When you buy a vitamin for your child, its because you want them to be healthy. Unfortunately, even children’s multivitamins are not always safe for consumption. You’d think there would be some shred of ethics behind these giant corporations, but even products solely designed for children are often riddled with toxic chemicals.
Such is the case with the iconic Flintstone’s Vitamins. Indeed, the popular children’s vitamin is laced with aspartame, aluminum, petroleum-based artificial colors and a myriad of other potentially-toxic additives. And this is what we give to children? One would think that the name “multivitamin” would bear some kind of influence on what was within the product, that it would contain wholesome, natural ingredients meant for boosting overall health. Instead, what we find within a simple Flintstone’s vitamin is much more sinister.
In addition to the GMO-derived ingredients, the vitamin manufacturer — pharmaceutical giant Bayer — spares no one with its veritable kitchen sink of food additives and toxins. Sorbitol, refined sugars, hydrogenated soy bean oil and ferrous fumarate also make an appearance along the quite lengthy list of items within just one serving of the children’s vitamin. Most of the supposed vitamins and minerals used in the product are made from synthetic, not food-based, sources. This means that the bioavailability of such nutrients is very low, and hardly worth the risks associated with many of the ingredients.
Some of the ingredients, such as cupric oxide, are actually quite toxic. Cupric oxide is listed as a nutritional source of copper on the Flintstones vitamin label, but the European Union’s (EU) Dangerous Substance Directive has identified this very same ingredient and classified it as a “hazardous substance.” Zinc oxide is another problematic ingredient found in these “multivitamins.” Zinc oxide is often added to sunscreen products, but is yet another substance that has been identified as “harmful to the environment” by the EU. It is a rather poor choice as a nutritional source of zinc to begin with, but if it’s toxic to the environment, do you think it might be harmful to children?
Many people are growing increasingly aware of the neurotoxic effects of aspartame and the damaging effects of artificial colors in humans, but these effects are especially pronounced in children. Artificial colors, for instance, are associated with the onset of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and other behavioral disorders in children. Does this really sound like a vitamin to you?
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