference at all, but the other things made a huge difference. When on the diet the boys (who also had other problems) went from several tantrums a day to one or less a week. However eating even a tiny bit of the problem chemicals would set them off.

A couple of times the boys went wild when I was sure there hadn't been any exception to the diet, but we later found out the ingredients of certain foods had been changed but the old labels were still used.

Obviously that reaction couldn't have been a psychosomatic. However the Feingold diet was considered quackery by most of the medical community and there was a lot of negative publicity about it.

But a few years ago a study showed that preservatives can cause behavior problems. You can see an article about that here:

http://tinyurl.com/yqu5vh

And this week it hit the news that scientists have discovered artificial colors in foods may be causing the increase in the number of hyperactive kids and the FDA is doing a study about it. Here's a link to an article about that:

http://tinyurl.com/4zujhqa

Finally the Feingold diet is being taken seriously, although the people studying it don't seem to mention Dr. Feingold. The man deserves some credit.

Feingold Diet

It was in the 1970s that I met Dr. Feingold and he recommended his diet for our hyperactive foster sons. Soon afterwards the Feingold diet became well known, and there has been a lot of controversy about it.

In our experience, it worked very well.

Once our boys had been on the diet for a couple of weeks the violent temper tantrums had gone from several every day, usually for no discernible reason, to about one or less a week, always with an obvious cause. That result certainly made it worth eliminating artificial coloring and flavoring from the family diet, but we found letting the kids eat sugar had no effect on their behavior at all.

Some people say the Feingold diet only works for psychosomatic reasons, but there were times when nobody knew the kids had gotten a trace of something forbidden and they reacted anyway. I remember one time the ingredients in a certain kind of cereal had been changed, but the company continued using up boxes with the old ingredient list on them. Not only our kids, but those of several other people in a support group we belonged started showing their old behavior problems within a few days of each other. None of the parents could figure out what was causing the problem. Sure enough, all those kids had eaten the cereal with the new ingredient and as soon as they stopped eating it their behavior improved again.

The hardest part of following the diet was avoiding fruits and vegetables high in salicylates, and I've since learned that in other parts of the world different produce is on the list of foods high in those chemicals. That may depend on differences in the soil. It's impossible to eliminate those natural chemicals completely, but avoiding them as much as possible does make a difference.

However, if even a trace of artificial coloring or flavor, such as in medication, is ingested it will cause a reaction so there's no point in just cutting down on those things.

The Feingold diet may not work for every child with ADHD, and I've heard it seldom helps adults, but it's certainly worth trying.