green
Stop drinking that! A Thirsty Nation’s Dilemma
Several weeks ago, when I voiced my misgivings about what a pregnant woman with a voracious thirst should drink, it paved the way for much larger questions that touches all of our lives, preggo or no: “Wait, what ARE we drinking“? “What’s IN this can/glass/bottle/cup, anyway“?
In recent news there has been a spirited debate about whether the government should impose a penny-per-ounce tax on soda and other sugary beverages. The fact that it has garnered so much attention by the national media shows us how interwoven soda and its affordability is to our national fabric. And although I’m not prepared to weigh in on whether such a tax might promote a healthier lifestyle, I’m listening intently to the debate. And I’m aghast at what I’m learning simply by paying a little attention.
I’ll say this out front: I like a good glass of juice or lemonade, but otherwise I’m not a big fan of sweet drinks. My tea contains neither sugar nor honey, nor does my morning coffee contain sugar or cream. I’ve never been a soda person, though I’m no stranger to the occasional can. My choices in wine and alcoholic beverages are always dry. For me, it’s just a matter of what my taste buds prefer. So suffice to say that I do not have a personal stake in this debate.
Given where I’m coming from, I’d like to match up two opposing arguments that I’ve heard; exhibit A and exhibit B:
Exhibit A: Lobbyist for the soda industry appearance on MSNBC within the last few weeks (apologies for not being able to provide specific show/guest info) making the case that beverages account for only 5 Percent of daily caloric intake for the average American, and that the blame that such a tax implies is patently unfair, an argument similar to the one defended by Kevin Keane of the American Beverage Association in this Chron.com article.
Exhibit B: Eat This, Not That‘s documentation of the 20 worst drinks in America, including the “worst soda“, Sunkist; a 20 ounce bottle contains 320 calories and 84 grams of sugar, as much as 6 Breyers Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches. Additionally, Sunkist makes use of “the artificial colors yellow 6 and red 40—two chemicals that may be linked to behavioral and concentration problems in children”. WikiAnswers lists the ingredients in Sunkist as these: “Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, citric acid, sodium benzoate (preservative), food starch-modified, natural flavors, caffeine, glycerol ester of wood rosin, ascorbic acid (preservative), yellow 6, red 40″.
So, according to the argument posed in Exhibit A, if one measly 20oz bottle of Sunkist was all the caloric beverage that you drank for an entire day, your overall calorie intake could be extrapolated to 6400. Is this reasonable? Would even Kevin Keane agree that this is reasonable? And I wonder whether he would be willing to weigh in on the effect of the ingredients list: high fructose corn syrup, yellow 6, red 40; as well as what specific ingredient tends to hide behind the term “natural flavors” (hint: MSG). So, it seems to me that this “don’t pick on us because there are other, bigger fish to fry” is really just awfully sad. And although the proposed soda tax has been defeated on the several occasions thus far that it has shown up as proposed legislature in Maine, New York, and San Francisco, I hope that the movement gains momentum, and that in time, the American Beverage Association does have its fish fried. I’ll take a water with that.
In the meantime, if a 2000 calorie-per-day diet is the ideal for most of us, let’s really try, as a culture, to observe that 5% idea — really, it turns out not to be such a bad one — 5% of your calories from beverages: that’s 100 calories a day. Let’s just all pay a little closer attention to the labels and try to observe this. It’d be way more effective to our lifestyle than a tax, though our states would still be that much more cash-strapped.
If just 100 calories to drink a day sounds way too restrictive, note the following from TLC Cooking: “look at the calorie count of any soft drink. For example, a typical carbonated soft drink will have 200 calories in a 16-ounce serving. All of those calories come from sugar, and sugar contains 16 calories per teaspoon. By this measurement, a 16-ounce serving contains 12.5 teaspoons of sugar.So go down to the kitchen and get out a 16-ounce glass, a teaspoon and some sugar. Measure 12 teaspoons of sugar into the glass — it’s an amazing amount. Then multiply that by however many sodas you typically consume in a day”.
