A couple of years ago when we set out to find the best multi-vitamin option for our own children, we ran into a lot of myths and mis-information about the quality of ingredients, the quantities of individual components, and even the need for children’s vitamins in the first place.  To help you cut through some of the clutter and questionable information available on the Internet from so-called health blogs and nutrition experts (many of whom are simply paid shills for big corporate interests), we’ve dug a little deeper into these subjects and are giving you our opinion on these widely misunderstood areas of children’s health. We encourage you to do your own research into these subjects as well, we believe that as with most things, the more you dig into these issues, the more you will able to separate fact from carefully manufactured marketing gimmicks and outright fictions.

MYTH # 1:  Everything in my children’s vitamin is good for my child.

FACT: The vast majority of children’s vitamins contain ingredients that have very questionable safety records.

You would think in a product like a vitamin, which is ideally meant to help your child grow and thrive, you would find wholesome and quality ingredients that do nothing detrimental to your child’s health.   So why are most vitamin companies putting genetically modified-derived ingredients into their children’s vitamins? That’s right, if you take a look at the label on your children’s vitamin and you see corn syrup, glucose syrup from corn, high-fructose corn syrup, soybean oil or soy lecithin, the odds are these ingredients have been derived from genetically modified corn and soy.  Over 90% of the soy in the US and over 80% of the corn in the US are now produced using genetically modified seeds. Why does this matter? Good question. This matters because the manner in which these two crops are now being genetically modified.  In the past, certain strains of crops were chosen for their superior yield, their flavors and colors, and for their ability to produce an overall superior end result at harvest.  Or crops were mixed to create hybrids, for instance plums were mixed with apricots to produce pluots. All that has changed. Today, a “genetically modified crop” does not refer to a more colorful ear of corn or a larger soybean. Today, genetically modified means the crops have been infected with a strain of bacteria (Bt) that causes the plant to internally produce pesticide.  Another formula for genetically modified crops creates a plant that can be exposed to unlimited drenching of Round-Up herbicide with no ill effects. Did you know some corn and soy are now required to be registered with the EPA as insecticides?  Don’t believe us?  Here is the Environmental Protection Agency’s website listing the current crops that are registered as pesticides In other words, corn and soy are now being manipulated to become immune to the highest levels pesticide exposure ever seen in the history of agriculture. Unfortunately, our children are not immune to these high levels of pesticides. Study after study has shown that exposure to pesticides, especially in young bodies, can affect neurodevelopment, cause respiratory illness and interfere with normal growth .  Which means the more pesticide your child is exposed to, the more potential damage is done to your child’s brain, lungs and overall growth potential. So if you’re still giving your children a multi-vitamin that contains the common genetically modified corn and soy derivatives (corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, glucose syrup, soybean oil, soy lecithin), you are putting the most highly chemically compromised foods in the history of human food cultivation into your child. And then we have the synthetic sweetener alternatives. Are you aware that sucralose (Splenda), which is a man-made synthetic chemical cleverly named to sound like sucrose (table sugar), is actually closer in chemical composition to DDT than it is to sugar? It’s true.  Sucralose is an organochlorine, which means chlorine is covalently bonded to a sugar molecule.  The manufacturer Tate and Lyle say this on their own website .  While this process doesn’t sound that bad, and the manufacturer assures you of the quality and purity of the end result, the fact remains that organic materials in nature are only very rarely bound to chlorine, and the most common uses for organochlorines are chemical warfare (mustard gas or phosgene) and in pest eradication (DDT, aldrin, mirex). In other words, organochlorines are not created to enhance health.  They are created to compromise it.  And we’re not putting a known organochlorine into our children. In fact, many organochlorines have been banned from use in many countries.  Dioxin, for instance, along with DDT are organochlorines that are subject to the Stockholm Convention (which was created to ban or severely restrict the production of the most dangerous environmental pollutants). So when you’re putting sucralose (Splenda) into your child’s body, you’re trusting that a substance chemically similar to DDT and Dioxin is harmless.  Of course, the manufacturer has studies proving their organochlorine is safe, but who funds the studies proving this?  A disinterested third-party laboratory?  Or scientists on the payroll of the manufacturer? We encourage you to dig deeper yourself into this controversial sweetener. And then there’s aspartame.  Which is classified as an “excitotoxin”.  Meaning it has the ability to over stimulate the cells it comes into contact with, until they die. Aspartame was the FDA’s #1 source of consumer complaints until the FDA decided to stop keeping those records .  Most of the complaints documented are neurological in nature.  And in a child’s small body, the results can be magnified. Aspartame has been linked to neurological problems, nerve damage, brain tumors and cancer.   So how is an artificial sweetener able to do all this damage? Aspartame is produced by isolating two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, which once again sounds rather harmless, until you consider that these amino acids when found in nature are proportionately bonded with a full range of other amino acids, in the proper balance. The problems begin once you isolate these two amino acids and combine them in an unnatural, synthetic way.  For a complete overview of the science behind the danger of excitotoxins in general, see this groundbreaking work by Russell Blaylock Aspartame has also been called the most controversial food additive every approved by the FDA, and if you research the amount of times the FDA actually rejected aspartame for use in humans, as well as the now infamous Bressler Report outlining the shocking scientific half-truths and lies presented during the approval process at the FDA, we think you’ll be shocked to uncover the true facts surrounding aspartame’s approval for use in food and drinks. And vitamins. Lastly, we’re only going to mention that after years of scientific studies linking ADD and ADHD to synthetic dyes and artificial coloring, the UK has banned synthetic dyes and colors from products marketed to children We’re not waiting around for the US FDA to follow suit.  We’re keeping these controversial dyes and colors out of our children’s vitamin and out of our children.  And you can too by insisting no artificial dyes and colors are in your children’s vitamin.

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• Written by Fay
  

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