Some interesting links and resources

  • Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Allergy Unit is the world's leader in food intolerance treatment: http://www.sswahs.nsw.gov.au/rpa/allergy/
  • The most recent tables showing salicylates, amines and natural glutamates are available in the book Friend Food by Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Allergy Unit, see above.
  • Unlike the majority of institutions giving health advice, the Centre for Science in the Public Interest is a non-profit health advocacy organisation. One highlight of their website is an unbiased scientific assessment of 23 controlled diet-behaviour studies. "Diet, ADHD and Behaviour, a quarter-century review" charges that federal agencies, professional organisations and the food industry have ignored the growing evidence that diet affects behaviour. It recommends that unnecessary additives should be banned, and points the finger, with quotes, at organisations and individual researchers who ignore or deny the evidence. The 2 page press release is a good one to give to doubting health professionals: www.cspinet.org/new/adhdpr.html . You can see a summary of the report.

·         Improving children’s behaviour with SAFE food alternatives: Melbourne-based Additive Education is committed to informing families about the additives that are in the foods they eat and the potential effects of those additives. Often very simple changes are all that is needed to ensure that the food we provide to the children in our care is free of harmful additives. We offer additive audits of packaged products and processed foods (very useful for childcare centres) and assist with the development of additive free menus for all types of services and functions (ideal for canteens). Customised workshops can be tailored for different ages and interests in the community. The presentation, “Fed Up with Children’s Behaviour”, is ideal for parent groups, kindergartens and maternal health centres to educate parents and carers about the effects of food additives on children. To subscribe for free to the SAFE newsletter send an email to safenewsletter-subscribe@googlegroups.com. Supermarket tours can be organised for small groups or individuals exploring Failsafe or just Additive Free options in the supermarket isles. http://www.additiveeducation.com.au

·         Report adverse reactions to medications: Consumer Adverse Medication Events Line: Ph 1300134237, http://www.tga.gov.au/adr/bluecard.htm

  • www.additivealert.com.au is the website of a recent book Additive Alert: Your Guide to Safer Shopping by Julie Eady, which provides solid information about additives, the regulatory system and how to influence food manufacturers. Food additives are not only linked to food intolerance effects. For more about the link with cancers, which additives are banned in other countries and more, visit the Additive Alert site.

·         Olivia and Bridy have written a good recipe book about going low-additive: www.lowtonoadditives.com

·         See Karen Slimak's study with 49 autistic children on diet and VOC avoidance ("the children on the program returned to normal") at http://www.immuneweb.org/articles/slimak.html

·         Vets warn of deadly preservative in pet food: http://www.ava.com.au/news.php?c=0&action=show&news_id=165

·         Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has done more for kids’ health with his videos and no-nonsense approach than years of government “programs” in the UK. www.jamieoliver.co.uk

·         Rachel's Environmental and Health newsletters are named after Rachel Carson, the biologist who alerted the world to the dangers of pesticides. Why are people more sensitive to food chemicals now than 50 years ago? We know that exposure to chemicals can increase our sensitivity to foods. To find out more about environmental chemicals, visit www.rachel.org. In particular, see newsletters #726 and #712 (use "children" as the search keyword).

·         As Physicians for Nuclear Responsibility, this group won a Nobel Peace Prize. Now they have broadened their concerns and produced possibly the most significant document you will ever read about the future of our children. IN HARM'S WAY: TOXIC THREATS TO CHILD DEVELOPMENT (Cambridge, Mass.: Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, May 2000) is available of the web at http://www.igc.org/psr/ or as a paper copy from GBPSR in Cambridge, Mass.; telephone 617-497-7440.

·         The Parents Jury is a web-based network of parents who wish to improve the food and physical activity environments for children in Australia http://www.parentsjury.org.au/

  • Here's a fantastic cartoon for your school or office or to send to the media: click on it for a large printable version:

·         For a wider range of treatments for autism, check out http://helpingtogrow.istores.com/autism

·         Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden program helps kids understand good food and be involved in producing it: http://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/

·         The Chemical Maze warns that their books may seriously influence what foods you buy: www.thechemicalmaze.com

·         www.smart-mums.com.au was created 12months ago for Busy Australian Mums by 2 Mums who wanted everything a parent needs in one place to save time and frustration.

  • A safe food lobbying group in New Zealand that offers information on a variety of food issues that regulatory authorities prefer not to deal with.  These include additives, pesticides, genetic engineering, irradiation, fluoridation and the advantages of organic food http://www.safefood.org.nz/
  • Allergy free products through the web, many failsafe http://www.allergyblock.com.au/ - a family company in Victoria, Australia.
  • Here’s a US-based resource centre on food intolerance http://foodintolerancehq.com/foodintolerance/, not failsafe.
  • A Failsafe recipe website run by members: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~failsafe/
  • Links to Learning has achieved good results with Music-Based Auditory Stimulation, where the client listens through headphones to a series of specially engineered classical music CDs which have been specially produced to stimulate the brain's auditory pathways. It's called The Listening Program®, and is produced by an American company called Advanced Brain Technologies: www.links2learning.com.au

·         For  a huge amount of information about MSG (monosodium glutamate, flavour enhancer 621)  www.truthinlabeling.org

  • After researching food additives for a high school assignment, 18 year old Jonah Lavitt stopped eating food additives, lost 10 pounds in a month, has more energy, fewer sick days and better moods more often. Join Jonah in his Fight against Food Additives at http://home.comcast.net/~jonahlavitt/Jonah.html
  • Bernard Trudgett, leader of the Illawarra FI support group, has his own failsafe site at http://www.ozemail.com.au/~btrudget

·         Epileptic seizures are highly likely to be related to foods in epileptics from food intolerant families (see Egger paper in references). Many network members have identified seizure-provoking food chemicals by using the diet recommended on these pages. But what do you do with a young child who is having 50+ seizures a day and is already heavily medicated with non-failsafe medication? The kuekids website http://home.iprimus.com.au/kuekids/home describes a different diet - but read the food intolerance page - many of these families eventually find their answers through failsafe. Remember that food chemicals passing through breastmilk can cause seizures in breastfed babies.

  • Here are some shocking public notices run in The New York Times by the Centre for Children's Health and the Environment in the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. To whom are our regulators listening if hospitals have to pay to advertise the harm caused by industrial, food and other chemicals?

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Got a question or comment? You are very welcome to email me. I love to hear about success stories, progress updates, suggestions and questions (although please, read the FAQs and checklist of common mistakes first): suedengate@ozemail.com.au.