On conventional and natural ear fluid treatment

A few months ago, I began to suspect that my 3 year old son, Little Sir, might have some hearing issues. It wasn't his language development, that was on target or ahead, but he just seemed to be missing a lot of things I said to him in a normal tone.

Another odd coincidence: every time since he was 1 year old when he'd had the standard hearing-machine tests at the pediatrician, the machine "hadn't been able to get a reading" due to "fluid in the ears". Never an infection -- he hasn't had an ear infection since he was 16 months old -- but always "some fluid in the way".

Our pediatrician referred us to a pediatric Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) specialist that practiced at a private hospital. Pricey, for someone as under-insured as we are. At this ENT, they did auditory testing with a machine and by playing sounds for him in headphones and allowing him to respond by throwing blocks into a bucket. He thought that was a pretty fun game! The results of these tests: significant hearing loss. He actually could not hear anything at a conversation level. They bypassed the ear drum and testing the capacity of the actual sound conducting parts of his head (?) and he does have the capacity to hear, the fluid was just keeping the ear drums from vibrating at all. This ENT suggested both ear tubes and removal of adenoid fluid. When we got the estimated cost of surgery from this private pediatric facility, we nearly had a heart attack.

We decided to get a second opinion, and while we were waiting for the second appointment, try holistic and chiropractic methods to help reduce the fluid in his ears. Some things we did to help alleviate the fluid between appointments:

1. pediatric chiropractic adjustment of the spine (twice)
2. specific adjustment of the ears themselves, both by the doctor and then she showed us how to do it at home
3. essential oil blend (thyme, lavender, melaleuca) targeted to prevent ear infections, applied behind the ear

Despite these treatments, when we went to the second ENT appointment and all the auditory and throwing-blocks tests were re-done, he came back with the exact same hearing loss and the exact same recommended treatment: ear tubes and possible removal of adenoid tissue.

At the first diagnosis, I was not enthusiastic about putting Little Sir under anesthesia. All the work we do to reduce our childrens' exposure to toxins, and we were just going to fill him up with crazy sedatives! Still, after inquiring among the "green" blogger community, I could find no alternative treatments that we had not already tried. In fact, I found several "green" bloggers who attested to having tubes in their own ears as children (I did, too) and having tubes put in their childrens' ears with great improvement.

In the end, we went with the conventional treatment. We are OK with taking some unconventional or alternative routes but, in the end, his hearing is not something we were willing to risk. He had the surgery this Tuesday and is doing great. He says that he can hear much better. 

Has anyone else faced this decision with their children? Did you go with conventional or alternative treatment?

How I make kombucha

Have you heard of kombucha? It's a fermented drink made from tea and a live organism called a scoby, which is a bacteria or fungus. It sounds gross, and I'm not going to lie, it looks kinda gross too...but it tastes good! And the resulting tea is full of good bacteria (probiotics) that can help balance your stomach and strengthen your immune system.

My husband thinks I am a little crazy because this is what the scoby looks like the jar:

So while it is brewing I make sure the cloth I cover it with is long enough to hang over the edge and cover the organism.

How do I make kombucha?

1. Get a scoby and at least 1/2 a cup of the kombucha it created from someone. If you are interested in making your own and live in the Dallas area, let me know -- my scoby makes a baby each time I brew, so I should almost always have one available.

2. Brew black or green tea with at least 1/2 cup of sugar per 1/2 gallon. I have seen people say use only white, processed sugar, but I didn't know about that until after I brewed my 2nd batch and I used organic raw sugar both times. I think the white sugar keeps the possibility of contamination lower so I will use that going forward.

3. Put the tea into a glass jar and it sit out overnight to reach room temperature.

4. Wash your hands with apple cider vinegar. If you wash using traditional soap, even soap made with essential oils, the germ-killing properties of the soap can also kill the scoby!

5. Gently place the scoby into the jar and cover with a cloth or towel secured with a rubber band. You want it to get plenty of air but keep bugs out.

6. Put the jar in a warm (70 degrees or above) place out of direct sunlight. A friend of mine keeps hers in the pantry, but I have no room in my pantry and my cupboards are all colder than the rest of the house, so I keep mine on the counter because it is not in the sunlight.

7. Allow the kombucha to ferment until it reaches your desired strength or taste. It is ready when it has formed a baby scoby on top of the jar, but you can let it sit longer if you'd like.

When you are ready to drink it, you can refrigerate the kombucha if you want or drink it room temperature. I have noticed that it gets bitter fast when refrigerated, and I don't like the way it tastes, but some people do.

Things that can go wrong.
I killed my first scoby, I think because I forgot to add the sugar and tried to add it later. Either bacteria from the spoon I stirred it with or the stirring motion itself must have killed the scoby. You can tell that you have failed if your jar grows any kind of mold. Mold is NOT what you want. You will have to throw everything out and start over with clean jars and new tea. The good news is, you can compost the scoby.

I recently read an article on WebMD that claimed homemade kombucha is rather dangerous. I had actually not heard anything about this before and, as you might have noticed from my Instagram and Twitter, I have allowed my children to drink it. I do dilute what they get with water (because fermentation can create alcohol in the beverage, the equivalent to what you'd get with any fermenting fruit), so they get a very small amount. But they looooove it and ask for it. Little Lady goes so far as to try and take the jar down from the counter sometimes.

