Reconsider Granita for Your Child Under Eight: It’s a Matter of Health

It is their health, proof is this transition to the emergency room about an hour after ingestion of the drink.

It is an evaluation team from the University College Dublin, led by the pediatric consultant, Professor Ellen Crushell, who sounded the alarm, and even called for a revision of health recommendations, after examining medical files of 21 children.

Glycerol poisoning

The latter would have fallen ill after consuming one of these frozen drinks. 20 cases took place between 2018 and 2024 and concerned children between two and seven years old. After having ingested the granite, they presented a series of symptoms, such as a decrease in consciousness, hypoglycemia, lactic acidosis, a low potassium rate …

In the emergency room, the initial diagnosis was “hypoglycemia crisis”. However for researchers, these children were intoxicated with glycerol, a “Natural alcohol and sugar substitute that helps the granita to keep their texture by preventing the free -free liquid ”, As the Guardian explains.

Of the 20 cases, 14 children fell ill in less than an hour. The study, published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, stipulates that children quickly recovered. They were sent home with a piece of advice: no longer drinking granites. One in 21 child did not follow this advice, and received the same symptoms in less than an hour.

A lack of transparency as to the making of the granities

For researchers, there is a lack of transparency around the glycerol dose used to make the granities. Therefore, it is not easy to estimate a safe dose, which is not dangerous for the health of the child. Currently, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) is not advising for children under the age of four to consume granitors containing glycerol.

However, researchers believe that this recommendation should be based on the child's weight rather than age, and that therefore the recommended age threshold should be higher, “Given normal weight variations in the population ”.

It remains to be seen whether other factors can contribute to the effect of glycerol on the child's state of health, such as the speed with which the granite is consumed, if it is ingested after a period of intense activity, or if the drink is taken during a meal. In any case, researchers point out that a granite provides no nutritional benefit.