For further reading, see also New England Journal of Medicine’s “Ounces of Prevention — The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared Beverages”, and the New York Times’s “Health Official Willing to go to the Mat Over Obesity and Sugared Sodas”
Are Moms Really That Busy?
Yesterday, for the first time ever, I watched the Dr. Phil show. No, I haven’t been living in a cave; it seems I’ve always known about Dr. Phil, it’s just that the TV here is, 99% of the time, switched off during the day. And I like it that way.
But I was compelled to watch yesterday’s show, “Are Moms Really That Busy?” in support of my Champaign-Urbana homie, Amy Hatch, who is half of the awesome duo behind chambanamoms.com. She made an appearance on Dr. Phil’s panel in order to debate a recent finding by University of Maryland’s Dr. John Robinson that moms have, on average, 30-40 hours of leisure time each week.
It’s an easy thing to get a knee-jerk reaction to – particularly if you are among the aforementioned moms who are spread reeeeeally really thin in order to be the best mom and caregiver and housekeeper and working professional that they can be. The consensus on the panel as to Dr. Robinson’s findings can be summed up the following way: “Are you freakin KIDDING me?!”. The panelists and moms in the audience were happy to provide the kind of heartbreaking detail of how patently NON-leisurely their lives really are; and how hard, in fact, they do work, and how very very much is expected of them. That they should even be put in the position of having to defend themselves on this subject is altogether insulting. Actually, “adding insult to injury” is a perfect characterization.
Of course moms will be put on the defensive by Dr. Robinson’s findings. I’m guessing that that, and the publicity surrounding it, was his aim in the first place. The absurd examples of leisure time cited by Dr. Robinson should be all the evidence we need: waiting for a tow truck (in the car w/o kids), opening business email, sitting in the dentist’s office, and the like.
But what went largely undiscussed on yesterday’s show is exactly how we should address this finding: What’s getting valued? Who’s setting the standards here? And why, for christ’s sake, is no one standing up for the very idea of leisure time? The very notion that we have leisure time carries a subtext that we’re not working hard enough.
Because if we picture it, the dream of leisure time floats above all of mom’s heads, like a detached, unattainable balloon – where one can exist, enjoying our favorite things without interruption, without guilt; outside of time and responsibility. and as much as we want and crave and need to be in that balloon, if we’re fortunate enough to have the ability to step in it, we’re afraid that others will judge us as being………..the word which can only be whispered………lazy.
Apparently, with the industrial revolution and the gadgets of the 20th century which allow for tasks to completed in a shorter amount of time, there has been a new cold war: the War on Lazy. We have become so very time and productivity obsessed that we have come to believe, as a culture, that busy-ness is the natural and right state of being. Which is counter-intuitive. One would think that the progress made in the last 200 years would allow for more leisure time, and that it would become a natural and virtuous thing. But something else happened: the standards were raised. Wash day work cut down to a few hours? Better impose a higher standard of cleanliness and sell a lot more clothes. We’ve increasingly been sold a standard that we can’t, and shouldn’t, live up to. And as moms reach a breaking point in which they can barely handle the stress of raising a family and being everything to everyone, mostly without compensation, they are made to apologize for the joke of what passes as leisure time. Shame on us.
Listen to how Brigid Schulte wraps up her fine response in the Washington Post: “it’s 1:31 in the morning; this story is two days late; the dinner dishes are still in the sink; and there’s a form I need to fill out before my daughter goes to school. For a few fleeting moments earlier this evening, however, as I searched for my son’s bike helmet, I did notice that the moon was uncannily beautiful”. The saddest of poetry, but as moms, we’ve been there. Maybe even four times already this week. So instead of going on the defensive, please join me in the following chant:
“More Leisure Time Now! Better Leisure Time Now!”
And fellow moms, when you see a television commercial which leads you to to think that your teeth should be as white as your wedding dress, and implies that anything less constitutes something sub-standard, please see this for the trap that it is, and take hold of what’s important in your life. Having flashy white teeth is not being good to yourself (though corporations would love you to believe it) – having time and a little peace in your life to enjoy yourself IS.