Basically, kombucha is one of those weird things that crunchy people do because it might be healthy or not. I don't know how long I'll keep it up, but it's nice for now. For more info on kombucha, my fellow Green Sister Tiffany Washko posted on NatureMoms about making kombucha also.

What do you think about kombucha? Yes or no?

A relaxing day with cheese

Since going dairy-free with my son almost 4 months ago, there is one thing that I miss a lot: CHEESE.
There was a time in my life when I could not imagine living without cheese. I used to buy fancy cheese and just eat it with crackers, all day long. Oh, glorious cheese.

So when some of us Dallas Moms Blog contributors were invited by Cabot to sample some cheese recipes and relax with a little yoga at Central Market, I said YES, PLEASE!

Check out the amazing food they served us:





Since we met in the Central Market Cooking School space, we each got to make our own cheese-inspired snacks. My favorite was these little strawberry bunnies sitting on top of cheese. My kids loved them!





Then we took a little time for yoga...

Thanks to Valerie of Charmed Valerie for taking the pictures of me and Cassidy Phan, fellow Dallas Moms Blog contributor, doing our yoga moves!

We were also given some Cabot cheeses to take home as well as a cutting board and two mini cheese cleavers. And flowers from Central Market!

It was a great time of mingling and relaxing, reminding us all that being healthy doesn't have to be a huge effort. In the spirit of simplicity and health, I'm including a simple recipe from Cabot for a "Munch Bowl", which is actually a great snack to put in a reusable snack bag and take with you for a quick lift any time of the day:

Munch Bowl

Ingredients:
1/3 cup red or green grapes
1/2 ounce Cabot Mild Lactose-Free Cheddar or Monterey Jack, cubed*
Heaping tablespoon roasted almonds

