I have spoken to many people who truly believe that sugar has no negative effects on children or how they behave or pay attention.

I have to disagree!

I asked the same people if they think Artificial Sweeteners have a negative impact on kids.

Some said yes, some said no. I said..” Absolutely!” What do you think?

My Son has a complete meltdown when he eats foods with artificial sweeteners, HFCS, etc.

Our 9 yr old son, Spidey, (for the sake of privacy) has had severe reactions to artificial sweetener. We have serious issues with both behavior and the ability to even have a conversation with me.

We do see an energy spike when he has regular sugar too, but not even enough to speak of compared to how he gets when he eats something with artificial sweeteners.

Here is an example of a more recent episode, which up to this time, no one but my very close friends had ever witnessed.

Friends at church got to see first hand what happens when Spidey has Vanilla Wafers, in Sunday School. He spiked into uncontrollable levels of energy within 30 minutes (we’ve timed it) and would not listen to anyone! Making and flying paper airplanes during the entire class. He was so nice as to make them for others to fly too. (How embarrassing!)

The teachers that had him in Children’s church about 30 minutes after he ate the cookies saw how defiant he can get when he spikes from something he ate.

I usually didn’t have problems at church because we send raisins for my kids to eat as a substitute, but that day he ate the cookies offered during SS.

The teachers in Children’s church were very structured in the way they taught and I never dreamed that they would not be able to get him to listen at all.

They saw my son spike and crash. I asked him to apologize and restore the relationship by helping clean up for his behavior and he literally crashed to the floor. He got up to said sorry, but I had told him that to restore his relationship; he was to clear the tables and help put the crayons and papers away. He refused and dropped to the floor again. “I have to fix my shoes first”. I said, “Ah, no you can fix them after. Let’s go, we need to get done before the youth meeting.”

Let’s just say he had a complete crying and yelling meltdown in front of everyone. I was mortified by this time and picked him up and carried him out. As I tried to talk to him and find another way for him to find restitution, it got to the point that he actually swung at me. He was over the top.

This was not the last time he has had a meltdown and we can trace back each time to something he had eaten with artificial sugars, food coloring, or artificial flavoring. All 3 of these things send him flying and crashing. Do you have a child like this?

What the Experts say about Sweeteners

Excerpt quoted from MayoClinic:

Artificial sweeteners currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are:

Acesulfame potassium (Sunett, Sweet One)
Aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet)
Neotame
Saccharin (SugarTwin, Sweet’N Low)
Sucralose (Splenda)

FDA approval is being sought for other artificial sweeteners. And some sweeteners, such as cyclamate, are not approved in the United States but are approved for use in other countries.

Newer sugar substitutes, including stevia and agave nectar, claim to be lower calorie, tastier and healthier options.

The topic of sugar substitutes can be complex and confusing. One problem is that the terminology regarding sugar substitutes is often open to interpretation. For instance, some manufacturers call their sweeteners “natural” even though they’re processed or refined, as is the case with stevia preparations. And some artificial sweeteners are derived from naturally occurring substances — sucralose comes from sugar, for example.

In our dictionary, American Heritage Dictionary, Natural means present in or produced by nature; not artificial. The second definition is Produced solely by nature. It doesn’t seem that sweeteners are “natural”. As you can see above, Stevia is natural to start but then processed or refined. That is not a good thing. Why? You ask. Read on….

The following is an Excerpt quoted from Natural Sweeteners:

They don’t go through the similar processing and refining as ordinary sugar, they keep much of their natural properties and nutrients. Regular white sugar and brown sugar are empty of their enzymes, micro nutrients and vitamins that occur naturally in the sugar cane juice.

To sweeten foods, use a flavoring that is plant-based sweetener such as Stevia or raw honey. Since they type of flavorings are not cured or filtered, they are considered as natural sweeteners. Unfiltered honey is obviously not processed so it keeps its raw beneficial therapeutic properties such as vitamins and other elements that originate directly from nature.

Well, What about High-Fructose Corn Syrup?

The one “sugar” we stay Far Far away from is Corn Syrup in any form.

Excerpt from Sugar Shock Blog

Have you heard? A recent study, which reveals that a diet high in high fructose corn syrup may be partly to blame for insulin resistance?

Check out the article on Sugar Shock Blog about the health-harming mercury that’s been found recently in foods containing high fructose corn syrup? Also make sure to watch the 3 min interview on the first page.

HFCS is in about 2/3 of the ingredients you may be using in Homemade cooking. Did you read that?Oour Homemade recipes contain HFCS because our ingredients contain it.

The presence of HFCS in sauces and seasonings is one reason we make our own or buy from a reputable company. We don’t want HFCS or other additives in our food.

5 ways you can avoid HFCS and other sweeteners.

Stop buying fast food! These foods are loaded with HFCS among other chemicals.
Start planning what you will eat and feed to your family. We all need a priority check once in a while, me more than others most of the time. We have been prepping Freezer Meal Workshops every 2 weeks to make eating homemade easy!

If you don’t have the time to make a homemade meal each night, check out Wild Tree. (Also Join my Facebook Page so you are ready for the next Virtual Freezer Meal Workshop) We have switched to Wildtree because…

What they are: 100% Organic, Non-GMO, Non-peanut, and currently going 100% Gluten Free.

What they are Not: No HFCS, preservatives, additives or artificial ingredients

What they make: Infused Raw Grapeseed Oils, Coconut Oil, seasonings, baked goods, sauces, dips, skillet meals, Gluten Free Bread, muffins, cake, pizza dough etc.

We can persuade food producers to change what they are putting in our foods, by not giving them our money. This means checking your labels to make sure the products you buy do not contain HFCS. This is a little tedious at first but it gets much easier once you know what doesn’t have it.

If the Organic “better for you” products do not sell, the stores will pull it off the shelves! We have the control because we are the ones with the money to spend on food! 1/3 of our paychecks go to food. So choose wisely where you want your money to go.

We are buying only the foods we are willing to give to our family to eat. If a store doesn’t carry items we want to buy we go somewhere else.

We are moving away from Supermarkets all together because of the shear fact that we have no idea how that food got there and most of the time where it actually came from. We have no idea what’s in it, since half the ingredients are not “required” to be on the label. So, since they don’t want to change the way they do business, We changed the way we do business.

We use raw honey in most of our cooking, baking, tea etc.
We also order Honey Granules from Bread Beckers for baking. It is hard to make icing with raw honey…lol.
We use Organic Cane Juice or Sugar in the Raw .

Experiment I have been working on.

I have been testing out Organic Pure Stevia in my tea, but I have to admit, it has a “chemical” taste to it. I think it is just this particular brand.

I also found that even if the box says Organic, non-GMO, pure, etc, does not mean that you do not have to check the label. I found that my Stevia (labeled as all the above) has Natural Flavor – Natural Flavor 99.9% of the time is another name for MSG. Not what I want to ingest.