There’s been in a lot in the news lately about RFK Jr. and his “Make America Healthy Again” tour around the U.S. discussing ultra-processed foods, school lunches, and the FDA.

Then a few days ago, I heard a brief snippet from a news story about a family who took their son off all processed foods and drinks that contained food dyes and saw a miraculous improvement in his emotionally dysregulated behavior.

So, I think it’s a good time to break through the noise, take a good look at the science, and figure out the truth behind what many have decided is poisoning us and our kids—food additives. I’ll admit that I’m pretty floored by what I’ve learned.

Stay with me as I explain what you need to know about how ultra-processed foods and food additives (such as food dyes), can not only impact your teen’s physical health but can also damage their mental health, and upend their emotions. And if your teen is prone to regular emotional outbursts, you’re really going to want to hear this.

PODCAST INTRO

When I was really young my parents took me to an allergist who determined I was allergic to chocolate. But this particular food didn’t make me break out in hives, according to the doctor it was responsible for my anxiety, my irritability and general crankiness. As my mother often told people—it affected by nervous system.

So, all those chocolate treats were taken away from me. And every time I went to someone else’s house my mother begged me not to eat anything with chocolate in it. Which, of course meant that every time I went to someone else’s house, I ate as much chocolate as I could get my hands on.

And all through my teen years and probably up until I left home for good, every single time, I was the slightest bit grumpy, or nervous, or angry, I heard, “what have you been eating?” or “you’ve been eating chocolate again, haven’t you?!”  Every time.

Talk about having your feelings invalidated…I was literally blamed for my anxiety.

And all these years I’ve thought about what a crackpot that allergist must have been. Foods can’t affect your emotions—that’s ridiculous—I just had ADHD and anxiety (as I still do).

Well, my research has now convinced me that allergist was probably right (although the more likely culprit was the red Kool-Aid I drank on a daily basis). Let me explain.

I’ll start with the term, ultra-processed food. What does that even mean?

There’s no legal definition but years ago, the School of Public Health at the University of Sao Paolo, Brazil, developed a scientific food classification system known as NOVA. It’s a method for helping us group the foods and drinks we consume according to how much processing they undergo.

NOVA defines food processing as the “physical, biological, and chemical processes that occur after foods are separated from nature” and before we eat them or use them to prepare a dish or meal.

This classification system (that’s used worldwide) puts foods and drinks into 4  categories, based on the level of processing it undergoes (stay with me now – this is important, and you need to get this):

The first category is unprocessed or minimally processed foods

1. unprocessed means they come straight from the tree, the ground, or an animal and are completely un-messed with
2. minimally processed means foods that are simply cleaned or cut up, ground up, pasteurized, fermented or have gone through other processes that don’t add anything to the food (no salt, oil, fat or anything but the food itself)

The second category are processed culinary ingredients - these are “products” that are extracted from the natural or the original food or from nature by using simple processes like pressing, grinding, pulverizing, crushing, and refining.

We’re talking about oils, butter, syrup, sugars, lard, salt, honey even. This second category of food is usually just used for preparing dishes out of the first category of foods.

Then there’s the third category – these are the processed foods, foods that are manufactured by companies by adding one or more of those group two products (salt, oil, sugar, or fats) to a category 1 food - an unprocessed or minimally processed food. Most of the time a processed food is only going to have two or three ingredients tops.

And these processed foods are still recognized as versions of the original food. For example, canned beans, salted meat, beef jerky, salted peanuts, freshly made cheeses or freshly made breads would all fit into the category of processed foods.

But you can’t say the fourth category is a recognizable form of any original food. These are the ultra-processed foods.

NOVA defines these products as “industrial formulations made entirely or mostly from substances extracted from foods (oils, fats, sugar, starch, and proteins), derived from food constituents (hydrogenated fats and modified starch), or synthesized in laboratories from food substrates or other organic sources (flavor enhancers, colors, and several food additives used to make the product hyper-palatable).”

Ultra-processed foods are made via processes like extrusion (think Play Do machines), molding, (yet more Play Do Factory fun). Drinks can of course, also be ultra-processed.

