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One of the greatest challenges a parent faces is getting children to eat well; that can become a nightmare when children have food allergies.
Food allergies in children is a growing problem in America; diagnosing and dealing with them is as unique as each individual involved.
The first monumental hurdle is to accurately identify the problem as a food allergy in the first place. It is often easier said then done because allergic reactions are an immune system response and the symptoms can be as individual as we are.
In extreme cases breathing problems or skin irritation appear quickly and a clear cause and reaction is identified.
Peanut and shellfish allergies often fall into this category and it is not uncommon to find a history of sensitivity in other family members.
Those traditional cases have been rapidly dwarfed by a new generation of children, allergic to a growing list of basic, staple ingredients like corn, soy, wheat, nuts, dairy, eggs and chemical additives.
Reactions can vary from subtle mood and digestive changes, to skin irritations that peek out at intervals, that seem totally unrelated to any specific food. They manifest as part of a general condition of overall health issues in skin or breathing.
These allergic reactions can even cause behavioral changes, lethargy or hyperactivity and as every parent knows, being a normal kid can often play a big role in that too.
That leaves parents with the task of identifying a problem, where anything can be the cause or the symptom. That's a job Einstein wouldn't want to face; how are we supposed to begin?
The first step is to accept that we are what we eat and to take a very close look at what exactly that is in terms of ingredients that a body might be prone to reacting to.
Unnatural creations of science, chemicals that Mother Nature never programmed our DNA to deal with are a primary suspect.
Those would be artificial preservatives, flavor enhancers, colors and sweeteners, which have a long history of causing health problems.
Growing evidence suggests that these have a far larger role and more serious effects in children than is widely recognized.
On May 8, 2007 the UK Guardian reported on breaking research results from their Food Safety Agency revealing far more serious effects of commonly used additives then expected. The results highlight the fact that establishing standards for these never considered the unique effects on children to begin with and quotes one of the food safety experts with respect to the study.
Dr Alex Richardson, the director of Food and Behaviour Research and senior research scientist at Oxford University, said: "There are well-documented potential risks from these additives. In my view the researchers had done an excellent piece of work first time round and there was enough evidence to act. If this new study essentially replicates that, what more evidence do they need to remove these additives from children's food and drink?"
Finding these ingredients is often challenging; many appear under ingredients by names we would never imagine are chemicals. For example, textured protein, hydrolyzed protein, yeast extract, calcium and sodium caseinate always contain MSG or monosodium glutamate. The Natural Health Place did a feature that focuses intensively on the MSG and Aspartame with a fairly exhaustive list of hidden details and dangers.
It hardly seems fair to have labels that allow ingredients to be listed without the details we need to identify what's really in there but that is a fact of government run by lobbyists. Our children can not wait for that broken system to repair itself.
One refuge is food that is food we know by sight. An apple or banana will never surprise us with it's ingredients the way a processed food or flavored drink does. Handing a child a piece of fruit takes all the wonder and stress out of the equation, you know exactly what you're feeding them and what you are not.
Now that option will not take the whining out of the discussion over what they prefer to eat. A parental choice isn't always a solution to happiness in their eyes but there is compromise.
More and more pure foods are becoming available in traditional snack and cereal forms and with careful label reading they can start to become staples to stock the shelves at home and reach for without thinking twice.
In some ways it's easiest to do what parents everywhere have done as infants are introduced to foods in the first place, build from the basics. There is a world of help and support for facing the challenges. Allergy Kids has everything from lunch bags and stickers to help identify foods to pediatric specialists in in food and allergy research.
Much of that is good advice to have no matter what we are trying to do to raise healthy children. The more healthful the ingredients going in the healthier the child and that's the goal.
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