Absence of process
In so very many ways, we are living far different lives than our ancestors did. The division is even palpable going back only 100 years; in terms of human history, this is only a flash in the pan, but one fundamental linchpin of 100+ years ago life is all but disappeared from our “modern” life: Process. It was not so very long ago that if you wanted/needed a product, you had to be materially involved in its process. Want a new dress? How’re your sewing skills? Want it clean? Gotta washtub? Want a pot of soup and bread for dinner? What have you harvested or slaughtered or preserved lately that you can use? Churn some butter for that bread?
Granted, we have always been an interdependent species, so no one person was ever typically responsible for every little want/need being filled. But days were typically devoted to a series of processes that are far different from those of 21st century life in the US. At most times in history, processes have been something that you could buy your way out of, if you had enough wealth or power. So as the last 100 years progressed, and the US grew wealthier and more powerful, we have slowly, as a culture, bought our way out of the processes that defined our ancestor’s lives. Are we richer as a culture for it? This is what I wonder.
CIE Holiday Shopping Guide
News recently broke (and unbroke) about the unsafe levels of the toxic compound antimony on this Holiday season’s hottest new toy, Zhu Zhu Pets. Until then, it seemed like a great gift for the times: inexpensive, simple, and oh so cute. But the alarm raised by the exposure of a certain fireproofing chemical used in its manufacture should not be dismissed. Standards for toy manufacture, and, for that matter, product manufacture, remain at once lax and rather unregulated. Fortunate thing we have groups like GoodGuide that are helping the consumer to navigate the waters of safe/unsafe in a wide range of products, from toys to food to personal care items.
Similarly, we have publications such as The Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated by Their Politics and Practices 
In that vein, my Holiday Shopping Guide is a compendium of companies recommended by both GoodGuide and The Blue Pages. Get out your shopping lists and get ready to edit!
Greenest Toy Companies of 2009 — Good Guide
The Blue Pages: 10 Best Brands to Buy this Holiday Season (via Air America):
- Gap
- Tiffany and Co.
- Best Buy
- Hewlett-Packard
- Kenneth Cole
- Campbell Soup Company
- Naked Juice
- The North Face
- Ben and Jerry’s
The Blue Pages: The Top Ten Companies to AVOID this Holiday Season (via Air America):
- The Children’s Place
- Hanes
- JC Penney
- The Limited Brands
- IBM
- Albertson’s
- Chiquita
- L’Oreal
- Target — ouch! That one’s gonna hurt!
- Wal-Mart
One Small Step to a Sustainable Holiday
Amid all of the pre-Thanksgiving buzz last week about Black Friday, a TV news reporter stood in the middle of a well known Big Box store, holding up some of the great deals to be had. Among her selected items, a toilet seat cover with Santa’s face. No really, I’m not kidding:
Most of us would agree that, especially in these economic times, something like this is unnecessary. But what if the price quoted by the TV news anchor was a low low $13? For the whole set! Even those among us who would normally snort at such outrageous decor might think “hmm…that might be kind of adorable, and Aunt Stella would get such a kick out of it when she comes out for Christmas dinner”! Something seems to happen to our judgment when things we wouldn’t be inclined to buy turn out to fall comfortably in our price range.
Let’s all please, please this holiday season start here: reclaim that judgment. If there’s one thing we don’t need on this planet, it’s a toilet seat cover with Santa’s face on it. The sooner manufacturers are aware of this (by lack of sales), the less burden our planet will have to bear for their production. In fact, how about we all, as consumers,
Buy no new holiday decor this year
Yep. It’s simple. Here’s what to do instead: Use what you have. Use what your friends and family have, but are not currently using. If you must obtain something that isn’t available to you in this way, thrift shops and antique stores are packed to the gills with holiday decor that’s already out there. If there’s something that absolutely must be purchased new, like candles, please patronize local artisans, in your town or online (a la Etsy).
We tend to think of recycling as the glass and paper and plastic that we sort out from our trash, but really, using what we have and relying on secondhand sources is just as powerful a way to recycle, if not more so. And the next time you see a $3.99 price tag on the silliest little thing that you almost can’t resist, please, take yourself out of the moment. The fewer new $3.99 silliest things in your life, and in the life of the planet, the better.
