I have discovered another food intolerance, the hard way. I have known for a while that many artificial flavors and ingredients in food items trigger bad reactions in my gastrointestinal system. This past weekend I narrowed a particularly bad bout of stomach cramps and diarrhea down to the ingestion of red food colour.
I know it had to be the red food colour because I was very careful what I ate that day. I hosted a baby shower for my daughter-in-law and prepared most of the food myself. As I and a few other guests are wheat or gluten intolerant I made sure there were plenty of gluten-free choices on the table. I made my favourite gluten-free biscotti, but to fancy them up for the occasion, I dipped them in white chocolate that I had tinted pink. A few drops of red food color in the melted white chocolate resulted in a pretty pink color, perfect for the baby shower menu. Unfortunately for me, those few drops of red food color did me in. Because I had several of the biscotti (did I mention they are my favourite?) throughout the day, my allergic symptoms lasted much longer than they usually do.
I don’t know which of the ingredients in the red food color (apparently red dye #40 is a common culprit) I reacted to, but I will be avoiding any food tinted red (or pink) from now on!
Sorry to hear that. Cherry soda made me drunk when I was little so I just quit drinking it. I avoided cherries also. As an adult I developed a dry cough that my doctor said was an allergic response and try to figure it out on my own since testing was so expensive. I drank a Pepsi a day and stopped that. You guessed it. The cough quit. When I resumed it, so did the cough. I rarely drink any sodas, but do have one on occasion, including a Pepsi. There are a couple reds and only one yellow shade, I think, that are the main culprits. It’s hard to eliminate food colors since they are so prevalent!