Directions:
Combine in small bowl or take "to go" in a reusable snack bag.

~~~~

For more pictures of the event, check out Regan Jones' Google+ album of the Dallas #CabotRNR Event!

Essential oils and cold/flu symptoms

I was offline for a while this weekend with the suspicion that I might have contracted the flu, since this year is supposedly an epidemic and I forgot to get my flu shot. I was just sure that someone in our family was going to get sick since I just published this post about Natural Cold and Flu Prevention and Treatment on Dallas Moms Blog. The minute I tell the whole internets that neither of my children has had anything more severe than a cough this season, I am just sure we'll be waiting in a doctor's office for some Tamiflu within the week.

Friday morning I did a more hardcore workout than usual -- the heat wasn't working in our studio, so I constructed a routine that would keep us warmed up and sweating throughout. Friday night I started to feel "off". Quick side note: the more often you work out, the faster you can tell when your body is off balance because you know you usually feel during and after workouts, and you can tell when you feel differently. That afternoon I had a green smoothie and took a nap. I immediately had my husband help me with Anna from Green Talk's hydrogen peroxide treatment! I went to bed with Thyme oil on my feet as well. Thyme is very effective in causing your body to sweat and purge out anything that might be starting to take hold.

I actually felt pretty good Saturday morning but quickly started to ache all over and I felt exhausted. I started to panic that I had the flu, but there was no fever. I took a warm shower and rubbed my neck and back muscles with lavender and peppermint oil, putting Thieves oil on my feet. I had another green smoothie and napped again (shout out to my husband who played with the kids while I treated my symptoms!). That evening, I took Young Living's Inner Defense, a supplement that makes me nauseated if I take it when I'm not sick but is good for warding off sickness if there is truly an immunity threat present. I took a bath with epsom salts, eucalyptus, and lavender oils. Epsom salt is great at soothing sore muscles and pulling out toxins, and the oils facilitate that effect. I again treated my feet with Thieves oil before bed. I have found that Thyme is so potent that it isn't wise to use it 2 nights in a row, I alternate it with another oil depending on my symptoms.

While I felt the worst on Saturday, by Sunday morning I was more or less normal! Which was good because I got a text at 7am saying that the instructor who usually teaches the 9am and 10:15am classes had a fever and I ended up teaching 3 Pilates classes on Sunday. By this time, I had no more achiness and I felt pretty good except for a pretty severe sinus headache. Unfortunately, I was in Plano all day and my essential oils were at home in Richardson.

By this time, I had identified that my symptoms were definitely seasonal allergies. Fortunately, I know what essential oils to use for allergies, so when I got home that afternoon I used my lavender and melaleuca (tea tree) oils. I also took another bath in epsom salts with eucalyptus and lavender to counter the achiness that was setting in from teaching three classes in a row. Again, I went to bed with Thieves on my feet.

It's Monday morning and I woke up (at 5am! to teach another class!) with a dry throat but absolutely no other symptoms. Did I cure myself of the flu? Probably not. Most likely, my workout Friday caused the achiness on Saturday, which means I did not have the flu. But it's clear that my immune system was compromised in some way, at some point, and I do think I was able to alleviate my symptoms and clear them up using my essential oils.

While this is definitely not a tutorial for how to cure yourself from the flu using essential oils, I hope it's at least a testimonial to how symptoms can be treated without conventional medications and how helpful and beneficial essential oils can be. Thanks, also, to Anna of Green Talk for her hydrogen peroxide treatment!

6 tips: switching from antiperspirant to natural deodorant

If the weather is still chilly where you are, now is the perfect time to get started on the switch from toxin-filled, potentially cancer-causing antiperspirant to a safer natural deodorant. I say this because the heat of summer is not exactly the time to work on preventing body odor while using natural products that work differently than what you've been accustomed to using. Get used to the difference now and you'll be a pro by the time the warm weather kicks in and you rely more heavily on your natural odor preventing routine.

It takes a little bit of experimentation to figure out what works for your body in a natural deodorant. If you've been using antiperspirant, you are accustomed to not sweating. A deodorant will allow you to sweat. The right deodorant will take care of the odor that the sweat would cause, but not the moisture. It took me a while to get used to that feeling, but after a while I learned to accept the way my body functions naturally.

Below are 6 tips that will help your transition from antiperspirant to deodorant go more smoothly:

1. Watch what you eat. If you are putting a lot of processed foods, white flour, heavy meats, and sugar into your body, the sweat that comes out is going to smell worse. Sweat is your pores' waste, and if you are putting junk in, you'll get junk out. Focus on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and a minimum of red meat and you will see a reduction in your body odor overall, even without deodorant.

2. Watch what you wear. Sleeveless tops are now your friends. Any shirt or top that fits tightly around the underarm is NOT. Think layers of looser fitting jackets or sweaters over tank tops, even in the summer. Or just a tank top. Whatever you do, avoid long sleeved body suits. Remember, any time you perspire there will be moisture.

3. Shave your underarms every day. Let me be the first to tell you that even though I am a fitness instructor and wear capri workout pants multiple times a week...I rarely shave my legs. Too much effort! But when it comes to underarms, I never take a break. Hair traps bacteria and, therefore, odor. Having any length of hair in your underarm area will exacerbate the odor causing bacteria that you want to avoid. So take a few seconds every morning to shave. Guys, I don't know what to tell ya...societal norms just aren't on your side on this one.

4. Find a brand that works for you. Everyone's body chemistry is different. What works for me (crystal deodorant first, followed by Nature's Gate solid) might not work for you, so experiment. But not with Tom's of Maine. I have heard from multiple readers and personal friends (as well as from my husband) that Tom's of Maine's "natural" deodorants are terribly, terribly ineffective overall. I realize that this brand is the easiest to obtain because it is manufactured by Colgate and is therefore in Walmarts and Targets nationwide, but please avoid it. Try nearly any other brand but this brand. Seriously. Trust me. Check GoodGuide and the EWG SkinDeep database for brand recommendations.

5. Try teas. In the summer, drinking iced peppermint or other mint teas will help to naturally cool your body from the inside, helping you to sweat less. In the winter, try warm teas such as chamomile to help calm and keep you hydrated.

6. Be committed. Because this is going to take some experimentation, keep your goals in mind. Why are you taking steps to clean your body and the way you live? For your health? For your children? Due to pregnancy or holistic treatment of chronic illness? Whatever the reasons are, realize that they will not change even when you encounter challenges.

I'd love for you to make the switch with me, and hopefully these tips will help with the transition.
Please let me know in the comments or via Facebook or Twitter if you do make the switch!

7 Quick Takes #47

--- 1 ---

This is going to be really fast because I need to go nap. I'm teaching at 6:30am 3 mornings a week now instead of only 2, and it's really hard for me to get up at 5am 3 days a week if I don't get enough sleep somehow. Naps have really been standing in lieu of going to bed early since we have so much going on most evenings.

--- 2 ---

Speaking of teaching Pilates, if you are in the Plano area and would like to try out our Megaformer Pilates classes, we are running a great special on VOICE Daily Deals here. I recommend the 3-pack deal. Come see us!

--- 3---

vIf you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, you know that I dyed my hair pink. Here's a quick pick I took just now wearing very little makeup.

I have discovered that this haircolor really looks better if I wear some kind of color on my lips but, oops, I wasn't doing that in this picture.

--- 4 ---

Hopefully this will be invisible to you, the readers, but I'll probably be migrating this blog to WordPress (it's on Blogger now) some time in the next few months. I am worried and reluctant to make this move, but there are reasons bigger than my personal preference that are involved. Some of the primary goals are to make the site much more usable for my readers, and make commenting easier.

--- 5 ---

Everyone here is freaked out about the flu, how about where you are? My friend EcoKaren did a great post today about natural ways to prevent the flu, aside from or in addition to vaccination. I highly recommend checking it out! As for handwashing, remember that last week I blogged about how to make your own antibacterial hand soap from essential oils and castille soap.

--- 6 ---

It's January 11 and I have already completed one of the items on my To Do List: making our family blog books for 2011 and 2012. They take about 2 weeks to arrive from the publisher. Can't wait to see how they turned out!

--- 7 ---

Have to give one last shout-out to my sponsor, Happy Feet, Healthy Body! Along the lines of flu prevention, remember that she has hand sanitizer pens made from essential oils. If you've just started a New Year's workout routine (or you take one of my classes, haha!), I highly recommend her Lavender bath salts - lavender soothes sore muscles and will help you sleep at night.


~~~
Well that's all for this week, be sure to visit Conversion Diary for links to more 7 Quick Takes Fridays.

Homemade Antibacterial Hand Soap with #EssentialOils

Looks like we are well into flu season and there are several nasty stomach bugs and upper respiratory things going around as well. Aside from keeping my kids home from school one of the two available weeks of preschool/Mother's Day Out in December (!) because I thought they might be getting the stomach thing (one random diarrhea and one vomited), no one ever got sick, and instead they ran around like crazy people not wanting to stay inside the house all day. Their immune systems are ridiculously strong, I guess? My husband, on the other hand, actually got pneumonia. The kids were never affected. I've had some ongoing coughing but I've been treating it with essentials oils and the usual immunity boosting supplements.