And even NOVA says that the group one foods—the unprocessed or minimally processed foods—are usually way down the list of ingredients in these ultra-processed foods, if they’re even in there at all. How about that? Basically, we’re eating things created in a lab.

Of course, you know the types of foods we’re talking about here: any pre-prepared foods (frozen hamburger patties, fish sticks, hot dogs [Play Do Factory], sodas or pop (depending on where you’re from), energy drinks of course, instant soups, that lovely mac and cheese with the “cheese powder”, flavored (even fruit) yogurts, margarine, sweetened juices, distilled alcohol, meal replacement shakes, basically anything in a box or pretty packaged bag, and on and on and on.

Estimates from some research indicates that around 73% of the U.S. food supply falls into this category of ultra-processed and that almost 70% of the average American kid’s diet is comprised of these foods.

But it’s not just the U.S. with this problem…Australia, Canada, England, Japan, Brazil, Mexico…we all need to pay attention here.

Now some people point out that included in this category of ultra-processed food are some foods that are generally thought of as healthy—like veggie burgers, wheat bread, and tofu.

This one issue has allowed some agencies or organizations to be reticent to issue total bans, draw sweeping conclusions, or make specific recommendations about the overall category of “ultra-processed foods”.

For example, the USDA Dietary Guidelines Committee in their 2025 report, declined to make any recommendations about ultra-processed foods.

Those opposed to dissing all ultra-processed foods say, instead, that we should be looking at the science and data about certain “ingredients, additives, or processing techniques”.

Okay, let’s do that.

According to the FDA (the United States Food and Drug Administration), a food additive is basically anything added to a food that becomes part of that food or effects the characteristics of the food. Anything that’s used to prepare it, make it, process it, treat it, package it, transport it, or store it.

For example, additives are what allow the food to sit on store shelves longer, look prettier or more colorful, taste really good, and make food prep and eating more convenient.

Many additives also make these foods more addictive—so that you’re less likely to “eat just one” or allow them to “melt in your hands and not your mouth”.

Unfortunately, teenagers, who have all this extra dopamine floating around their prefrontal cortex, (especially those with ADHD) are even more prone to becoming addicted to many of these ultra-processed foods, which by the way, have very little nutritional value (if any at all).

Not only are these types of foods and drinks highly addictive and basically devoid of nutrients, but most ultra-processed foods also contain tons of sugar, salt, and saturated fat, which are leading causes of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease…and are known to promote cancer and even dementia.

According to a study published in 2024 in the journal, Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, the prevalence of prediabetes in adolescents, more than tripled from 11.5% in the period between 1999 to 2000 to 36.3% in the period between 2015 to 2020. Prediabetes means that a person’s blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be diagnosed with diabetes.

And when you or I were growing up, if a kid had diabetes, it was type 1 diabetes (an autoimmune disease). Kids were rarely, if ever, in danger of developing type 2 diabetes, in which the body develops an insulin resistance, which is often related to obesity, physical inactivity and a diet high in processed foods.

But this condition too, has risen dramatically over the past 25 or 30 years. According to the most recent data, type 2 diabetes among children and adolescents nearly doubled from 2002 to 2018. Between 2017 and 2018, over 5,000 new cases were diagnosed in kids in the U.S.

Additionally, some food dyes such as Red 3 and Yellow 5 are known to be geno-toxic, in other words they can cause direct damage to DNA or inheritable damage, which can cause cancer. And some of these dyes such as Red 4, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 are known as azo dyes and are terribly toxic as they break down into carcinogens in the body.

The bottom line is, there’s just nothing good about most food additives, especially food dyes.

So, obviously, we know there’s a physical health risk for our kids eating all these ultra-processed foods. But what about their mental health and their emotional regulation? Can foods or food additives really cause anxiety or depression or make kids act out in anger or cry and have tantrums?

Well, there are a variety of factors that can impact the brain’s structure and function and therefore make it more likely for someone to develop a mental health disorder. One factor that plays a big role is a person’s surroundings or environment. For example, family conflict, poverty, discrimination, pollution, or childhood trauma.

