FDA Hearings on Food Dyes: One Child at a Time

I sat in the elegant hotel meeting room sipping water and listening to Ph.Ds discuss the relevance of double blind studies of children ingesting artificial food dyes. As they debated whether the number of children affected merited bans on dyes or warning on the foods that contain them, I wondered about each child. What about the little two-year-old girl who responded so dramatically in the study? Did she ever learn to say hi to the flowers as she walked along the sidewalk or did she always yank them up and run shrieking away from her parents? Did she ever play tag on the playground with her friends or did the other girls huddle and whisper to each other whenever she walked by? Did she ever march in the color guard of her high school band or was she the girl passed out behind the bleachers?
If six to ten percent of children are affected by ADHD and by the artificial colors so abundant in our food supply, how many stories does that give us one child at a time? The third grade boy who can't read, the seventh grade girl who has no friends, the mother who feels like a failure--they aren't just statistics or points on a graph. They're real people looking for real solutions.

Chicken Soup

My younger daughter and I are at home today in varying states of illness and recovery. She is the most dreadful convalescent, refusing to rest and complaining of boredom. In the past she would amuse herself by pulling down the flimsy spring rod and curtains and swinging from the top of her bedroom door. Now I get pleas for entertainment, which I would rather ignore, feeling stuffy and achy myself. I stand firm on the ban on television. (She would be "sick" every day if I permitted that.) My only comfort is tea and chicken soup.
My favorite Campbell's chicken noodle soup is forbidden. It contains the additives that trigger unmanageable behavior. Trader Joe's has an acceptable variety, but today I am making my own.
With a box of kosher chicken broth, a container of diced carrots, celery, and onion from Trader Joe's, and a cup of rice, I can make a wicked rice pilaf. By adding some extra broth to the cooked rice, I come close to mimicking the convenience of heat-and-eat soup.
That was yesterday. Today I have a monster of a whole chicken waiting in my fridge to turn into a soup. Since I don't have to wring its neck, can I call it convenience food?