The "one thing" that might make you want that delicious plate of food the person next to you in the restaurant just ordered?
I'll tell you... It isn't the flavour that first caught your eye, is it (because you haven't tasted it yet)? It's the presentation... The way that juicy steak looks on top of the fluffiest pile of mashed potatoes you've ever seen, the golden brown onion rings on the side and the bright green and orange veggies that grace the plate...

Now that I have you salivating at the thought... If restaurants appeal to your sense of sight, can you imagine what manufacturers of shop-bought goodies do to catch your attention... You don't have to... I'll tell you... They "colour the food pretty". And this colouring could be what's causing your child or grandchild to bounce off the walls...

Keep reading to find out more...

In the name of good health,

Taryn Strugnell
Managing Editor of Nutrition & Healing

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Dyes linked to hyper-active kids!
Edward Martin
Editor, House Calls

Kids don't need much help getting hyper - they're bundles of energy and they don't come with an "off" button.

But some foods can put them into overdrive, turning an already amped-up child into a full-blown monster - and there's one ingredient in particular that parents need to watch out for: Artificial colouring.

Finally, an FDA panel has agreed that food dyes are responsible for rotten behaviour and even ADHD-like symptoms in some kids... But don't expect them to actually do anything about it.

Instead of calling for warning labels or even an outright ban on artificial colours as some scientists and parents groups want, the panel called for more research.

That's code for "we're getting uncomfortably close to upsetting our pals in the food industry, so let's stop right here".

But we don't need more studies, because researchers have been chasing the artificially coloured rainbow for years - and there's no pot o' gold on the other side... Just some of the rottenest little leprechauns you've ever seen.

For example, two studies out of the UK found that kids given foods that contain artificial dyes and the preservative sodium benzoate start to climb the walls.

Those studies, and others like them, helped move Europe light years ahead of us - and foods with artificial colours sold there now carry labels that say they "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children".

That's a frightening thought when you consider that some foods can have up to nine different artificial colourings - and they're not all in cereals and jelly!

You might know that cheese isn't normally day-glo yellow... But you may not realide that artificial colours are used regularly in everything from pickles to salmon.

That's right - salmon: Farm-raised fish are fed dye pellets to give them the nice pink colour their wild brethren have naturally.

Of course, there's a much larger issue here and that's the fact that dyed foods are almost always processed foods - and you and your kids shouldn't be eating them anyway, no matter what kinds of colours are in them (or even if they contain no colours at all).

As bad as dyes are, there are plenty of other ingredients that are far worse - including the sugars and starches that make up the bulk of the modern  diet.

Give this junk to a kid and he could end up so nutritionally deficient that you're bound to see problems ranging from mood disorders to ADHD-like symptoms - even if the foods they eat contain no dyes at all.

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What mom eats is what baby wants!
Edward Martin
Editor, House Calls

It's never too late to start good eating habits - and it's never too early, either.

You might even want to start your own kids off when they're still in the womb - because a new animal study suggests our food preferences might be based on what mom ate when she was pregnant.

And that means if you give in to those classic prenatal cravings - like ice cream - you could raise a kid with a serious icy habit.

OK, kids will scream for ice cream no matter what, so let's not get too carried away here - but since you should be eating right during pregnancy anyway, let's take a look at the details of the new study.

Australian researchers divided pregnant rats into two groups: One set got regular "nutritious" rat chow (sounds delicious, doesn't it?), while the other was given the kinds of sugar-packed junk that's sadly become the backbone of the modern human diet.

Later, after the pups were born, nursed and weaned, the babies were allowed to pick their own food: Rat chow or junk.

And as it turned out, the babies of junk-fed moms went for the junk... While the ones that developed in rat-chow wombs ate rat chow, according to the study published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal.

Then, the researchers took a peek inside the rodents' brains - and found that the pups born to junk-eating rats had actual measurable differences in the "reward" centres such as opioid receptors and dopamine transporters.

In other words, these rats were already junk-food junkies.

"How ironic that your mother nags you to eat your fruits and vegetables, but it could have been her actions that helped you prefer junk food," journal editor Dr Gerald Weissmann told London's Daily Mail newspaper.

But let's not be too quick to blame mom... Because it takes two to tango.

Moms and dads need to work together and share the healthy eating habits they hope to pass along to the kids.

That means dad needs to be a "diet buddy" during pregnancy and beyond - and even say "no" to an ice cream craving instead of grabbing a spoon and joining in.

For more health breakthroughs and discoveries about the food we eat why not browse out Diet & Nutrition section.