And there’s emerging evidence that another environmental factor—the foods and beverages one puts in their body, including all those additives—can play a pivotal role in brain development and functioning.

A 2023 review of various epidemiological and animal studies from the previous five years found that food additives (as well as other food contaminants like heavy metals, pesticides, antibiotics, and organic pollutants) appear to change the structure and function of the brain.

The science shows that these chemicals can actually disrupt certain neurotransmitters in the brain—specifically in the hippocampus—which is involved in consolidating memories.

Additives can impact the brain by inducing inflammation in the brain and spinal cord. It’s called neuroinflammation and it’s a response that’s usually caused by an infection, an injury, or a toxin (and additive, in this case). Neuroinflammation is the brain’s immune system going on high alert to protect itself, which is great except that if it happens too often, it can contribute to different neurological disorders and neurodegeneration (brain cells dying, essentially).

Taken as a whole, the researchers say these studies show that additives like aspartame, parabens, polysorbate 80, and MSG may actually induce anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and ADHD.

For example, a study of almost 19,000 men and women found a link between depression and the use of artificial sweeteners and another study of more than 200 college students found that reducing the intake of artificial sweeteners could be related to lower stress levels.

Parabens that I just mentioned, are an additive that extend a food’s shelf life (a preservative, in other words). This preservative, when found in the meconium of newborns, has been linked to a later diagnosis of ADHD in those children. So, these preservatives can even be passed from the mother to the baby and cause changes in that child’s brain.

What about how food additives (such as food dyes) might mess with your kid’s emotional regulation?

In 2022 the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (the OEHHA) (oh-ee-ha) conducted a review of the epidemiological research and animal toxicology studies on food dyes (remember, dyes are additives). This deep research is considered to be the best review ever done on this issue.

People have been saying since the 1970s that food dyes likely make ADHD symptoms worse in kids, so the OEHHA set out to figure all of this out once and for all. They wanted to determine how these dyes affected the neurobiological outcomes for kids—both with and without an ADHD diagnosis.

Their research evaluated 7 of the 9 food dyes that are approved by the FDA for general use in food (it’s called the FD&C batch certification so you might see “FD&C Red Number 40” on something – that’s what it means). These 7 dyes account for nearly all of the foods that use dyes in the U.S.

You can see a list of these dyes on page two of the OEHHA study in the Show Notes, but they’re Blue Numbers 1 and 2, Green Number 3, Red Numbers 3 and 40, and Yellow Numbers 5 and 6.

OEHHA gathered 25 studies to include in this review, which included kids of all ages. Forty-four percent of the studies were out of the U.S., 22% from the UK and 15% each out of both Canada and Australia.

They found that 64% of the studies identified good evidence that food dyes negatively affect kids’ behavior.

But in 52% of those studies, the association between the food dyes and the kids’ negative behavior, was statistically significant. This means that it’s more likely than not that it was the dye that made those kids act out—it’s not likely just by chance that their behavior disintegrated.

Now, in case you’re wondering, most of these results were based on (among other data) interviews or surveys from the kids’ parents and teachers—not just what researchers observed.

Based on all the data they reviewed, OEHHA found that some kids, both with and without ADHD may experience negative behavior due to food dyes. If kids are ADHD, it will make their symptoms worse, if kids are not ADHD but prone to tantrums, it can make their tantrums worse, and if kids aren’t naturally prone to dysregulation at all, it can actually lead to dysregulation. It impacts kids wherever they are on the emotional dysregulation “spectrum”. This could mean that your kid with anxiety is made more anxious, your ADHD kid is made more “all over the place” or your calm kid is super irritable.

The only guess OEHHA has as to why some kids may be more sensitive to dyes than others is that it could be related to how their genes express themselves—specifically, the histamine degradation gene (as one of the included studies found).

Histamine plays a significant role in both the body and the brain. In the body it impacts immune responses and various bodily functions and, in the brain, it acts as a neurotransmitter that impacts sleep and wakefulness, attention and mood.

