Behavior Problems & Ketchup

Tonight we ate dinner out. We had hamburgers and fries. And of course ketchup to go with those fries. After we finished dinner we walked to the cookie counter (we were at the mall) to get a cookie. Trey got one of the mini sized cookies.

Now I'm telling you this because minutes after finishing dinner, before we even made it to the cookie counter, Trey was hyper. While paying for the cookies David noticed that he was bouncing around and acting a bit crazy. Then we walked around the mall for a while eating our cookies and Trey continued to be hyper, he didn't want to listen or do what we asked. He wanted to jump on everything and was loud and just generally a bit of a terror.

I know that Trey is a 3 year old boy but this is not how he usually acts. He's usually pretty good at listening and generally well behaved for what I can expect for his age.

Tonight Trey had ketchup that had high fructose corn syrup in it and then a cookie with lots of sugar (not sure about the HFCS). I've done a pretty good job of ridding our home of all HFCS and we usually don't buy foods out that I know has it in it. But unfortunately all ketchup at restaurants is loaded with it and he loves it and he's old enough now that he knows where there are fries there is ketchup.

I'm mentioning all this because I found it interesting that as soon as we were done eating he was already reacting to the HFCS in his system. It makes me wonder how many kiddos are diagnosed with ADD or ADHD or whatever else that simply have eaten too much sugar or have been eating HFCS. Actually I notice more of a difference in Trey's behavior when he's had HFCS rather than just sugar. 

I know a lot of people probably think that there isn't much difference between HFCS and sugar or that HFCS isn't that big of a deal. But I know my son and there was a HUGE difference in his behavior after eating HFCS. The problem with HFCS is that it's much more addictive than sugar (are you addicted to something with HFCS in it?) and it's sugar on steroids as far as what it does to our bodies.

I'm not going to go into a run down of HFCS. I just wonder how many kiddos are eating HFCS for breakfast and then going to school and the teachers think they have ADD. And then they have it for lunch or an afternoon snack or dinner and mom and dad think they have ADD. So they take the kiddo to the doctor to get medicated, which they are now adding in another chemical to the kiddo's body.

I'm not saying in any way that this is the case with all kiddos, or that there aren't kiddos that really are ADD. I actually know someone that was/is truly ADD.

I guess this post is sort of a rambling of a thought I had tonight and just wanted to send out there. I'd like to challenge those who do eat HFCS regularly or whose kiddos eat it to do a little experiment. Try cutting it out for a while and then add something back in and take notice of how your feel/act. I know personally that I felt TONS better after cutting it out completely and as I've just explained above, I see what it does to Trey.

Thankfully after a couple of hours and some dedicated running time Trey settled down and was back to normal. And I can tell you that he won't be eating any more HFCS for a long time or ever if I can help it. I know that for our family's health, cutting HFCS was a great decision, I don't think I ever knew how much it was benefiting us until tonight. And it's totally worth it.

I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about this. Do you think this is a problem with most kiddos? Have you noticed a difference in your own children? Or yourself?

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