Diapers: Cloth or Disposable?
When I was expecting the Little One, I dreaded this question. For me, it was like the “paper or plastic” question that you feel like you never really have all of the information necessary to make an informed decision (and if you’ve ever felt the same about the ‘paper or plastic?’ question, RUN, don’t walk, to this helpful breakdown). But with ‘Cloth or Disposable?’, I felt even more lost; for one thing, I wasn’t even a mom yet, so hadn’t even honed my diaper changing skills. I didn’t know how much and to what extent diapers would consume my future life, so had no real clue of what information was necessary to make this choice.
As a sustainability-friendly person, my instinct was that ‘cloth’ was the right answer. Much in the same way that many sustainability-friendly folks believe that ‘paper’ is the corresponding right answer among bagging issues. But I soon found, upon the Little One’s birth, that the choice here becomes a far more personal one than which type bag to use. Here is how I found the path to my favorite pick:
My initial response to the dreaded question was that I intended to try cloth, but begin with disposables; I figured the learning curve of caring for a newborn would be great enough without the added stress of trying to manage a new cloth diapering system. Turns out that Whew! I had that right! So, after a little homework on the various options in disposables, I added Seventh Generation diapers to my baby registry. They were hard to find; only one shop offered them locally at the time. The best bet was to buy them online. I’d been happy with both the products and philosophy of the Seventh Generation line, so I was looking forward to giving the diapers a shot. Although they are, like most disposables, essentially a plastic-based product, no chlorine is used in their manufacture, which is helpful in a few ways: Less processing required in manufacture means less carbon footprint; lack of chlorine makes diapers friendly to sensitive baby skin; no chlorine to leach into the groundwater after the diapers are disposed of.
The Little One finally showed up in October, and I was ready with my pick for disposable diapers. My life became a diaper-changing marathon. Any supply of diapers that I had armed myself with disappeared almost immediately. No matter how many new packs I bought, it seemed I was always almost out of them. Having chosen a brand that was difficult to find was not an optimal plan for the time. I ended up supplementing with plenty of Pampers Swaddlers and Luvs, just because they were the ones I could buy at the nearest grocery store. I’m glad that that happened, though, because it learned me something important: The Little One’s bum consistently got rashy when I used any other brand than Seventh Gen.
After a couple of months when I finally felt like I was getting the hang of whole diapering thing, I began to branch out. As a stop between disposable and cloth, I tried G Diapers. This was essentially a 3-part system: Cloth outer diaper, biodegradable/flushable/disposable insert, and protective plastic liner. They were freakin adorable. I loved how they looked on him, and the fit and absorbency was generally right on. I liked that the insert was flushable, but as we have septic system out here, that option was just not for us. The use of the G diaper required a little more planning than the full disposables; there were two outer cloth diapers, which needed to have the plastic liner snapped in place, in order to place the disposable insert, in order for the diaper to go on baby. Fine to plan out for an afternoon diaper change; at 2 am, however, not so much.
And just to wade a little into full cloth, I picked up a Bum Genius set. Super cute, super soft. If I were a baby, this is what I would want wrapping my tush. Aesthetically, it’s like the infant equivalent to Charmin Ultra.
Here, however, was the dealbreaker for me and cloth, and even me and G diapers: the Little One is famous for his consistently huge, runny poops. Even at 2, that kid can fill a diaper. Full. “Man poops” is how is daycare teacher jokingly characterized them. He made an awful mess of the poor Bum Genius. The kind that never quite washed out, and left it discolored. The G diapers would get all three layers saturated, necessitating a frantic run to the washing machine on a regular basis. But the Seventh Gen held it. Sure there were blow-outs, but few and far between as compared to the alternatives.
And now, many more places carry Seventh Generation locally, making them a consistently attractive option. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I used anything else. The Little One is slowly turning his sights to the potty, but I’ve got Kid 2.0 on the way as well; if his/her claim to fame does not include “man poops”, I might be inclined to give cloth another try. Any input or advice is welcome!