And there are several ways in which the research has suggested that these dyes basically poison the body and brain – the three that I could understand are a) through the endocrine system, b) interference in the creation of new brain cells, and c) interference with the way other nutrients are absorbed into the body (in other words it can keep the body from taking in the nutrients it needs from other food sources).

OEHHA points out that more research is needed in how these dyes break down in the gut and how everything interacts in the gut-brain axis.

As a matter of fact, this is one way some surmise that dyes impact people with anxiety more than others. Bacteria in the gut can affect your mood.

Something else the OEHHA decided to do with all this data was to examine the FDA’s ADIs. ADI stands for acceptable daily intake.

The FDA has set an ADI for all the substances it regulates, including additives like food dyes. So, the FDA is saying, this is the amount of any given regulated substance that people can safely ingest on a daily basis, throughout their lifetime.

Now, the FDA determined ADIs for food dyes based on scientific studies that were conducted between 1969 and 1986 as each of the dyes that are currently on the market were first introduced into the U.S. food supply.

The FDA has conducted no new research into the safety levels of these food additives for between 56 and 36 years. That’s right. Think about how far science has advanced in just the past last 36 years. In 1989, we were still using VCRs, the internet hadn’t been invented, phones were still attached to the wall, and Madonna was still relevant.

So, the OEHHA did some very complicated calculations and extrapolation based on the current scientific data and determined that the FDA’s ADIs should be lower (the daily intake recommendations should be far less).

Additionally, they found that kids’ typical consumption of at least 4 of the 7 dyes they evaluated, would likely exceed these lower ADIs.

OEHHA recommended all sorts of additional research be conducted into this issue but says in the meantime that we need to acknowledge the neurobehavioral effects of these food dyes in kids and take steps to reduce their exposure to them.

Reducing their exposure right now means at least reducing the amount of foods and drinks they ingest that contain food dyes. This includes changing what’s offered in school lunches and allowed on store shelves, in addition to what we bring into our homes.

But you know what else contains these dyes? Prescription and over the counter medicines, vitamins, and supplements.

At least a couple of studies have found that these OTC medicines are a real issue when it comes to the dyes they contain. For example, the inclusion of certain dyes in kids’ analgesic syrups (like Motrin or Tylenol) and kids’ cough, cold, and allergy syrups (like Robitussin or Benadryl) result in estimates of twice to nearly three times the ADI (acceptable daily intake) of this dye for ages 12 to 16. Look for dye-free versions, contact compound pharmacies for prescriptions—where there’s a will there’s a way.

Now, going back to the ADHD issue for a minute, there’s a growing body of evidence that some kids with ADHD may see their behavioral symptoms improve by eliminating certain foods—including those with additives like food dyes.

Have you ever heard of the Feingold diet? Back in 1975 Feingold published a study in which he tested his hypothesis that foods with added colorings and flavorings and foods rich in something called salicylates, played a role in ADHD (or hyperkinetic kids as they were called back then).

The results of his experiments showed major improvements in these kids when these additives were eliminated from their diet. And parents started adopting this diet right and left.

However, later studies had mixed results, and some were not rigorously conducted which, over the years, prevented many healthcare providers from recommending this diet for kids with ADHD.

Then in 2011 a study found that certain kids with ADHD are sensitive to food dyes, artificial flavorings and a certain preservative. The researchers eliminated foods with these additives then reintroduced one additive at a time to see what the kids reacted to. But different kids had varying responses to a wide range of foods and the dyes alone seemed to only be a problem for a minority of the kids. So it was hard to say that one single dye or preservative impacted kids across the board.

But this study prompted further research on elimination diets—primarily something called a “few foods diet”, (where food intake is restricted to a handful of foods, which would hopefully reduce many of the ADHD symptoms after about 2 weeks). The diet eliminates almost any foods from the kid’s diet that are known to cause sensitivities or allergies in many kids. After the 2 weeks the symptoms of emotional dysregulation have usually subsided. Then the eliminated foods are reintroduced into the kid’s diet, one at a time to figure out which ones were actually causing the problems.

