Category — Healthy Living

So, we saw my daughter’s pediatrician this a.m., and she didn’t push me on the seasonal flu vaccine, nor did she push me to seriously consider H1N1 when it comes out – she said “there is no safety data” on the H1N1 vaccine, and when I told her that my philosophy is that the flu vaccines generally are optional, she said “completely.” 

Now please note – my daughter has no underlying health issues – no asthma, no compromised immune system from something else, etc. – so seek your own advice, please (sorry, it’s the lawyer in me).  But I will keep an ear to the ground on this and let you all know when/if I hear more that’s interesting.

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I am normally not a germaphobe – ask anyone who knows me – I have consistently let my kid eat stuff that’s fallen on the floor (within limits, I mean, not on the T or anything – at home, mostly) and while I encourage hand-washing, I only pack Purell or some other alcohol-based hand sanitizer because sometimes when we’re out and about, my daughter wants to eat (i.e., food on a stick, on the street) and there is no place to wash.

All that said, I’m freaking a little bit about H1N1.  I normally choose not to have my daughter vaccinated against the seasonal flu – seems every year that they don’t get the vaccine quite right, and well, we’ve been lucky too.  Unlike other vaccines, I consider this one to be optional.  I just don’t want to medicate her any more than I “have” to.  But I don’t know what I’m going to do this year.  Her pediatrician will likely recommend the seasonal flu vaccine, as usual, but as of now there is no workable vaccination for the swine flu . . . and the question for me is, what’s the likelihood they’re going to get this one right?  The consequences of getting H1N1 seem to be more dire for the kids – I am drawn to all the awful stories of kids dying from swine flu.  So the overprotective mother says “get the freakin’ vaccine, you idiot!”  But I’m unsure right now.

One thing I do know is that I’ll be militant about hand-washing.  When I was having chemo years ago, my oncologist impressed upon me the importance of hand-washing – not just for folks with depressed immune systems, but for everyone.  A huge number of illnesses can be stopped in their tracks if you just wash your hands.  With regular old soap.  You do know that those antibacterial soaps are no good, right?  They really are no better at killing germs than regular soap and water, and they can ultimately be harmful to us and to the environment.  Here’s an alarming EWG post regarding the horrors of triclosan.

So I guess I’ll watch and wait.  I’ll keep you posted if I find anything that swings hard one way or the other.  Until then, here’s a nice CDC post from earlier in August regarding H1N1 – lots of facts and dispels some myths (thank G-d you can’t get this from eating pork – my small “porkatarian” would be devastated!).  For now, I keep looking the other way when I see the news stories regarding “the explosion” that’s about to ensue now that our kids are going back to school.

Fingers crossed.

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OK, so remember how I posted Sigg’s confessional letter from a week or so ago?  The one where they finally admit that their pre-’08 bottles have trace BPA in them?  I’ve been reading more about it, and thinking more about it, and it’s got my ire up.  It’s slimy what they did – during all the BPA fury, they just kept quiet, even denied that their bottle linings contained BPA, and then they changed their liners (such an admission of guilt) but yet kept the bottles with the old liners on the market.  I BOUGHT SMALL BOTTLES FOR MY DAUGHTER IN EARLY SEPTEMBER OF LAST YEAR – WITH THE OLD FREAKIN’ LINERS.  I SPENT $17.99 FOR EACH OF THEM. 

All told, I have 7 Sigg bottles with the old liners.  The small ones for L., some medium, some large.  Over $100 in Sigg bottles that I don’t want to use anymore. 

I found this post tonight on one of my favorite blogs, and it does link to a site that says that Sigg will replace your bottles for you, with the ones with the new liners, if you write to them and if you pay the postage to send them.  So here’s my question.  Can we trust them?  I mean, the new liners are some new chemical concoction.  Who’s to say that’s A-OK?  They do have 100% unlined stainless steel bottles, but they don’t seem to be in stock, and the letter the linked-to site received says Sigg will replace the bottles with ones with the new liners.  I don’t want any liners any more.  I think Sigg should send me whichever bottle I want in return for my old bottles, in order to create good will with one of their former #1 fans.  Or else I’m going to recycle all those mothers and order myself a slew of Kleen Kanteens.  Do you hear me, Sigg??  I feel ripped off, snookered and hoodwinked.

So please comment!  What are you going to do? 

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There is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about how the American Heart Association is recommending that people limit their sugar intake.  In a statement issued last Monday, the organization recommends that most women limit their sugar intake to 100 calories, or about six teaspoons, a day; and for men, the recommendation is 150 calories, or nine teaspoons daily.

The issue is that on the nutrition labels we see, sugar is listed in grams – a unit of weight, not volume like teaspoons . . . from what I can find, a teaspoon of sugar is equivalent to approximately 4.2 grams – so now you can do some division and see how many teaspoons are in your favorite food or beverage.   You might be shocked!

A lot of health-conscious folks I know eschew soda, but do eat things like fruit-flavored yogurts and/or packaged juices, which usually do have a lot of sugar.  Add to that ice cream, cookies, sugared cereals – well, by the end of the day you have yourself (in the words of some advertisement) “a sugar situation.”

What to do?  I don’t like artificial sweeteners as an alternative – they’re dubious in terms of long-term safety and to me, they’re just another chemical to add to the soup that’s already in our bodies (although, remember, I do love me a diet Coke once in a while – so moderation here too, friends!).  I have noticed over the years that when I limit my sugar consumption, fruits, etc. taste sweeter to me.  That is, when I wean myself off the hooch that is Halloween Candy, or Christmas cookies, or just a weekend bender involving Nabisco® Pinwheel® cookies and get back to fruits, I notice how sweet a peach can be, or a nice apple, or some strawberries or my other BFF of the summer, cantaloupe.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sweets.  Unless I had to for some extreme health reason, I’d never cut sugar completely out of my diet.  I do, however, limit my consumption of foods with added sugars – keeps my empty calorie consumption down and makes more room for foods with nutritional value.