Anyway, regardless of how much Thieves oil you use or elderberry syrup you chug (we do both!), hand washing is always key to preventing the spread of whatever-is-out-there.

There has been a lot of concern in the green and medical community in the past 10 years about the overuse of antibacterial hand soap, particularly because it most often contains a chemical called Triclosan. Triclosan has been found to cause hormone disruption in animals and is currently being reviewed by the FDA for safety. Even the FDA's own site restates that antibacterial soaps may not provide significant benefit over plain soap and water.

Over here, we use plain ol' castille soap with peppermint essential oil, which I dilute at a 1:2 ratio with water and put into foam dispensers.

However, I will admit that after the salmonella incident with the chickens, I felt that we might need a little additional disinfecting property to our soap. Thieves oil blend contains antibacterial properties but, unlike Triclosan, does not interfere with the body's natural functions because it does not contain synthetic chemicals of any kind. You can order Thieves Oil hand soap from Young Living (I sell it, of course), but honestly I already had Thieves oil and soap, so.... I just made my own! Here's what I used:

Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castille Soap
2 drops Thieves blend essential oil
2-3 drops lemon essential oil
Foam hand soap dispenser (approx. 8-10 oz bottle)

My foam hand soap dispensers are all from commercial soaps I've bought in the past and used up. I have one for each of our bathrooms now, and one for the sink. For what it's worth, Clean Well is my favorite soap and dispenser (because the label comes off cleanly), but it's SUPER expensive and my homemade version is way cheaper!

I fill my soap dispenser 1/3 of the way with castille soap (this is a Method hand soap bottle).

Then I fill it the rest of the way with filtered water.

After that, I add the 2 drops of Thieves and 2-3 drops lemon.

SHAKE REALLY WELL.

Important: you'll notice a separation/settling of the content, so make sure you give the bottle a good shake now and then before using. I have also noticed that the mixture turns darker when exposed to sunlight -- essentials oils do degrade in sunlight -- so it is best to keep in shaded area out of direct sun or use a darker bottle (the older Clean Well bottles are tinted).

Let me know if you try this recipe, and what you think!


NOTE: Of course, I sell the essential oils mentioned in this post. No, I did not pay my own self to mention...myself. That doesn't even make sense, but the disclosure laws require me to say it. There are also links to various Amazon products in this post, and those are affiliate links. If you buy the products mentioned, I get 2 cents or something. About twice a year I get $10 from them, so any time you do buy a recommended product you are supporting this blog and my sad, horrible Amazon addiction.

To Do List 2013

Happy New Year! As you might remember from previous years, I don't do "resolutions" but I stole the idea of a yearly To Do list from Jennie. Much more satisfactory. Here are mine for 2013.

1. Finally make those reusable snack bags.
   I bought some nylon fabric and coordinating cotton probably almost a year ago and still haven't attempted to sew snack bags out of it. I had some awesome Snack Taxi snack bags for years and this year they both went MIA. I am ashamed to say that I am using plastic baggies more now, and I hate it. I need to just sit down at a few naptimes and sew some seams to solve this problem.


2. Print family blog books.
   I have a woefully neglected family blog that I go and back-date-post so that my children will have some semblance of a scrapbook type thing for our family. In 2009 and 2010 I used Blog2Print to print books for the year and they turned out very nicely. All this year I have had "2011 blog book" on my To Do list. And lookee here, now I have "2011 AND 2012 blog books" on my To Do list. I really need to do this, it's ridiculous. I think the amount of editing it takes is a little intimidating.


3. Meal planning.
   I hate that this shows up every year. I hate meal planning for picky toddlers that can't have soy or dairy and won't eat meat or beans. I hate planning and planning and still going over budget and me being the only one that eats anything I cook. That is all.


4. Patch some giant holes in our walls.
   When we moved into this house over a year ago, the baby gate at the top of the stairs was installed backwards, so we had to rip it off and re-install it correctly. Then the screws fell out of the wall and we had to re-drill. What is left is a horrible, horrible mess. I need to get some fine sandpaper, some spackle, and the original paint from the walls and repaint it. What has been stopping me is 1) the idea of going to Home Depot and tracking down some moron who doesn't understand what I am looking for, and 2) digging through our 800 cans of paint in the garage to figure out which one matches the stairway.


5. Repaint other messed up paint...or do something about it.
   When we moved in last year, the painters put latex paint on top of oil-based paint in our living room, which is a big no-no. As a result, pieces have been flaking off or been rubbed off. I have no idea how to fix this, but someone should. SOMEONE.


6. Do something about the front yard.
   We have giant bushes covering up our porch and half of the bushes are dead, it looks terrible. My first impulse was to rent a chainsaw and go at that stuff but I don't think Christian was super excited about that idea. Also, whatever it is needs to be pretty much FREE.


7. Go to the dentist.
   Without dental insurance since I quit my full time job in 2011, and having moved to the suburbs away from our former dentist practice (it was just a dentist-in-a-box anyway), I actually have not had my teeth cleaned or looked at since I was pregnant with Little Lady. I really need a teeth cleaning.


8. Take Little Sir to the dentist.
   Oh geez. I am dreading this way more than going to the dentist myself. Mostly because it is bound to be super expensive to go to a pediatric dentist without insurance. I freaking hate going to doctors that I feel are unnecessary so that they can tell me or my children that "everything looks fine". And that will be $1,000, thank you very much. uuuuuggh.


