I've gone back and forth on writing this. Part of me wants to scream it from the hilltops, and the other part wants to shelter my son from ever finding this on the internet. I don't use his full name, but any amount of googling could probably put two and two together. The desire to protect other kids and parents won out, so you'll be hearing his and my story. It's not a short story, and I want to make sure you all get the whole thing. This will be the first part of the series, the rest of the story to come next week.
It's no surprise that HFCS has been the subject of some not so nice media of late. Studies tying it to obesity, diabetes and general weight gain have flown all over the news wires. It's man made, and while it's process leaves no trace (which still lets it be labeled as "organic" by the way), it's vastly different from the sugar it claims to replace.
Once I started learning about cooking food and nutrition, I could see that this ingredient was not welcome in my house. It wasn't until I'd cut out soda, sugary cereals and snack foods that I found I had a reaction to it. When I consume anything with HFCS in it, I break out in cystic acne so painful, it hurts to touch my face. It takes nearly a month to go away and can leave some pretty ugly scars. Oh, how I'd wished to have this knowledge in high school. I could have saved myself so much grief and pain over my skin. Even now, well into my 30s, when I have anything with that ingredient, cystic acne will appear on my face. Recently I've noticed another tell in my body that alerts me to HFCS in foods. As soon as I taste it, the back of my throat will itch and burn.
We do our best to keep foods that have it out of our house, but it's not as easy as it sounds. It's in *everything*. Ketchup; it's the second ingredient after tomatoes. Salad dressing, yup… it's in there, too. Sodas, cookies, chocolate, even sauces. Chocolate milk, bread (including whole wheat), and yogurt. It's disheartening to see it in so many things that are considered good and healthy foods, because it's not. It's not good, or healthy.
Recently my son turned 5. We had been waiting for this on pins and needles. So many parents tells us that's when their kids turned around and really starting learning manner, behavior and limits. It's supposed to be the beginning of the golden age of awesome for raising kids. I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to that.
Some of you may have read the post about the school snack incident. It was about this time I started to notice something in my son. On school days, almost like clockwork they ended with horrible screaming, crying fits. I'm not talking about a regular temper tantrum here, I'm talking about crying SO HARD that he can't speak. On the verge of hyperventilating and unable to form words. The only thing that would stop him and begin calming him was to hold him in a crushing bear hug until he could breathe normally again.
Alarm bells were going off in my head. Bear hugs, screaming/crying to hyperventilating states; all over nothing. A simple directive or even a reminder to finish putting away toys or cars. This wasn't simply a case of not wanting to do these things. It was like seeing your completely normal child taken over my pod people. Underneath the crying, I'd see panic on his face. He didn't know how to stop crying or calm down when these episodes hit. This was so out of left field that I started to really worry that something was happening to him. I'd asked about his development at his doctor's appointment and nothing indicated that he was near the spectrum. It was baffling, and more than a little frightening.
These crazy meltdowns didn't happen on the weekends, so where were they coming from? It wasn't school. He loves school, his teacher and his friends. No big changes at home, or with relatives. We'd taken him out of after-care ages ago, so there were no older kids picking on the smaller ones. It just didn't make sense. I couldn't figure it out. I started putting him to bed earlier thinking he wasn't getting enough rest. The strange meltdowns were still happening.
Then, he had two days off from school right after a weekend. No camp, no daycare, he was just hanging with me and little brother. I was making all of his food and it was all the regular, healthy stuff we eat on the weekends. No. Meltdowns. None. Not even a little. He still would get frustrated or upset, but it didn't dissolve into the levels that I had seen before. He could calm himself down and carry on being a kid. So what in the heck was making the school week ones so different?
To quote my son, quoting a certain movie with "minions" in it…. Light. Bulb.
Could it be the food at school? Could he have a different sensitivity to HFCS than I'd developed? It seemed so far-fetched that I almost couldn't fathom it. Who the heck had ever heard of HFCS causing autism-like symptoms in completely normal and healthy kids? I know there's some groups that think changing diets and going gluten-free can help with certain spectrum disorders. But he didn't fall into that category, so would this apply to him? I packed him off to school the following day with my heart in my throat. If it was the food, we'd find out soon enough.