I felt like crying today

I was at the store today and I had one of those moments where I was looking at something I was considering for my children and felt like crying.

Let me tell you why. I started my Green life style years ago when my daughter Samantha was in first Grade. She is a very smart young lady and loves to learn but her teachers were complaining that it was hard to keep her on task and she would get up and wander around the room for no reason.(Sound Familiar???) They gave me this questionaire to take about her behavior at home. When I was finished they started lecturing me Saying I needed to take her to the doctor and have her examined for ADD. Well there was no way in HELL I was going to start my daughter on mind altering drugs.

I started reading everything I could find on Children with supposed ADD symptoms. Did you know there is NO actual test they can give a child to tell if they have ADD or ADHD. Not one its all based on observations. While I was doing this reading I decided to get my daughter tested for other things that might explain her inattentiveness. When we went to see the doctor to have her thyroid tested , a sleep test amongh other things, (and this really really PISSED ME OFF) we had been sitting in the exam room for a good 45 minutes and my daughter was bored and antsy. When I told the doctor I wanted a referral he wrote in her records that she might have ADD without telling me. When I went to the referral to get an appointment for the sleep test the Referral Doctor asked me if I wanted her tested for ADD. I said no why did she want to know. Then she mentioned the note in my daughters records.

Did you catch that: After sitting for 45 minutes with nothing to do the doctor spent 2 friggin minutes with her and determined she MUST have ADD.

Anyway I finally found the reason for my daughters behavior, Thanks to www.feingold.org/
It was her diet that was causing her problem. To be more specific Artifical Flavors and Colors in her food. If your child is having Marked hyperactivity, Impulsive actions, Compulsive actions or Emotional concerns then you should check out their website.

So since she couldn't have food with this crap in it I had to rework the way I do things. I started making as much of her food myself as I could, then I added organic fruits and veggies and am still trying remove High-fructose corn syrup from our diets (GOD that stuff is in everything).

Now for the reason I felt like crying. Today while I was at the store I saw these Chocolate Eggs they were beautifully wrapped and I though how much my daughter would love to have them in her Easter Basket this year. Then I looked at the Ingredients. There is was the KING of Artificial Flavors VANILLIN this cheap crap made from Petroleum is in So much stuff it would probably be easier to name the stuff that doesn't have it in there. I just felt like crying it's very hard sometimes not to be able to just pick something up. There are very few in my close circle (those living around me) who work as hard as I do to make my families life green and my friends think I'm crazy (get the name of my blog ^^) to work as hard as I do. Thus my sudden desire to burst into tears. Well sorry for the intermission in good green advice I'll shall return to that tomorrow I just needed to type out my feelings today.
April