Our family's journey toward natural foods

One of my more recent hobbies has been the world of natural "real" foods and homemade beauty products.  It started with a general interest in health, was encouraged by a marriage to a man who spent many years working at natural food stores, and increased when I discovered a couple years ago that my ongoing skin and digestive issues could be drastically improved with some simple diet changes-- specifically the reduction of sugar and processed food, and increase of a few "superfoods", specifically probiotics.   Interestingly, a few visits to doctors never yielded this basic information, but I come from a family that encourages independent research.  And the information is easily there to find.

More recently, the quest has been motivated even more by seeing three grandparents die of cancer and working with children with autism-- two diseases that, I am convinced, are the product of the huge amount of environmental and food toxins that we take in daily.  And that's not even mentioning others such as diabetes, learning disabilities, chronic disease, endocrine disorders... diseases that shouldn't be plaguing the "developed" world.

Autism has increased by 78% in the last ten years, now affecting 1 in every 88 American children.  It affects three times as many boys as girls, so someone smarter than me can do the math of the probability of my future son(s) developing autism.  It's higher than I care to think.

According to the Environmental Working Group...

A two-year study involving five independent research laboratories in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands has found up to 232 toxic chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of 10 [randomly sampled] babies from racial and ethnic minority groups.

YUCK!! This is just one example of all the stuff we have in our bodies from the air, the soil, our homes, the packaging of our products, and the food we eat. (And I hate that it particularly affects those in lower income brackets.)

So now that we've been through all the depressing stuff, you may find yourself in a similar boat as me-- wondering how in the world, when you've got little time, little energy, a limited budget and you're struggling to fit in with a new culture (oh wait, that's just me) --- you can also make any significant impact in reducing the chemical exposure to your family and increasing the health value of your food?

The way we've done it is to pick our battles, and start small.  Here's some areas I am striving to change.  I would encourage you to just pick a few that you can start with.

1)  Food

• Eat lots of produce, but buy organically (if possible) from the Dirty Dozen list, the 12 most contaminated fruits and veggies.  Limit these for babies and pregnant/nursing moms.
• Buy local, raw whole milk and yoghurt (without all the preservatives and sweeteners).  
• Eat probiotic foods whenever possible (naturally pickled products, like Bubbie's sauerkraut, natural yoghurt, etc).  It's not too hard to make your own, if you have the time and courage.
• Avoid canned food, because of the lower nutrients and BPA in the can lining.  I can substitute a couple cups of dried/cooked beans for canned ones, chopped fresh tomatoes for canned, etc.  
• Don't eat dessert on a regular basis.  Generally avoid sugar, soda, etc. (although I have a recipe for probiotic, homemade soda!)
• Try not to buy processed foods.  They tend to be full of ingredients that you can't pronounce.   This includes breakfast cereal, which is not as healthy for you as the advertisers would have you think.  Eat eggs or real oatmeal for breakfast instead.
• Read "food" labels.  Skip the ones that have a long list of weird ingredients.  Try not to eat things when you don't know what they are.  Be suspicious of "spices" and "flavors', vague labels hiding things you'd rather not know.  
•  Make chicken broth from bones you save in your freezer.  We throw a bunch of bones in a big pot once a week with a splash of apple cider vinegar to draw out the TONS of minerals inside, and let it boil for 12-18 hours on the stove.  The longer it goes, the more nutritious it is.  Then we freeze it and use it for everything you can think of-- soups, curries, cooking rice, etc. 
•  Besides broth, raw milk and probiotic foods, other superfoods we try to consume when we can are: green leafy veggies, liver (strong flavor, unless you mix it strategically with beef), cod liver oil, fish and eggs.  
• We limit flour/wheat in our house.... for those who have a lot of time or a good natural foods store you can try sprouted grain bread or (true) sourdough, but we haven't had the time to make these yet.  We sneak bread or croissants from time to time, but try to see it as a luxury.  The baby never eats cookies, crackers or pretzels, which are pretty much nutritionally useless and full of hidden extra ingredients.

This is my favorite recipe website for busy moms.


2) Cosmetics

I have spent hours reading a depressing list of all the things that your personal care products can do to your health, and I don't remember the details.  Suffice it to say, it's terrifying.  If you're interested in knowing what toxins you are currently putting on your head, face and body, the Environmental Working Group has a site where you can enter any product by name and a list will pop up of its ingredients and the risk factors that they have for cancer, endocrine disorders, respiratory damage, brain damage, developmental disorders, etc.

I have had a hard time with this area because I have curly hair.... I have been successful washing my hair with baking soda and conditioning it with apple cider vinegar, but I'm kind of stuck on the styling.  Heather, the author of mommpotamus.com, recently released a book of natural beauty recipes and one of them is a hair spray made with vodka that I may try.  If anyone ever finds a non-toxic substitute for mousse, please let me know.  For make-up I use Bare Minerals.

Good news is that it's easy to make your own non-toxic sunscreen (and sunscreen is one of the worst offenders.)  Or you can buy one of the natural alternatives that includes zinc oxide.

3) Other stuff

You can't avoid everything, especially when you live where we do, but here's a few other things:

• In the States we cleaned our house with products by Melaleuca.  Here I use vinegar for virtually all home cleaning needs.
•  We use metal, glass or BPA-free plastic for water and food storage.
• We use stainless steel cookware instead of non-stick, which emits chemicals into your food.

I'm planning to put together a list of some of my favorite "real food" recipes that I have tried and would like to try... especially those that I find particularly easy and reproducible.

Which areas above would you change, if you could?