Summer is here and this is a holiday weekend in the US, thousands and thousands of grills will be fired up, tons of charcoal and lighter fluid will be used and the number of resources consumed will be staggering.
uGO has a product that can help green your grilling, the FlameDisk. Read the rest of this entry »
With summer now in full swing, our kid’s exposure to the sun is at its highest, and the stores are full of many different products purporting to protect children from sun damage. But how can you be sure that the sunscreen that you choose is actually effective without being harmful to them? The Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) new sunscreen rankings can help you decide. Read the rest of this entry »
After the Air France plane crash a month ago, search parties were not likely optimistic looking for survivors of the Yemenia Air flight that went down in the Indian Ocean.
But they found one. Bahia Bakari, 14, is so far the only survivor known. She can barely swim, but survived in the choppy waters in the dark and among bodies. Amazingly, she had no serious injuries, but reportedly had cuts to her face and a fractured collarbone.
Physically she is fine… She clung to a piece of debris.
She was conscious and speaking but described in the Sydney Morning Herald as “fragile”.
A new site called What’s On My Food just launched this week. It is a godsend for moms everywhere who are concerned about pesticides in our and our babies’ food, not to mention water systems and the air. Did you know that the average American child gets five plus servings of pesticides in their food and water daily? Did you know that Atrazine, a potent endocrine disrupter banned in Europe, is found in 71% of US drinking water? What’s On My Food is full of horrific little tidbits like these and provides easy-to-grok visual breakdowns of pesticides in common foods.
Babies and children have high metabolisms and they eat and drink significantly more, in relation to body weight, than adults, all of which further concentrate pesticide deposits in their tissues and still-developing internal organs. Pesticides and other pollutants can interfere with proper sexual differentiation; they can also cause other birth defects and multigenerational health problems such as allergies, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity, and cancer in the individual, that individual’s offspring, and subsequent generations.
Yes, it can be more expensive. But think of all the purchasing decisions we make in a day or year. Think of all the silly things you’ve spent money on. In my opinion, buying organic is one of the most important ways we can vote with our wallets. Buying organic from your local farmer’s market is even better.
Gardening has come a long way in the last decade. It has become much simpler, and even chic, to grow what you put on your table. Plus, gardening gives kids first-hand knowledge of where their food comes from. Check out Sustainable Urban Gardens for tips and ideas for how to do it yourself.
Environmental Working Group has been around since 1993 and specializes in providing useful resources (like Skin Deep and the Shoppers’ Guide to Pesticides in Produce) to consumers while simultaneously pushing for national policy change. The shopping guide provides a list of “The Dirty Dozen”, (must buy organic) and “The Clean 15″ (foods that are not as critical to buy organic because they absorb less pesticides).
Nestle walks readers through every supermarket section–produce, meat, fish, dairy, packaged foods, bottled waters, and more–decoding labels and clarifying nutritional and other claims (in supermarket-speak, for example, “fresh” means most likely to spoil first, not recently picked or prepared), and in so doing explores issues like the effects of food production on our environment, the way pricing works, and additives and their effect on nutrition. It is a great, often funny read, and a good way to educate yourself on something we ingest multiple times a day.
As citizens and consumers, our actions are critical, particularly with something as important and pervasive as food.
Photo courtesy of Tarlyn via Flickr under Creative Commons license.
At Non-Toxic Kids, we’ve been all about activism this week. There is a lot of action that needs to happen, and the world needs to hear from you green parents out there. Here is a quick summary (because I know you are sleep deprived and have lots to do) of some current environmental actions that could use your support.
Last week you probably heard about the big BPA lobbyist and manufacturer meeting. You know, the one where they discussed scaring parents into buying BPA lined food containers, and using a young, pregnant women to sell us on the benefits of BPA. So thanks to the Environmental Working Group for supplying us with our first action about this debacle. Call Coke and Del Monte to demand that they remove BPA from their food and drink containers and lay off the sleazy PR and marketing strategies.
Read the rest of this entry »
Green cleaning products are popping up all over the place. Even mainstream companies are going green. It’s great, but how do you know what’s really green and what really works?
I’ve tried several of the newer brands of cleaning products and compared them against the original green cleaners that I’ve used for years like Seventh Generation and Bi-O-Kleen products. And I must say many of the new cleaners hold their own fantastically. Read the rest of this entry »
Ecozoo backpacks from Ecogear are the perfect eco-friendly bags for short summer trips or for a fun bag to fill with summer boredom busters like books, games, art supplies or a multitude of other kid stuff.
I received the Panda as an awesome review product and my two youngest kids are fighting over who gets it, that’s how cute it is. Read the rest of this entry »
Perhaps as a backlash to the micromanaged, overscheduled children of the past 10 years, many writers are sharing a new trend in parenting– with many names, all entertaining, such as “idle”; “free-range” or “slow” parenting. Oh, yeah, do I like the sound of that.
According to this article Let the Kid Be from the New York Times, more and more parents are refusing to overschedule, hover, and worry about every move their child makes. You’ve probably read their blogs, late at night, when you are worrying about something, and they made you feel better. It’s a bit like watching the Nanny show when you think your kids are poorly behaved, because by god, they are never that bad.
The truth of it is we all like to read about moms who admit moments of unglory and tedium in parenting. It makes us all feel normal, in the widely emotional journey of parenting, where extremes are the norm. Read the rest of this entry »
I have a couple beautiful ZuluGrass necklace strands to give away. And yes these necklaces are really made from grass and glass beads on a stretchy elastic string. The necklaces can be worn as bracelets, anklets, belts, hair accessories and more.
To find out how to get a free ZuluGrass necklace keep reading. Read the rest of this entry »
Fast food isn’t only a dumb choice environmentally, it can actually harm kids’ test scores, too. Factory-farmed meat? All that packaging? No thanks.
But if living a greener life isn’t a good enough reason for you and your family to avoid the junk, perhaps this is: kids who regularly eat fast food score lower on tests. Some kids had their test scored drop on literacy and mathematical tests by 16 percent compared to the average.
Kerri Tobin, who oversaw the research, said,
It is possible that the types of food served at fast food restaurants cause cognitive difficulties that result in lower test scores.
Wow. Just can’t picture Mickey D’s using that in a marketing campaign anytime soon. But the corporate giant isn’t the only culprit…
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News, information, and opinions on natural, green parenting to help your family live a more healthy, eco-friendly life
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