"It wasn't me mum, it was Annatto''

So, just as I thought my adventure of conquering my son’s intolerances was complete, a naughty natural additive we know as Annatto pops up and play’s havoc on my son’s behavior. Kind of like when your kid comes back from playing with the naughty neighbor and all of a sudden they have attitude or new tricks up their sleeve to play on their siblings! Well Annatto is like that naughty neighbor!

So what is Annatto you ask? Annatto or otherwise known as natural coloring 160b, an orange-yellow vegetable dye made from the seed coat of the tropical Annatto tree, is being more frequently used as artificial colorings are being phased out. Found commonly in cereals, snack foods, dairy foods including yoghurts both dairy and soy, ice creams and cheeses, annatto has recently been found to create some extra affects that are not bought to our attention when reading the labels.

Let’s go back a few weeks when I thought my son decided to kick start the terrible two’s early and begin to show me his quite advanced tantrum throwing. Out of nowhere he would start banging his head! on the floor, wall, me or what ever was in close range. And as most mothers would do I would either kneel down to him and talk with him, place my hand under his little forehead to stop him from hitting the hard tiles, carry him away, distract him, ignored him, you name it, but it continued and got worse! Then started the slapping and hair pulling, he would constantly slap the sides of his head with either one or both palms of his hand and or pull his hair to the point he would cry. His face would frown as he would moan and continue to slap himself.

It wasn’t just the physical actions either, he was again constantly irritable. Now for those mums who have intolerant children, irritable behavior can vary when affected. With my son, it’s a continuous grizzle along with constant disruptive behavior. Again, I know this sounds quite normal for toddlers to behave in this way occasionally, but it was daily and for most part of the day. And it only got more constant as time went on. I would look at him and think “this can’t be just a behavioral issue I have on my hands” my baby was clearly distressed and as I sat in a familiar field of not knowing what to do and at times on the verge of tears I would begin to question myself, what am I doing wrong? What kind of mother am I if I can’t settle my baby….again! Maybe I just have an unsettled, quick tempered emotional child on my hands! I then reassured myself that this wasn’t the first time I had been here, the lonely field of what to do and where to go, this place was no longer unfamiliar, I knew there was an answer I just have to find it and as time went on I did and it wasn’t him, it was Annatto!

Having already established that my son was dairy and food chemical intolerant, I began to sit back and re access his diet. He was still following the recommended RPA Strict Elimination Diet in exception of one or two extra side dishes and began to suspect extra dish 1, the ‘Soy Life’ vanilla soy yoghurt. It was literally the same day when I found a great website called The Food Intolerance Network (http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info/) where there was story after story of the effect that natural coloring 160b had on children, and what was the most common reaction you ask?........head banging, and where was the coloring? In the soy yoghurt!

I immediately stopped feeding him the yoghurt and just short of a week I began seeing dramatic improvements. My son didn’t show any reactions to the yoghurt the first time he tried it, and it did take quite some time before his change in behavior took place, however as he began teething and his desire for soft cold solids increased over time, it was the constant high intake of the yoghurt that did in fact cause the adverse reaction.

So what exactly does Annatto do? Annatto extract testing has been carried out on patients, resulting in patients suffering from chronic urticaria, a raised itchy skin rash which can last a number of hours to weeks with either an immediate or delayed response and or angioneurotic oedema which is a rapid swelling that can obstruct airways causing suffocation. Other adverse reactions to annatto can also include gastrointestinal and central nervous system reactions. A common complaint noted were headaches which are believed to aggravate the younger children causing them to bang their heads.

To help spread awareness of these not so commonly diagnosed issues, please forward my blogs to family and friends and to those who you believe may benefit! Having a child with allergies or intolerances can be very distressing for the families and for the little ones, especially if they go undiagnosed.

A happy child = happy mum, happy mum = happy family!