Do you have a “sugar situation” going on?  Have you tried eliminating added sugars from your diet?   Why?  How long did you keep it up? 

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Are you all familiar with these?  A campaign by the EWG to give top-level, usable information to families to maximize their environmental health.  I know I sing the EWG’s praises so often – I just feel that they most often represent a balanced, logical approach to all this toxics madness.  After all, you could really make yourself nuts trying to follow the latest this-n-that, right?    You can subscribe by email and get updates every time they publish a new tip. 

Today’s is on chemical flame retardants in the home – something I’m sure our microfiber-ballistic-cheepie-kidproof sofa is full of . . . but at least I’ll know more for the next purchase, right? 

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We’re in the final days of summer vacation at our house.  I love back-to-school preparations for my daughter – for me, the consummate nerd, there was never a more exciting time of year than the beginning of the academic year, and I’ll admit it!  I am living vicariously through my kid.  Is that so wrong?

So with school comes lunch.  Many kids have the choice of buying their lunch, which is easy on the mama, but dubious on the nutrition.  Even in our liberal, relatively health-conscious suburb, mozzarella sticks are considered an “entree” at lunchtime.  Or wait, yeah, it gets better – nachos.  There are some marginally better choices like cheese pizza (my kid always buys on pizza day) or a PB&J sandwich (we are not nut-free – isn’t that retro?), but over all, it’s a nutritional wasteland.

I pack my daughter’s lunch many days – mostly because once the novelty of buying lunch wore off for her, she realized that the food at school was “just not very good, mom.”  We do a lot of nitrate/ite free cold cuts (Applegate Farms makes a good turkey bologna – colored with beet juice, no less, and a hand-tied uncured maple ham that is adult-tastebud-worthy).  As a side I’ll cut up strawberries, baby carrots, or a sliced apple.  Or we’ll go super-alternative and she’ll have cubed tofu, leftover noodles or sometimes even cold chicken nuggets.  For snacks she most often totes a little container of organic applesauce and some Annie’s Wheat Bunnies, but she also likes cheese sticks and crackers.  Or depending on the allergy issues of others kids in her class, I’ll send some hummus and baby carrots for dipping.

I do her drinks in Sigg bottles – water for snack and skim milk for lunch.  But I have yet to find a suitable, non-plastic alternative to those little plastic tubs with screw-top lids made by Rubbermaid.  They at least save us from using 1,000 Ziploc baggies in a week.  But they’re plastic, and I am always trying to reduce our exposure to plastic – especially for our daughter.

The other brainstorm I had last spring was to buy cheap stainless utensils at Ikea and send those with her when she has cut fruit/tofu/pasta in her lunch.  If you get a few, you’ll have enough for a rotation:  you can throw the day’s dirties in the dishwasher at night and still have some clean on hand to pack for the next day.  You can get the teaspoon and salad forks from the Dragon collection there in packs of 4 for $5 – nice and small for the lunch box, but just make sure your kid knows not to pitch ‘em when s/he’s done!

My husband has started bringing his lunch to work too – after reading about the “horrors” of nitrate/ites again, he decided to forgo his “cancer-wich” at work and start making a sandwich at home.  But for the male exec on the go, a brown bag, or worse yet, a “lunchbox” just won’t do – it’s sad to say, but there is a certain cool factor that has to be upheld at the office, even at lunchtime.  We found these great stainless steel LunchBots for him – he has two of the duo (put 1 sliced apple in one side, and some almonds & raisins in the other) and two of the uno which fit a whole sandwich nicely.  Wash one, use one.

Can you help me out with ideas today?  I’d like to completely purge plastic from my daughter’s lunchbox, but I haven’t been able to find a substitute for the plastic snack containers – it needs to be something that will tolerate a liquidy snack without spilling – like a stainless container with a rubber gasket around the lid – know of anything?  Even the fabulous Laptop Lunchbox uses plastic, although BPA/lead free. 

Let me know if you have suggestions!

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This is from today’s Times – parents seeking to have ice cream trucks banned . . . I can fully understand rules about how close they can be to schools, etc., but as a health nut, I try to exercise restraint and moderation when it comes to my kid’s eating.  There are some simple joys in life, like a once-in-a-while treat from the ice cream truck, that I think should be honored for her. 

And as for the nagging – isn’t it my job to just say “no” on any given day if ice cream’s not a good idea?  And if she can’t stop badgering, to leave the playground/pool/etc.?  But maybe I’m in the minority?  Are you pro-Softee?

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Oooh, folks.  This’ll blow your hair back – from my favorite Enviroblog – re the evils of bottled water.

Seriously.  Are you still buying bottled water on a regular basis?  Quit it!  It’ll take you a month to get used to filling up your Sigg/Kleen Kanteen/etc. bottle and heading out the door.  Yes, about that long to create a new habit that will save you money and decrease your chemical exposure/get stuff out of landfills/stop lining the pockets of corporate evil-doers.

Wouldn’t that make you feel good?  

P.S. Some of you have had questions about whether the Sigg bottles contained trace BPA in the liner – here’s the scoop from their site (including a link to pics to ID whether you have old or new liners in your bottles).  If you have pre-’08 bottles, they do have trace BPA, but Sigg’s tests showed no leaching.  Decide for yourselves what you think you should do with those – I have ours segregated and will probably purge . . . .

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