Thursday, September 29, 2011

Healthy foods keeping the kids happy


I thought this story on the 7:30 report last night was interesting - in summary, a school in South Australia has found a "dramatic effect" on kids behaviour (for the better!) when they switched to a diet free of "artificial colours and preservatives" for just two weeks. A (somewhat cynical) scientists' point of view could be that it is all just psychosomatic, but luckily I'm not that cynical. :) However, I did think it was interesting that there were a few shots of the kids eating fruits etc during the story. Maybe "artificial" stuff the kids ditched also tended to be highly refined, high saturated fat, high sugar, high GI, low fibre "convenience" foods. And just maybe they were replaced with more whole food items like fruit: rich in vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, antioxidants, fibre, lower GI, higher in complex carbs and lower in fat? Personally, it doesn't matter what the mechanism(s), the point is that it is likely that less refined foods, either because or in spite of lacking "artificial" ingredients can improve some/many/most children's behaviour.

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