Feingold Diet
The Feingold diet first came about as a means of treating cases of hyperactivity. The Feingold diet named for its creator, Ben F. Feingold, MD is a type of food elimination program that takes a variety of artificial colors, artificial flavours out of an individual’s diet as well as aspartame, salicylates and three preservatives that are petroleum based. Some people in the medical community dispute the effectiveness of the Feingold diet while those people who suffer from ADHD or who have children who suffer from the disorder believe that it is a Feingold diet for ADHD that helps to manage and control the problem, as well as helping with other related physical, neurological and behavioural conditions. This debate about the Feingold diet for ADHD has been going on for over 30 years and is not likely to be over any time soon.

In particular the Feingold food list does not include three groups of synthetic food additives and also one group of synthetic sweeteners. The group of synthetic colors includes D&C and FD&C colors, synthetic flavours which include thousands of different chemicals, artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, alitame and neotame and synthetic preservatives, which include BHA, TBHQ and BHT. The majority of additives listed here are synthetic because they are manufactured by way of the petroleum refining process. The word synthetic is used in regards to the Feingold diet as opposed to artificial because there are some artificial colors that are not eliminated for the purposes of the Feingold diet plan for ADHD such as titanium dioxide. The two kinds of colors that are eliminated are FD&C and D&C. It is only recently that aspartame has been taken out of the Feingold diet because research studies have shown that it can do damage to the nervous system.

The Feingold weight loss clinic addresses such concerns as the difficulty in preparing a variety of foods that do not include any of the synthetic additives that are included on the Feingold diet food list. The Feingold diet list of foods can be costly and this can also mean that foods must be prepared from scratch and therefore will involve more effort and more time on the part of the individual who makes all of the meals.