ADHD Diet: Food To Eat And Avoid For Symptom Control

Attention Deficit Disorder ie ADHD is a type of mental illness that can cause difficulty maintaining attention, activity, and impulsive behavior. Several types of research suggest that an ADHD diet that claims adequate levels of the right foods in children and adults can actually help control ADHD symptoms.
Through diet, the child can be distracted, impulsive, or overly energetic and their aggressive behavior can be kept under control. In addition to these treatments, combinations of therapy and medications have also proven effective for people with ADHD.
What Is ADHD?
ADHD is a mental health disorder. It is the most common mental disorder for children in which children lose their concentration i.e. the child wants to concentrate on some task but fails to do so and can last till adulthood. This can lead to hyperactivity in behavior and interferes with school and home life.
The special thing is that this disorder is seen more in boys than in girls. This disorder is seen in children from the age of 3-4 years to the age of 13 years. And after this age, in most children, this problem goes away.
The Feingold Diet for children with ADHD has been researched and used in hopes of helping manage symptoms and providing substantial benefits to children.
What is the Feingold diet?
The Feingold diet was created primarily for adults and has been shown to be beneficial in allergies such as bile and a variety of other allergies. But Dr. Benjamin Feingold, chief emeritus of the department of allergy at Kaiser Foundation Hospital and Permanente Medical Group, did research on children and found a variety of behavioral improvements in children. And later the Feingold Diet became a staple for kids with ADHD. At the same time, the Feingold Association also claims that there has been a significant reduction in treating asthma, eczema, migraine, and other behavioral problems.
The Feingold Diet for Children with ADHD requires parents to eliminate artificial colors, sweeteners, substances known as salicylates, and three artificial preservatives from their child’s diet, butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), and tert-butyrylhydroquinone (TBHQ).
But later tested for tolerability, those who support the Feingold diet believe that adding artificial food colors or sweeteners, preservatives, and excluding certain fruits and vegetables from a child’s diet may harm a child’s health. Meditation and practice can help.
ADHD Diet: Food To Avoid
Keep your child away from artificial colors like red dye 40 and yellow 5, artificial food colors,s and sweeteners.
- all artificial colors, such as:
- Blue 1 (Brilliant Blue)
- Blue 2 (Indigotine)
- green 3 (Green S or Fast Green)
- orange B
- red 2 (Citrus Red)
- red 3 (Erythrosine)
- red 40 (Allura Red AC)
- yellow 5 (Tartrazine)
- yellow 6 (Sunset Yellow)
- artificial flavorings, such as:
- vanilla
- peppermint (including mint-flavored toothpaste and mouthwash)
- strawberry, raspberry
Artificial sweeteners such as synthetic vanilla may contain aspartame, sucralose, or saccharin. Keep your child away from such sweetness too.
- artificial sweeteners, such as:
- aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet)
- sucralose (Splenda)
- saccharin (Sweet’N Low)
- acesulfame-K (Ace-K)
- Food items, air fresheners, and lotions contain artificial fragrances. Protect the baby from such fragrances as well.
- Keep baby away from salicylates. It is present in some foods as well as many types of medicines. salicylates found in apricots, berries, and tomatoes
- Preservatives, such as butylated hydroxy anisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), and tert-butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ)
- The Feingold diet also requires you to keep your child away from food preservatives.
- Fruits: apples, apricots, berries, cherries, cucumbers, currants, grapes, nectarines, oranges, peaches, peppers, pickles, plums, plums, tangerines, tomatoes
- Nuts and seeds: almonds, chestnuts, and other nuts and seeds
- Grains: breakfast cereals (unless free of preservatives and coloring) and processed crackers
- Herbs and Spices: allspice, anise seeds, cayenne, cinnamon, cloves, curry, cumin, dill, ginger, mustard, oregano, pimento, rosemary, tarragon, thyme, and turmeric
- Beverages: Coffee, Tea
Food to eat
Feingold limits added sugars but allows stevia and sugar alcohols such as xylitol and sorbitol.
Here is the list of foods that should be present in the ADHD diet For Kids:
- Fruits: bananas, cantaloupe, dates, grapefruit, honeydew, kiwi, lemons, mangoes, papaya, pears, pineapple, and watermelon
- Vegetables: bean sprouts, beets, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, kale, lettuce, mushrooms, onions, peas, potatoes (except sweet potatoes), and sweet corn
- Protein sources: beans and lentils
Conclusion
The Feingold diet has been shown to improve symptoms of ADHD as well as address other behavioral problems. It helps in increasing the power to concentrate in a child.
It is a solution that is cheap compared to other things. That’s why no separate money has to be spent on it. For this, all you have to do is stop some of the old diets and replace them with a new diet.