Despite urges from various British food organizations, the European Food Safety Authority decided against banning additives in food. Their reasoning? A recent £750,000 study, which found a link between eating food loaded with additives and colorants and impulsive/hyperactive behavior in kids, was not a substantial enough reason to ban the additives entirely. In the study, eight and nine year olds who had ingested food with additives could not sit still long enough to complet simple tasks, like a 15-minute computer exercise. (Yeah, but neither could most of the eight year olds I know, with or without stimulants. Heck, most 25 year-olds I know don't have the patience to finish a 15-minute computer task).
But the study did prompt some retailers to change their ways: Marks and Spencer, a British department store that sells everything from shirts to iPods to gourmet foods, vowed to stop selling food and drink that contain additives by the end of the month.
The study results should not be ignored, but I don't blame the EU for not jumping to conclusions. Banning food with additives falls along the same lines as banning food with trans-fats, and I have the same opinion in each case: use your own good judgment and discretion. If packaged foods make your kid hyperactive, don't buy the foods, or at least limit their intake. Simple as that.
[via] Times Online
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