It is a favourite gripe of the older generation that the younger generation is always worse behaved than they were.
After a study in Southern England, a potential link to behaviour problems and diet has been found and such is the findings that food safety experts are advising parents to overhaul their children's diet now.
The latest research into the effect of food additives on children's behaviour raises doubts about the safety of food colourings and a preservative widely used in sweets, drinks and processed foods in the UK. Although these additives are widely used here and are approved as safe and legal by the EU, some of the colours are banned in Scandinavian countries and the US.
The kicker is, it will be months before the results are published, despite the importance of the findings.
Because of scientists code of practise, the results will not be released to the public or acted on until they have been published in a scientific journal.The Food Safety Agency has been considering the safety of these additives since 2000 after research concluded that "significant changes in children's behaviour could be produced by the removal of colourings and additives from their diet.
I am all for safeguarding code of practices but if this finding has the implications that they are saying, just tell us now what foodstuffs the things are in and parents can stop buying them and maybe we can all get a bit of peace from kids high on E-numbers.
5 comments:
Way back when, some moms were not letting their kids have stuff with artificial colors cuz supposedly it made them "hyper." I babysat for a boy whose mom was a nurse and banned certain foods from the house. This would have been around 30 years ago! I can't believe it's not sorted yet.
"Because of scientists code of practise, the results will not be released to the public or acted on until they have been published in a scientific journal."
That is a good thing. There are few things that scientists love more than finding fault with another scientist's conclusions. Let the scientific community have a crack at it. If it survives intact, then you know that you've got something of substance. If not, then you've avoided a lot of hubbub about nothing. Why go off half cocked, thinking that you've got a solution when it isn't that certain yet?
If it survives intact, then you know that you've got something of substance.
Well, it depends on the quality of the journal it is published in: Nature, Science, The Lancet - now you're talking; The Journal of Who Gives A Damn, We Publish Whatever Is Mailed To Us - well... :)
A couple of things here:
1) One need only to look at some of the more incredible claims regarding cloning technology made by a few South Korean scientists to understand that the peer review process is critical. The claims were both shown to be false based on the rigorous and methodical work of other researchers attempting to replicate and verify the original experiments. Publication in peer journals is the only way to ensure an open and honest system.
2) Scientists love the process of attempting to find fault with others' findings. It's the only way to be sure that what is claimed today can be used as the basis of what is investigated tomorrow.
Ook ook
Of course you are all correct and the findings need to be peer reviewed but what got my goat was that while the additives are banned in the USA and Scandanavia, it is deemed ok to continue stuffing them, into our food.
Surely these countries had reason to ban them so there must of been some research into it.
I just wish they would hurry up and review it so we can get started on ridding them from our foods.
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