9. Try again with the garden.
   I have to keep trying, I guess.

There you go, I'll do posts about any of these things that I accomplish and update you again at the end of the year! What's on your to do list for 2013?

To Do List 2012: How did I do?

Oh look, it's almost 2013! Time to look back at my To Do List from 2012 and see if I accomplished any of it.

1. Eat better.
To make this a little more measurable, I'll just say that I want to get back to eating at least 5-7 whole fruits and veggies per day.
Sort of done. I have been doing a lot better as far as cutting out the extra sugar and carbs but I'm probably still not up to 5-7 veggies a day. Mostly because I give all the fruits and veggies in the house to my kids, and there are rarely any left for me. Those things are expensive! But I am still drinking my NingXia Red, which is packed with antioxidants, so I think that helps.

2. Resume meal planning.
I did pretty good with this probably 6 months out of the year, off and on.  At one point, I got depressed about how much money we spend on groceries and stopped even trying. Then we found out that Little Sir is dairy and soy intolerant and that threw another wrench in the planning because I can't use Food On The Table or eMeals since they all contain dairy ingredients that I can't always substitute. I am currently off the wagon. This is going to show up on the 2013 list again, dang it.

3. Regular exercise.
I want to aim for 3 days a week.
Oh thank God, one that I can actually cross off the list. Thanks to becoming a Lagree Fitness instructor at Ultimate Pilates Plano, I am now in better shape than I was before the kids. I actually do have six-pack abs, not lying. I would love to take pictures but that seems really indecent for a family-friendly blog. OK, I did take pictures in the mirror once but I haven't shown anyone. However, this is not bragging because it is very hard work and continues to be very challenging. It's not like I am saying "oh look, I have magically great abs! Whee! Be jealous!". Nooooo, I write routines that are specifically heavy on moves targeting my transverse abdominal muscles and my obliques, and I do those routines for 50 minutes, at least 3 times a week. And I must mention, I teach these routines in my classes so if you want to work on your post-baby body like I did...you know where I am!

4. Attempt monetization of this blog
"Attempt monetization" is not a very measurable goal, but let's just say I'll research and apply for some ad networks and work on ways that I could increase my readership. Such as participating in blogger link-ups.
First of all, I would like to give yet another shout-out to my wonderful sponsor Tanya of Happy Feet, Healthy Body who has an Etsy shop selling handmade bath and health products that are completely free of toxins but also provide the natural healing powers of essential oils. Please consider supporting this blog by purchasing her products! She has an excellent headache remedy and an amazing lavender lip balm that I use every night. And if you are in the Dallas area, she can even arrange for local delivery rather than paying for shipping.

I feel like I have done some positive work in this direction. I have also joined up with a number of other green bloggers via The Green Sisterhood and some closed Facebook groups. I actually don't participate in a ton of link-ups, but that is because I am very picky about my topics and I don't do a lot of giveaways. I feel like I am heading in the right direction and I'm looking forward to 2013!

5. Start potty learning with my son
This is pretty much done! Now that we've addressed the stomach issues of dairy and soy intolerance and provided both negative and positive incentives (positive alone did not inspire him), he has very few pee or poop accidents. Well, thank goodness that only took about 7 months.

6. Decorate the kids' rooms
I think they look a lot less bare now. I put the animal and letter decals up in my son's room and hung his name picture and handprints, and he accumulated a number of additional toys and books to fill up some of the extra space. I put up a lovely tree decal in my daughter's room and bought some curtains. She also got a bookcase with bins like brother's and a bureau for her clothes. I am sure I could do more but there's not a ton of space. I like what we have right now!

7. Plant a garden
Hahaha, that was pretty much a failure except for the bell peppers, but there is a good reason that I didn't specify that it had to be a successful garden. I ended up getting enough bell peppers that, when chopped, fill up a plastic baggie (I know, PLASTIC, I lose my green cred yet again) in the freezer. That is a significant crop considering how small they were. But they died in the snow on Christmas Day, so that's done. Since we have such a nice raised bed setup now, I'll try again next year.

Merry guilt-free Christmas!

We were excited to have a white Christmas this year, and so many things to be thankful for!

We celebrated here at our house with our family of four plus my brother-in-law, Garrett. For pictures and info about what we do as a family, you can always check out my family blog, which I am terrible at updating.

We had a great day full of presents and food, and while we spent very little money and chose the childrens' gifts conscientiously, there are a few that were plastic, and therefore not terribly "green". The majority of my son's gifts were actually secondhand, if that helps any. I'd rather not expose myself to green blogger criticism by going into detail about what we gave them, but be aware that we chose even those toys conscientiously because we felt that the experience outweighed the risks.

I don't have a beautiful picture of our entire family together wearing matching anything near a tree because I was unable to corral my children long enough to get anything like that, and honestly, they spent most of the time arguing and fighting (keepin' it real, here). Instead, I have this delicious picture of  the (vegan, soy-free) birthday cake they decorated for Jesus. Obviously, artificial colors were used in the toppings but no trans fats, dairy, or soy.

I hope that each of you had a wonderful, delicious, and guilt-free holiday! I'd love to hear your not-so-green confession in the comments.

I'll be back later this week to review the success or failure of my To Do List from 2012 and explore my new To Do List for 2013!

Taking our backyard back from the chickens

When we got our backyard chickens, we had rosy dreams of chickens roaming freely and happily throughout our large backyard just the way nature intended and the way that factory farmed chickens are never allowed to live.

