home grown kids

It's been a year since we made the switch to organic life. It was this time a year ago that a good friend schooled me on how unhealthy our diet was. She revealed that a lot of the common ailments that we complained of could be healed by changing our diets. I had been somewhat aware of different types of diets. I was a raw foodie seven years ago, I was a vegetarian for years, at one point I even tried that crazy diet where you don't eat pasta and bread. But, I never did these for health. I always tried them for weight loss and beauty. The vegetarian diet was more because my body began to be repulsed at the thought of meat. I could no longer stomach it. I am kind of going through a phase like that right now... I eat very little meat.
After a weekend with this friend who had given me all I needed to jump start a new healthier life, I began to read, and read, and read. I read everything I could get my hands on about different foods, oils, practices in preparing foods, and toxins in food. I have spent a small fortune on books in the last year in an effort to become educated.
Recently we had a chance to eat at a restaurant. We usually eat at Chipotle or Moe's if we eat out because it's healthier, depending on what you order, than most places. The time I am talking about was different. This time we ate at a sit down, order-from-a-server kind of place. I thought that because I hadn't had food like this in so long that it would blow my mind! I was excited to taste real food again. I have to say that I was sorely disappointed. I could not even eat half of the food because it tasted so horrible to me. It didn't even taste like food.
Once I got over the initial shock of how nasty this stuff was I became grateful for what we are doing. We are setting up our children, and in turn our grandchildren, to live in a healthy way. We are creating a new normal for them. A world of eating organic food, loving Christ without the religious rituals, and learning(schooling) in a free environment where their constitutional rights aren't taken away.
Chris and I made the decisions for our family based on what works best, what were comfortable doing, and what means most to us. It just so happens that by doing this we are giving our kids a foundation in these things too.
We are raising organic home grown kids. I like the sound of that!
"We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons." ~Alfred E. Neuman
Another important change we made is one that I would like to share with you. I have not wrote an informative blog in a long time and it's been on my mind to so here it goes...
Soap, shampoo, lotion, sunscreen, and anything else that goes on your skin really should be free of toxins. Just because these products say organic does not mean that they are chemical free. Look at the ingredient list. Throw out or avoid buying anything that lists PEG, polyethylene, polyethylene glycol, polyoxyethylene, or oxynol. Also any ingredients that end in the letters "eth", like "mereth". Thank you Lord for spellcheck! These ingredients have the chemical 1,4-dioxane. This is a harmful chemical that is carcinogenic.
Another place to look is in your toothpaste. Most chemicals in those tubes are dangerous when ingested in large amounts, but what about in small amounts, absorbed in the mouth over a period of decades? Go for fluoride free, saccharine free, and lauryl sulfate free toothpaste. Especially for kids who may swallow some of it.
A national survey conducted by Environmental Working Group in 2007, found that kids are exposed to an average of 27 personal care product ingredients that have NOT been found safe for kids every day.
Recently the topic of plastic came up in a conversation I was a part of. A comment was made that our kids use plastic, non-BPA free bottles and they are fine. Our kids are still kids, still developing, and still getting doses of tiny toxins throughout the day, throughout the years. They may be "fine" now, but with one out of every 2 Americans getting cancer, most of them won't be "fine" when they are older.
For years I used popular brands of sunscreens. It was only recently that I learned about the unhealthy chemicals in them. Almost 1,000 brand name sunscreens that were investigated by the EWG were found to be unsafe and ineffective. More precisely, four out of every five contain chemicals that pose health hazards and don't protects people from UVA radiation. That's 4 out of 5!!! Sunscreen is more likely to cause cancer that the sun is. The scary thing is that sunscreens use nanotechnology... they use tiny particles... that go deep into the body. They may be able to cross the blood-brain barrier.
I am going to bring the Lord into this for a moment...
If you believe in God and think that He created us, then why would he create people to live on the earth, under the hot sun, with no sunscreen, if it was a giant cancer ball? There is a vitamin that counter acts sun burning. It is the very, very common vitamin c, also known as ascorbic acid. This vitamin was in every fruit that existed in the garden of Eden. I am confident that if we ate the diets we were intended to eat, we may not even need sunscreen.
But we don't so what can we do about it? Here is a natural recipe for sunscreen that will not give you cancer down the road... 1 tsp ascorbic acid and 4 ounces of distilled water. Spray on your body or your kid's bodies everyday. Your children will no longer need sunscreen. Sometimes if I know we will be in the sun all day I will spray twice that day.
Another cool thing we can do with ascorbic acid is to add a tablespoon to bath water and it will neutralize any chlorine in the bath tub. Ascorbic acid is a miracle vitamin!
I need to end this although I could go on and on... I'll write a continuation another day perhaps.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Jackie