Exclusive | FURIUS NYC MOMS Rail against toxins in children’s foods: “should not be so difficult to protect your family”

Tara Ferrara’s 7 -year -old daughter began to suffer a mixture of puzzling symptoms four years ago: nausea, stomach pain and a sudden and intense panic that took place without warning.

Because dozens of doctors worked to identify the cause, they put the girl on a strict diet low in highly processed foods and gluten -free, dairy, corn, soybeans and histamines.

For Ferrara, 39, to find out what her daughter could safely eat was like trying to understand a foreign language.

“Sometimes I feel I can’t work because I literally need to investigate food,” said Ferrara, a speech pathologist and language in Brooklyn, in The Post.

Ultra-processed food (UPF) accounts for almost 70% of calories in the diets of American children, and a new report from the white house that falls into the jaw warns that they can drive the national increase in chronic childhood diseases.

The report by the Make America Commission Healthy Again (Maha) marks the first major impulse of the Trump administration to face what he calls “crisis”, which affects more than 40% of young people from all over the country.

“We will continue the truth wherever it leads, defend rigorous science and promote daring policies that put the health, development and future of all children,” said HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Two New York mothers who raised children with chronic health problems told The Post that it could be an upward battle to keep their children’s diets in a country where UPF dominates the supermarket shelves.

UPFS explained

Although there is no unique and universally accepted definition, UPFs are generally packaged and products ready for food that suffer from extensive industrial processing to increase their taste, texture and life.

They are often loaded with added sugar, salt, unhealthy fats and large refined, and are full of preservatives, artificial colors, flavors, emulsifiers and stabilizers that are not commonly used in domestic cuisine.

UPF usually contain little or no fruit, vegetables or whole and are usually low in fiber and other essential nutrients.

Researchers estimate that about 70% of the 300,000 more brand food products in groceries enter this category.

Fighting of food

Two years after the strict diet, Ferrara continues to sail through the minefield and the slips have serious consequences.

)[Food] Really, it really affects it and can trigger a flame where it is so uncomfortable and sensitive to the brain that it cannot go to school, “said Ferrara, who owns Social City, who provides social support services for children.

A recent error? Gluten -free and dairy -free pancakes that her daughter eats every morning. It turns out that they contain an additive derived from corn called maltodextrine, which Ferrara only discovered after calling the manufacturer.

“It was one of the ingredients that jumped my eyes, because I don’t know what this is,” he said. “Unskkkin, every morning he gave these pancakes without gluten, without dairy, which really have a highly inflammatory and ultra processed thing.”

The MAHA report warns that more than 2,500 food additives can be pumped into UPF, all to improve the taste and texture and life.

Some additives have been related to severe health concerns, including behavioral disorders, metabolic problems and even cancer.

Take -40 Red, for example. This food coloring is found in popular snacks such as skittles and doritos, as well as drinks like Pepsi. It has been linked to increasing hyperactivity and irritability in children, especially if they have ADHD and can trigger allergic reactions in others.

In the meantime, the investigation shows the titanium dioxide, which is found in candy to sauces, can damage cells and even DNA.

Then there are artificial sweeteners such as aspartam, sacralose and saccharin, which some studies suggest that they can alter the intestinal microbiome: a key player in metabolism, weight control and blood sugar regulation.

Ferrara’s younger daughter, 4, has no food sensitivity, but keeping her diet is still a challenge. At school, playdates and other places away from home, junk food is almost impossible to avoid.

“It is not directly affected immediately after eating, but I know it hurts in the long term,” said Ferrara. “The fact that it is not directly displayed to each person does not mean that it does not do the same internal damage.”

According to the White House report, the great ultra processed, found in cakes, cookies, breads and snacks, dominates children’s diets. These products are undressed from their bran and germ, eliminating essential fiber, vitamins and minerals.

“The stripping of these components can cause blood sugar spikes, increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes,” says the report.

The situation of sugar is just as dim. Ultra processed sugars can be found in 75% of packaged foods. The north -American average consumes 17 teaspoons of added sugar per day, for an amount of 60 pounds a year.

This sugar overload, especially of high -fruit corn syrup and other additives, may be playing a “significant role” in the rise of childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes and non -alcoholic fat hepatic disease, according to the report.

But they are not only the ingredients, it is what makes them industrial processing.

The Maha report warns that processing alters fiber content, caloric density and digestibility in ways that can abduct hunger hormones, short -circuit satiety signs, and damage the intestinal microbiome.

“It should not be so difficult to protect your family,” said Ferrara. “They need to be more transparent with what is at the food, but also how it is processed.”

Toxic situation

Astoria’s mother, Carissa Serralta, has always struggled to feed her children a healthy diet, but it wasn’t until one of her newly born twin daughters was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder, McAD’s deficiency, which saw the grocery stores flooded with ultra -processed junk.

The condition prevents now, Mila, 2, properly metabolizing the fats of seed oils such as palm, coconut and avocado.

“Eighty at 90% of the brands you see on the shelf that he cannot have,” Serralta told The Post. “It could be from pasta to trout to cheez-it.”

This became a nightmare when it could not produce enough breast milk, and realized that almost all of the non -market formulas in the market are loaded with seed oils.

“They say that the chest is better, but if you have no milk for your baby and you have no choice but to give them formulas, and the formula has bad ingredients, what do you do?” She thought. “Your baby must be fed.”

The doctors told Siralta to give Mila tiny doses of seed oils to generate tolerance for the formula, but this caused months of relentless diarrhea.

The Maha report states that seed oils have flooded the food supply to the United States, overcoming fat fat, such as butter and butter of American diets over the last century.

Finding safe foods has become “a full -time job” for Siralta. Many of the articles your daughter can eat are not available locally, forcing her to buy online or cook everything from scratch.

If Mila accidentally eats seed oil, it means a annoying stomach, which Sernalta said it is painful but manageable. He appreciates not being more serious as a peanut or gluten allergy.

The White House report emphasizes that children’s food allergies have increased by 88% since 1997, while celiac disease in children has jumped five times since the 80’s.

The diagnosis did not only change what Mila eats, but transformed the rest of the family’s eating habits. Siralta trembles when thinking that her eldest son had eaten ultra -prosecuted snacks.

“It’s almost a frightening thought, because I didn’t know so much before I had the twins,” he said.

And, although it is not a fan of the current administration, Serralta said that it welcomes any effort to expand access to healthier foods.

“Food with less prosecuted should be made available to all children; it should not only be online where lower income people cannot access it,” he said.