Hair care during pregnancy
I blame the pregnancy message boards. At the outset of my first pregnancy, I was blissfully oblivious to the potential hazards of shampoo. Then, the posting was clicked: “Shampoo?“, then, the link followed: “Pregnancy Alert: Shampoo Ingredient Could Damage Developing Brain Cells“. It should have carried a warning: “Danger! Can of worms about to be opened“! Because what unfolded was a long lesson in the vile substances in personal care products that could, key word: could, have the potential of harm to a developing baby.
If you think about it, our skin is our largest organ, so concern about hazards during pregnancy should not stop with what we simply ingest. We do, like it or not, absorb many additional things through our skin, intentionally or no. Here’s the main thing to take away from the link above: shampoo often contains an ingredient called methylisothiazolinone, a substance that acts as an antimicrobial agent, to give the shampoo a long shelf life. Here’s the thing, though: methylisothiazolinone is a neurotoxic chemical. It really shouldn’t be used in shampoo at all. But it shows up in far more than just shampoo. The Household Products Database has it listed as an ingredient in a wide variety of products: house paint, shampoo, conditioner, hand soap, hair color…….See the list here.
In addition to the Household Products Database, coming to the rescue to help us sort through the maze of ingredients on our personal care products is the Cosmetics Database, who warn: “Major gaps in public health laws allow cosmetics companies to use almost any ingredient they choose in everything from sunscreen and mascara to deodorant and baby shampoo, with no restrictions and no requirement for safety testing. To help you navigate your store’s aisles, Environmental Working Group researchers have scoured thousands of ingredient labels to bring you our top recommendations for what not to buy — products with worrisome or downright dangerous ingredients that don’t belong in your shopping cart or on your skin”.
They do a commendable job of rating personal care products based on the safety of their ingredients. And it’s clearly not just methylisothiazolinone that is of concern here. The database also singles out Placenta, Lead, Fragrance, Animal Parts, Hydroquinone Skin Lightener, Nanoparticles, Phthalates, and Petroleum By-products as the ingredients causing the highest concern. Yes, these products really are in the personal care products we use every day without question.
But no despair necessary: being pregnant does not condemn one to a 9 month avoidance of personal care products. My picks for a low-chemical personal care routine, having already done the work of hashing through the Cosmetic Database’s findings and trying a wide range of the green-lighted products:
Shampoo: Burt’s Bees – widely available; does a good job with far fewer ingredients of concern.
Conditioner: Aubrey Organics – for my fine, dry, wavy hair, the Island Naturals conditioner can’t be beat.
Cosmetics: 100% Pure – amazing products. The tinted moisturizer, eye shadows, and blush all get big thumbs up.
Skin creams and shower gel: California Baby – I hate to say it……….as good as Kiehl’s. It’s true. The Calendula cream kicks Kiehl’s Abyssine cream’s butt, and it’s so much kinder to the wallet. And with far fewer ingredients of concern.
Nail Polish: Priti Polish – nail polish and remover is one of the leading offenders in chemical content. Priti, astoundingly enough, offers a great product without the harsh ingredients that throw out the red flags.
As far as hair color goes: Better to wait until after the first trimester, and thereafter, better to go to a stylist, who can apply the coloring so that it does not make contact with your scalp.
Morning Sickness: A Rant
I try to make healthy, balanced and sustainable food choices. That is always my goal in shopping and cooking and selecting restaurants. And one would think, wouldn’t one, that during pregnancy, this goal would only be that much more important? One would. Think.
But here is a sampling of a typical pre-pregnancy menu in this household: Pot Roast of locally raised beef and garden veggies, local greens salad with homemade bread. Or lamb chops with a balsamic reduction and local blue potato wedges with garden squash pie.
Now, during the worst phase of the first trimester: Pizza and cookies. Fast food hamburger and fries. Major-chain restaurant spaghetti and meatballs. Velveeta Shells and Cheese. Seriously, the best (healthy balanced and/or sustainable) that I can do for a satisfying meal is a loaded baked potato, fruit and a green salad, but preferably prepared by someone else. And then I’ll need a cupcake in a couple of hours, and another before bed.