Research regarding these types of diets has shown the most common culprit for a child’s emotional dysregulation and other symptoms is food dyes and preservatives, followed by soy, cow’s milk, chocolate (yes, okay, mom), grapes, wheat, and oranges. So, it isn’t always just the food dyes or other additives—it can be a whole food.

The few-foods diet has been shown over and over again in studies to significantly improve symptoms in kids with ADHD, both at home and in school. One study found improvements of at least 50% on the symptom rating scale at the end of the elimination phase, in 62% of the kids.

As a matter of fact, one study found that 24% of the kids put on an elimination diet, showed improvement in ADHD symptoms of a similar magnitude to the kids receiving ADHD medication in the same trial. That’s pretty amazing and worth the effort, I’d say.

However, as pointed out in the research, a “few foods” diet, specifically, should only be undertaken with the help of a qualified professional so that nutritional deficits are avoided. Because when they say “few foods” they aren’t kidding—like one study allowed kids to eat only turkey, rice, pears, and lettuce (for two weeks). Yeah, I know, that could be a real problem—not sure some kids’ behavior would actually improve if you’re fighting over what they can eat!

But you can also modify your efforts by simply cutting out one food out at a time for a couple of weeks and see what happens, or cut out all foods with additives and reintroduce one at a time, keeping up with the results in a journal.

But’s as I said earlier, it’s not just kids who are already prone to emotional dysregulation that can impacted by dyes and other additives (and potentially other foods as well).

In 2007 a study was conducted on younger kids in the general population (not just kids with ADHD). The researchers were testing whether food dyes and the preservative sodium benzoate increased hyperactivity in kids in general. The study found that giving kids a drink containing these two additives, did in fact increase their hyperactivity. As a result of that one study, the European Union Parliament decided to make food manufacturers add warning labels to foods containing certain dyes.

Now, before I wrap this up, remember, I mentioned at the beginning of the episode that I’d heard a few seconds of a news story about a family who took their son off all processed foods and drinks that contained food dyes and saw a miraculous improvement in his behavior. Well, after I finished all my other research, I decided to Google around to try and find that family—and I did.

Brandon and Whitney Cawood, from Dalton Georgia just couldn’t figure out why their little boy was so out of control, and they were getting no answers from the professionals.

So, Whitney did her own research and landed on food dyes as a possible culprit. Once they eliminated dyes from their son’s diet and saw a 180-degree change in him, she and her husband decided to make a documentary about it. Their film is called To Dye For (D Y E) and it’s available on Prime Video, Apple TV and a couple of other places at least in the U.S. (I’m not sure about the Global market but please search for it).

If I haven’t convinced you of the science, their documentary will. They interview parents, and experts alike that I feel certain will convince you to at least give an elimination diet a try if ADHD or emotional dysregulation is an issue for your child. I literally cried watching it. Some of their stories were so similar to ours and I just hate that I didn’t understand this issue back then. I’ll also link to the Cawood’s website in the Show notes because they have some excellent resources for you. Start reading those labels…or better yet, shop the perimeter of your grocery store and stay away from the isled of packaged foods as best you can.

There’s just so much to discuss here, and I like to keep these episodes on the shorter side (and this one’s a little long), so please watch your email for the Substack post if your listening to this on April 15^th 2025, (or jump over to Substack and find the post of the same date, through the link in the episode description).

There I’ll explain more about the FDA’s role in maintaining food safety, and how U.S. states are stepping up to try and manage the issue of ultra-processed foods and additives for school kids and the rest of their citizens.

Okay, that’s all today for Speaking of Teens, I hope you learned some things you didn’t know before and will follow me on over to Substack to learn even more. I appreciate you sharing your precious time with me and for indulging my love of science and research and informing you of what I learn. I know this episode can help someone in your circle of friends or family so please send it out to them so they can benefit from this knowledge as well.

I’ll be here again next week—and until then, remember to try and connect with your teen in some small way, each and every day.