How to tell if a slushy has made your child sick – as experts warn, parents can easily cover up the tell-tale symptoms

Since they’re sold in movie theaters and even play centers, it’s fair to assume that slushies are completely safe for your kids.

But that is not always the case, experts warn. Frozen slushies containing glycerol – or E422 – can make babies sick.

Food safety chiefs are even urging retailers not to sell products containing glycerol to children under the age of 4 due to the inherent risk.

Yesterday a mother told how she feared for her four-year-old son’s life when he collapsed and fell unconscious shortly after drinking a strawberry slushy in October.

Yet that was not a one-off case.

Another mother shared a strikingly similar story last week about how her three-year-old son got sick from a raspberry-flavored slushy in January. Just 30 minutes later he collapsed, went ‘limp’ and had a seizure.

Both cases, detailed by MailOnline, have put the little-known risk of glycerol intoxication back into the spotlight.

Glycerol gives the desired slushy effect, prevents ice-cold drinks from freezing and acts as a sugar-free sweetener.

Regarding its use as a sugar substitute, experts have warned that a series of cases of glycerol intoxication could be an ‘unintended consequence’ of the sugar tax.

When sugar is used to make slushes, a minimum of 12g of sugar per 100ml is required. Yet when using glycerol, only 5 grams is needed.

Although mildly toxic to humans, the amount typically contained in slushies is so small that regular consumption poses little danger to adults and older children.

Their bodies can process it before glycerol levels build up and intoxicate them.

However, the same does not apply to younger children.

Due to their much lower body weight, the amount of glycerol required to cause a serious health emergency is much smaller.

Just one 350ml drink with the highest glycerol content could theoretically raise the under-4s ‘safe’ threshold, according to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which updated its advice on glycerol last summer after becoming aware had become from two separate cases of glycerol. cases where children are ill.

At the time, it stated that slush ice drinks containing glycerol could not be sold to species under 4 years of age.

Children under the age of 10 should also not receive free refills on drinks, the FSA said.

Health authorities claim that the most likely scenario of glycerol intoxication comes from younger children quickly consuming multiple E422-laden drinks, hence the FSA advice on refills.

Mild signs of glycerol intoxication include vomiting and headache.

But experts warn that many parents can easily cover up symptoms in children who have just had a slushy.

Adam Hardgrave, the FSA’s head of additives, said when the guidance was unveiled: ‘Although the symptoms of glycerol intoxication are usually mild, it is important that parents are aware of the risks – especially at high levels of consumption.

‘It is likely that there is under-reporting of glycerol intoxication because parents may attribute nausea and headaches to other factors.’

In extreme cases, glycerol intoxication can send children into shock, where the circulatory system that pumps oxygen-rich blood throughout the body begins to fail, depriving vital organs of what they need to function.

Signs of shock include having pale, cold, clammy skin, as well as sweating, rapid or shallow breathing, weakness or dizziness, nausea and possibly vomiting, extreme thirst, and yawning and sighing.

Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, is another effect of glycerol intoxication.

Symptoms include hunger, dizziness, feelings of anxiety or irritability, sweating, shaking, tingling lips, palpitations, fatigue and weakness, blurred vision and confusion.

In its most severe stages, hypoglycemia – usually associated with diabetes – can lead to seizures and loss of consciousness.

Both shock and hypoglycemia can be life-threatening and are considered medical emergencies requiring urgent medical care.

Two recent cases have shown how dangerous glycerol intoxication can be.

Beth Green, 24, from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, four-year-old son was found unresponsive after drinking a strawberry-flavoured slushy during an after-school bowling trip in October last year.

She became increasingly worried after Albie started ‘hallucinating’ and ‘clawing at his face’, prompting her to rush him to hospital.

There, doctors had to start resuscitation because Albie’s blood sugar level had dropped to dangerous levels.

At one point his heart rate became so slow that his parents thought he was going to die.

Doctors later told the couple that if they had not rushed Albie to hospital there, he would have died.

Beth’s story came just days after Scottish mum Victoria Anderson told how her three-year-old son Angus almost died in January after drinking a slushy last month.

The 29-year-old, from Port Glasgow, Inverclyde, had taken her youngest son, three-year-old Angus, and an older sibling shopping on January 4.

Not long after the trio ventured out, Angus asked for a raspberry-flavored slushie after noticing the bright, pink-colored iced drink at a local corner store.

Unaware of the danger, Victoria bought the drink for her son, who had “never had a slushie before.”

About 30 minutes later, while in another store, the three-year-old unexpectedly collapsed and fell unconscious.

Victoria said Angus’ body was limp and “stone cold” when paramedics arrived on the scene and tried to revive him after his blood sugar levels fell dangerously low.

Angus was rushed to Glasgow Children’s Hospital where he remained unconscious for two hours.

Fortunately, both children received the medical care they needed.

Last summer the FSA also asked slushie makers to commit to adding only the bare minimum of glycerol to their products.

In that guidance, the FSA said it would ‘monitor’ the extent to which the industry followed its advice, leaving the door open for more action in the future.

Most slushies in Britain do not list glycerol levels on their drinks packaging, but the British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) says all their members have followed the new guidelines.

The FSA advice was based on a slushy with 50,000 mg/l glycerol.

The warning was prompted by two previous cases of glycerol intoxication in Scotland, one in 2021 and 2022.

Glycerol is also an ingredient in foods such as pre-cooked pasta, rice and breakfast cereals, but in much smaller amounts than slushies. As such, these products are not considered dangerous for children.

Some brands have already removed glycerol from their recipes in response to FSA guidelines, including Slush Puppie.

Nichols, the company that owns the Slush Puppie brand, said it made the decision because it recognized that the drinks were “predominantly sold in locations popular with young children.”

Suppliers also mention that the popular slushy brand Tango Ice blast contains E422.

The sugar tax was first introduced on soft drinks in 2018 and is estimated to have helped prevent thousands of hospital admissions for the extraction of children’s teeth.

It was intended to encourage manufacturers to reduce the sugar content in soft drinks, which is considered a driving factor for tooth decay in children.

Many manufacturers turned to artificial sweeteners such as glycerol to replace sugar without losing the sweet taste that lured customers in the first place.

The sugar tax is generally seen as a success. A study from November last year showed that it could prevent more than 5,500 hospital admissions for the extraction of children’s teeth.

There have been several calls to introduce a similar levy on foods high in fat and salt to help combat Britain’s obesity epidemic, but so far politicians have not had the courage to do so due to the crisis in costs of livelihood.