Then we got the actual chickens and the amount of poop kind of blew me away. I mean, two chickens -- how much could they poop? And surely they'd mostly poop in the grass, right? The answer to those two questions is: an astronomical amount, and NO.

Those dang things poop aggressively anywhere they can squeeze their fluffy bodies into. Inside the garage in the 5 minutes that the door is open before I back the car out. On top of our picnic table. Directly on top of the back door mat so you step into it as you exit the house. And how they hide the poop in the garage when they manage to get in there so that I step in it on my way to the washer and dryer. NOT COOL, CHICKENS.

We thought we had it under control with our dogged dedication to handwashing and by purchasing backyard-only Crocs that were always taken off at the door to the house so that if anyone stepped in poop it never made it inside the house. We covered every dropping with loose sand from the sandbox and swept it away when it dried. We bought a power-washer for the concrete.

Despite one of my previous commenters' disparaging remarks, I really do not think it was unreasonable for us to assume that two chickens in 1/8 of an acre in full sunlight was a natural breeding ground for all kinds disease. In agrarian societies, humans and animals co-existed for centuries and still do on operating farms today.

Nevertheless, I think it was the sippy cups that really did us in. I like to make sure my kids are well hydrated so I let them carry their sippy cups with them wherever they are playing. Which, unfortunately, included outside. It never occurred to me that they might have been dropping those cups in infected areas and then touching them with their mouths and hands. Even after washing their hands, re-touching those cups again later might have been the cause of what happened: salmonella.

At least, we think it was salmonella. It was 2 weeks of diarrhea with no other symptoms for both kids. When we took Little Sir to the doctor (he was the first to exhibit symptoms), she mentioned that it looked a lot like salmonella but that since he hadn't been touching frogs or turtles, that couldn't be it. Then, either she or someone else casually mentioned chickens later...and I started putting it all together.

My first thought, of course, was to cook those chickens for making my babies sick. But I am a vegetarian and ethical slaughter would probably be expensive and time consuming.

Instead, we locked those chickens up in their coop and power-washed the entire back yard and some of the garage floor. SO MUCH POOP. The chickens were indignant and loud about it. I told them that they were lucky that they were not in a soup already.

This weekend, Christian built a little chicken run around their coop with some chicken wire.



I love it!

Another thing I love, unrelated to this post, is my new screen door for the backyard.



The weather is just now getting cool here in the Dallas area and the kids have been enjoying playing outside in their now-poop-free environment. The screen door makes it perfect because I can even work on dinner with the door wide open to hear them and the bugs won't get in. Both of them have even learned to open and close the door themselves! Big kids!

And that is the story of how we reclaimed our back yard from the chickens.

Need feedback: Future posts?

If you haven't been following this blog long (and a lot of you are new, thanks to Green Sisterhood, CottonBabies, and Dallas Moms Blog - hi! welcome!), you might not have noticed that since my last BlogHer, I've really been trying to focus the intention of this blog to be less random stream-of-consciousness, Jenny's-personal-thoughts-about-today and more eco-friendly and green. More Pin-able and less philosophical. Which is a smart and noble endeavor, I believe, especially since I really want to grow my blog to something more than 50 people that I've met IRL at some point in my life and who think I am weird enough to be amusing.

But then, things like last week happen. Where I have a lot of random thoughts in my head but none of them are relevant to my green living endeavors or long enough to be an entire blog post. In fact, a lot of them are probably bemoaning the ways I'm failing and can't seem to gain traction. So I just don't post at all. How is THAT helping my blog? To not post? Probably not much.

Yet, I have a lot of random things to share, which I often do on my blog's Facebook page (make sure you've "Like"ed me!).

• The defeat of Proposition 37 in California and what does that mean for our ability to be conscientious consumers? I think I am too unhappy that this failed to see a way out right now. The truth is, Prop 37 failed because a lot of big corporations have a lot of money and they had the advertising and lobby power to convince people in a tight economy that their overall health and ability to be informed is going to cost them too much. When the opposite is true. It's another case of Big Corp and Big Money winning and I am just so dang sick of being optimistic about that battle when it seems unrealistic.
• What is going on with my garden: it is actually currently producing a fairly good crop of tiny but healthy bell peppers! I think I will collect the entire crop, chop them up and freeze them, and make a stir fry. For one person. I already made these cute bell pepper eggs once. Only the pepper was so small that I made a little flower with all the rings instead...it's hard to describe and I didn't take a picture. Sorry.
• Free shipping with Shaklee. I buy some of my green cleaning products from my friend Jessica's Shaklee business, as you will find out if I ever finish my "Green My Routine: Cleaning" post. That's going to be a long one.
• Going dairy and soy free, in addition to already being vegetarian. OK, it's not me that's dairy and soy free, it's my son. Since we've taken him off dairy and soy his potty training poop issues have suddenly improved. It's been almost 5 days since he's had a poop accident. But, since he already refuses to eat meat of any kind or beans of any kind, removing dairy and soy presents seemingly insurmountable obstacles when it comes to his nutrition. He's already in the 40th percentile for weight. Shoot me now. I have no idea.
• Giving my children salmonella by mistake. It wasn't actually me, but our stupid backyard chickens. I swear, sometimes I consider cooking those chickens for dinner and I don't even eat meat. I believe what happened is that my children's sippy cups came into contact with the chicken poop that is EVERYWHERE in our backyard because those stupid birds are aggressive poopers. As in, you leave something out there for 5 minutes and when you come back there will most definitely be poop on it. Aggressive pooping. So we have confined them to an area of the yard. Pictures to come. And maybe I should blog about the salmonella you can get from backyard as a cautionary measure for other potential chicken owners? It's just all so embarassing.
• Operation Christmas Child. It's a worthy cause, we are excited about it. I took an emergency trip to Target and Whole Foods to get a ton of suitable and conscientious items and then we left our stupid box at home so we might have missed the deadline. Nice.