The culprit here: morning sickness. The very mechanism that is designed to help me make safe food choices is the stick in my culinary spokes. Before I was ever pregnant, I envisioned morning sickness as passing waves of nausea, punctuated by some vomiting. The version that I’ve gotten, though, is the constant seasickness that has changed my entire relationship with food. I know that it is temporary, but I am appalled at my food choices lately.
I realize that the biological point of morning sickness and the weird cravings/aversions is also to help my body gain excess fat to store, as well as to keep a safe distance from potentially hazardous things like raw meat. But the things that I’m craving have their definite downsides: The processed food with the preservatives and additives and high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils and food coloring and…….ech……just making myself feel ill. I’m sure you get my point: When you rely on food that someone else has made for you, and that relationship is a distant one, you tend to ingest a lot of crap that is not beneficial to your own body, let alone a tiny vulnerable bean growing inside you.
When I first found out about my first pregnancy, I quickly ordered the book “Eating for Pregnancy” to make sure that my nutritional i’s would be dotted and t’s would be crossed. I never made a single recipe from the book, though – as soon as morning sickness kicked in, I couldn’t even look at a recipe, let alone shop productively in a grocery store. I lamented to my OB, who assured me that my former pre-pregnancy diet would be enough to sustain my body through the first trimester. “If you ate well before you were pregnant”, she said, “you’ll be fine”. I hope to heck she’s right.
Pregnancy: a new category at CIE
If I could choose one event in my life that, more than any other, furthered my awareness of product ingredients and how they affect the human body, it would have been my pregnancy in 2007. Most newly pregnant women are pummelled with the basic information on what to avoid during pregnancy, and in most cases, these things were no surprise: raw/undercooked meat, smoking, illicit drugs, unpasteurized cheese, cat litter……….but aside from the pamphlet list that you get from the doctor, there are actually very many more products and drugs and airborne things to know about; something that I learned slowly over the course of the nine months before the Little One’s birth.
Just this morning, MSNBC ran a bit about the rise in autism rates; it was 1 in 150 during my last pregnancy. Now, just 2 1/2 years later, it is 1 in 91. Although no one can or wants to say definitively what is causing this rise, I think most of the scientific community agrees that, in addition to the genetic factor, it is a result of multiple toxic exposure during pregnancy. Therefore, limiting such exposure when we are trying to conceive and when we are pregnant is the goal here. But how to go about doing that? That standard doctor’s list is a good place to start. I will do my best to continue it here in this category over the coming months; and I am now invested in the subject as well — we are expecting our next little bundle in May.
A Less Toxic Tomorrow?
If you’re like me, you were caught pretty off-guard over the big headlines the last few years regarding toxins in our everyday lives: Melamine in pet food, Bisphenol-A in our plastics, lead paint on our toys………and because I was caught off-guard, I was furious. Prior to our pets dying, I had heard not even a whisper of the potential for my cat’s food to contain a life-threatening toxic chemical, and plastics…….well, we live in a plastic society, for chrissakes, even a good recycler/reuser such as myself was not aware of the dangers of releasing toxic chemicals into whatever the plastic’s contents if it was heated, or gasp……reused too often.
And these were things that I and my family and my pets had previously taken into our bodies without the slightest sense of the havoc that they could wreak. Infuriating. All the more infuriating because I know that for every big headline/melamine/BPA/lead paint story, there are a hundred more that we still don’t know about. And manufacturers who knowingly use such toxic chemicals have not been adequately regulated by a looooong shot. Just taken to task after the fact, which is really not a help to us at all. In fact, I really don’t understand why people, en masse, aren’t far more outraged than they are.
At least help is on the way, in the form of a plan designed to actually regulate the manufacturer’s use of toxins in those products that many of use freely and willfully every day without question: “The Obama administration last night unveiled the broad outlines of a proposal to overhaul the regulation of thousands of chemicals used in consumer products and the workplace, calling for more testing and greater authority to restrict toxic products. The plan, which would require legislation, would replace an existing system that is widely seen as ineffective – so much so that it did not allow the government to ban asbestos, a known carcinogen, decades ago”.
Thank you, Obama administration. This is a gift to my family, my pets, and all of us here in the US. This is exactly how the government needs to take care of its people. Thank you.
