Artificial Colors, Flavors, & Sweeteners.... Oh My!

Blue No. 1... Blue No. 2... Green No 3... Red No. 40... Yellow No. 5... Monosodium glutamate... disodium inosinate... butylated hydroxyanisole... casein... gluten... sucralose.... aspartame... and on the list goes.

This is just a sampling of some new vocabulary I have picked up since Lily was diagnosed with autism.

Part of having a child with autism usually means quite a bit of dietary intervention.  Researching foods.  Reading ingredient labels.  Going to more than one grocery store and spending quite a bit of time (and buckets of money) there!   Carefully preparing special foods in the hopes that your child will at least try a bite.  Then, checklist in hand, watching your child like a hawk for any kind of reaction.

It can be an exhausting and overwhelming exercise, this constant thinking about food.

The other day, I told a neighbor I was cleaning out my pantry of any foods containing artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, and artificial sweeteners.  I was also going to really limit refined sugars and fats.

She told me she would be sure to buy extra goodies for her pantry so that when my big girls came begging for real snacks, she would be able to feed them.

Thanks for sabotaging my efforts, Gretchen!

By the way, did you buy enough for me, too???