So maybe some of those bullet points deserve their own post but I'm feeling overwhelmed. Help me out. Which would you like to hear more about? And thanks for hanging in there with me!

Essential Oils for Allergies

In addition to preventing allergies by sinus rinsing, another great way to treat seasonal allergies without medication is by using essential oils. When I initially researched using essential oils for my allergies, I came across the following recipe:

Honey Lavender Allergy remedy

1 tbsp local honey
1-2 drops of food-grade Lavender essential oil

I put it on a spoon and swallow it. My kids actually LOVE this so much that my son lies about having allergies so that he can have it.

Two caveats to this recipe:

1) Make certain that the essential oil you are using is graded FS (Food Safe) or GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) by the FDA. Most oils you buy at a retail store will say "aromatherapy use only" - do not take these oils internally. Of course, you know that I sell Young Living oils. YL's Lavender is rated FS and GRAS by the FDA. Another brand that is FS/GRAS is DoTerra.

2) You want to make sure that you use honey from local bees. This is because the pollen they collect is from the local species of trees and flowers to which you are having a reaction. Having the pollen of plants from another area or state is not very helpful in assisting your body with the allergic reaction to local plants.

We have been using the above recipe with a great deal of success, but when allergens got really bad it wasn't enough for me. I was still getting sinus headaches.

One day a friend of mine who had just bought some Lavender oil from me through Young Living texted me saying she'd accidentally swallowed 5-6 drops of Lavender, instead of 1-2, when making the Honey Lavender remedy. She was worried that might be too much. I didn't think it sounded like too much but told her to look out for diarrhea, which can occur when you ingest too much of an essential oil. Then she texted back a short while later saying that her allergic reaction was really gone (and no potty related side effects)! As a result, I started doing this myself intentionally.

Stronger Allergy Remedy: 5-6 drops of Lavender essential oil

This one tastes TERRIBLE, I am not going to lie. Have a glass of something next to you that you can eat or drink. I suggest a cookie and some water or lemon or honey tea.

I also researched other allergy remedies using my essential oils reference book and found this one:

Topical Essential Oil Allergy Remedy

1 drop Lavender oil - apply to the base of the throat
1 drop Tea Tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) oil - apply to the base of the throat shortly after the Lavender

Apply each and tap with your finger pads over the area where applied and then tap right over your heart. This is the thymus area, and tapping on it is supposed to activate your immune responses, which are stimulated by the Lavender and Tea Tree oils. I have no idea if this is true, but I know that when I did this it helped my allergies!

Now, go forth and conquer this weather. Let me know if you try these remedies and they work as well for you as they did for me!

Sinus rinsing for seasonal allergies

A lot of people ask me about natural remedies for seasonal allergies, and one of my main responses is always: prevention through regular sinus rinsing. Of course, my favorite method is the neti pot, but if you have mental barriers to using the neti pot, a spray sinus cleanse is a good alternative.

Why sinus rinsing?
The key to preventing allergic reactions in the body is to stop the allergens from accumulating and incubating in your respiratory system in the first place. I might not be explaining this perfectly since I'm not a doctor, but here goes: allergens such as pollen, dust, or pet dander enter through your nose and mouth and are caught in the tiny hairs in your sinus passages. They hang out there, irritating your body. Your body launches "attacks" on these foreign bodies by manufacturing mucus, causing your eyes to itch and water, and a variety of other reactions meant to help your body rid itself of something it doesn't like.

To minimize these cleansing reactions, it is important to keep your sinus passages cleaned out as much as possible. A great way to do this is regular saline rinsing. Rinsing is the practice of sending a sterile  solution (most frequently salt-and-water) through the sinus cavities and back out, taking the irritants with the saline as it exits. The solution must be sterile so that you are not introducing additional irritants or bacteria via the rinse.

The options for rinsing
My option of choice is, of course, the neti pot. I have already written a post that covers how to use a neti pot, but the main advantages of neti pot, for me, are:

• inexpensive (I make my own solution)
• portable (I bring the empty pot and salt with me on airplanes in my carry-on)
• reusable (the neti pot itself can be reused indefinitely)

Disadvantages include:

• water used in the neti pot must be boiled (this is time consuming but I keep a carafe of pre-boiled water next to my bathroom sink)
• learning to use the neti pot takes a while (if you are doing it correctly the neti pot should not hurt)

If you find the neti pot difficult to use, another good option is a prepackaged saline nasal spray*. I actually use saline sprays such as Little Noses for my children since they are too little for the neti pot. However, many companies also make adult versions of a saline spray. With most sprays, you are moisturizing your sinuses, but aren't necessarily washing the irritants out. You're just making them wetter. If you follow a typical saline spray mist by vigorous nose blowing (which is what I have my kids do), it is a big help, but a better option would be to use an irrigation system that has a special nozzle creating a targeted stream (see illustration, right). The nozzle increases the force of the saline so that it shoots right back out of your nose, very much like a neti pot.

