I can't believe we're in April already!! The weather hasn't allowed us to enjoy spring just yet, but it's almost here. I always look forward to my nephew David's birthday, it is usually from his birthday on that the days become sunnier and warmer just like him.

Easter is another day in April that I always look forward to; the last two years in particular because I have a little girl to dress up. My son actually declared the other day that Easter is one of his favorite holidays. When I asked why, he said that those jelly beans are just so delicious and he wished he could eat them all year long. However, there is a reason why we don't let our children have them all year round and if you read the article in The Record on March 29th, you wouldn't eat them either.

The article explained that according to a growing number of scientific studies, artificial food dyes have been linked to an increase in behavior and attention problems. It also said that artificial food dyes are not just applied to candies, but to salad dressing and foods such as pickles and oranges. No wonder why my home made pickles are nasty looking compared to the ones we buy in the store. I was also surprised to know that some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese glow in the dark!! I would love to actually buy a box just to see it for myself, but I would wait until my children are already in bed.

The following is an excerpt from the aforementioned article:

Long-standing concerns

"Concern about food dye is long-standing. In the 1800s, American food manufacturers began doctoring their wares with toxic pigments made from lead and copper. In the second half of that century, a revolution in organic chemistry brought artificial dyes made from coal tar — a relative advance over lead.

In 1906, Congress took up the question of whether artificial dyes were bad for consumers, with the first of several major acts. The most recent and stringent of them, passed in 1960, banned color additives that caused cancer in humans or animals. But the fate of one such additive, Red 3, illustrates how even strong legislation can be thwarted. Lab rats that were fed large amounts of the dye developed thyroid cancer, so in 1984 the acting FDA commissioner recommended banning it.

However, fruit-cocktail producers, who relied on the dye to brighten maraschino cherries, pleaded with the Department of Agriculture to block the move. As a result, the FDA banned Red 3 only in cosmetics and topical drugs.

In the early 1990s, FDA and Canadian scientists found that Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6, the three most widely used dyes, were contaminated with likely human carcinogens. And while many foods, such as M&M's and Kellogg's Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tarts, include as many as five different dyes, even today the carcinogenic potential of such combinations has not been tested.

Despite those concerns, parents continued to serve up meals and stuff their children's lunchboxes with more and more processed foods colored with dyes, stoking a five-fold increase in the per-capita production of food dyes over the past 50 years.

Over the same period, psychiatrists and teachers were seeing more attention and behavioral problems, while allergists were raising concerns about Yellow 5. Physician Benjamin Feingold's 1975 book, "Why Your Child Is Hyperactive," along with the additive-free diet it promoted, spawned numerous studies on the effect of additives on attention-deficit disorders."

Maybe the saying, "everything in moderation" needs to be amended. This year I will be passing on the jelly beans. I think I will just focus on the real meaning of Easter instead and celebrate it without the added junk.

Happy Easter!!!