Babies in Canada are getting pacifiers dipped in sugar! I thought this was a thing of the past — only done decades ago!
Thanks to Anita in my free KickSugar group, who told members of my online community about an alert from Health Canada, which warns consumers not to use Sweet-Ease pacifier dip (from Children’s Medical Ventures) because it may contain mold.
While the alert was intended to tell consumers to beware of the potentially dangerous mold, Cladosporium herbarum, Anita was "shocked to learn that hospitals are using a sugary dip on pacifiers to soothe and calm babies. This is insane!," she wrote to KickSugar.
I, too, was astounded to find out that this sugary product is used, as the alert notes, "in hospitals to soothe babies and is not sold in stores, however some product may have been given to parents to take home."
The Health Canada alert says that the mold "poses a particular health risk because as a contaminant on the pacifier, the infant’s mouth would be exposed to it, and it is a parasite causing fungal infections of the skin, soft tissues or nails and has been documented in cases of candidiasis and other systemic infections, to which new-born infants and those in intensive care units may be particularly susceptible."
Giving babies sugar-dipped pacifiers is a sure-fire way to hook the tots almost from birth!
That’s what happened to Jack LaLanne before he became a fitness buff. His mom used to give him a cloth dipped in sugar water and cornstarch when he was a baby.
"I’d suck on it, and by the time I was 4, my baby teeth had rotted out, and soon all I wanted was sugar, sugar, sugar," LaLanne told me when I interviewed him for my book, SUGAR SHOCK!
By age 15, he says, "I was a full-blown sugarholic. I got terrible headaches every day. I got failing grades at school. I was 30 pounds underweiught. I was constantly tired and had ‘pooped-out-itis. I had an uncontrollable temper. I even tried to kill my brother on two occasions. I had no friends. Kids used to beat me up and make fun of me. I was unhappy, worried, and miserable all the time. It was hell on earth.
"I used to eat a quart of ice cream, put my finger down my throat, heave it up, then have some more. I would eat cakes, pies, ice cream, soda pop, everything with sugar in it. I was just like an alcoholic."
At age 15, LaLanne turned his life around and kicked sugar and simple carbs after attending a lecture by health-food pioneer Paul Bragg. And he, of course, then went on to become the "Godfather of Fitness."