Advantages of using a prepackaged irrigation system include:

• Ease of use (ready to go out of the package)
• Solution is always sterile (provided you do not share containers to prevent cross contamination)

Disadvantages include:

• non-reusable
• difficulty in disposing of or recycling the container, creates a lot of waste
• more expensive

The things that makes me cringe about a saline spray option is that the end-of-life options for the materials are very bad. The entire container uses a lot of plastic, which can't be recycled. The canister itself utilizes compressed air of some kind, so technically you should not dispose of it in residential trash due to the danger of explosion from puncture in the trash compacting process. I guess your best bet would be to try and locate a facility that disposes of compressed air containers like hair spray, spray paint, and other similar products.

With that caveat, there is definitely a sinus rinse option that can help you this allergy season! If that's not enough, check back with me later and I'll have some essential oil solutions for seasonal allergies.


*NOTE: I was given a specific pre-packaged irrigation system for review for this post but the company was comfortable highlighting the disadvantages outlined. At their request, I have removed the name of their product from this post.  If you would like my recommendation on a pre-packaged irrigation system, please see the Amazon widget in the right column of the blog.

Easy Cool Whip alternative

If you're as adamant about avoiding trans fats as I am, you might find you've had to give up a few things altogether. For example, I haven't made a recipe requiring Cool Whip for years, because that stuff is full of hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup. Occasionally, I got a little bummed about it. Never so much as I did when it was still 90 degrees here in September but I found this amazing recipe for an iced pumpkin coffee drink!

Of course, a great alternative to Cool Whip is to whip regular whipping cream, which you buy in a carton much like you'd buy milk. You then whip it with a mixer and, if you want it to taste just like Cool Whip, you add some sugar and vanilla extract. It tastes great and avoids trans fats and HFCS. I'm not promising it's more healthy, because it contains plenty of its own natural fats and, well, you just added the sugar so you know that's in there.

The main thing that kept me from using whipped cream in lieu of Cool Whip was the inconvenience. First, just having to add that extra step of making sure I had whipping cream in my fridge (I never do, because I make desserts so rarely) often required an extra trip to the store. Then, having to whip the ENTIRE container and use it up before it went bad just never happened. And it definitely goes bad, because it is dairy and doesn't have all the preservatives in it that Cool Whip does.

At first, I researched buying a stainless steel cream whipper thingy. Those things are super cool, they use CO2 to poof up the whipping cream on-the-fly. They are also around $100 and you have to keep buying CO2 cartridges. Also, you still have to dump an entire carton of whipping cream into it and then use it up before the whipping cream goes bad. So really, it didn't solve any of my problems but it sure did look cool.

Then I thought, hey...Cool Whip is stored in the freezer and thawed when you need it -- can't I just do that with whipped cream? Duh. I have no idea why I didn't think of that sooner. I did it and it works great. It thaws well, just make sure you remember to set it out ahead of time (just like you would with Cool Whip).

So there you have it: a perfect alternative to Cool Whip's convenience with no trans fats or high fructose corn syrup.

To make: use heavy whipping cream to make whipped cream. The typical ratio from most recipe sites for whipped cream is to use 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract for every 1 cup of heavy whipping cream. Whip the cream until peaks form and then add the sugar and vanilla.

Freeze in a container with a tightly closed lid. I prefer glass because we're phasing out all-plastic containers at our house.

What will you use your whipping cream for this fall?

Green Sisterhood: All about arsenic in rice

Last week I briefly mentioned a new story about arsenic in rice, but didn't elaborate. It's a very important issue to our family, though, because we do eat a fair amount of rice. As you may or may not be aware, I've recently joined forces with some amazingly powerful green female bloggers, most of whom I met in person at BlogHer 2012 this year in NYC. We have joined together to form Green Sisterhood, a collection of green bloggers who work as a unit to create change and promote green living. One of these bloggers is Anna Hackman, who is kind enough to guest post today to give my readers more information about arsenic in rice and what we can do.

~~~~
Anna Hackman is the organizer of the Change.org arsenic in rice petition and thanks everyone who signs and gets the word out about the petition. She is also a sustainability consultant, co-founder of the Green Sisterhood, editor of Green Talk a green living and business blog, and obsessed gardener. But her most important job is being a mom of four boys.

Arsenic in rice is back in the news again. The latest report is from Consumer Reports’ study that revealed dangerous levels in both rice and products containing rice. The Consumer Reports study joins a long list of several prior studies, which includes the recent Dartmouth study. Despite all the studies, the FDA and the European Union have failed to act. This inaction prompted a petition calling on the FDA and EU to regulate arsenic in rice and by-products. We are all at risk. It is not simply a baby, gluten free or ethnic food but its byproduct is in many foods.

How did Arsenic get into rice in the first place? Arsenic is a naturally occurring element in the soil. However, inorganic arsenic is found in the soils that were contaminated by arsenic based pesticides and fertilizers, industrial districts or mining areas, municipal waste, or contaminated water.

Eighty percent of the rice is grown in the US is from the south central area on lands that were previously sprayed with arsenic pesticide to reduce cotton boll weevils. In addition, arsenic laden manure has been used as fertilizer. Arsenic remains in the soil. Due to the nature of how rice is grown in flooded waters, it sucks up the arsenic from the soil.

What is the danger? According to the EPA, the ingestion of inorganic arsenic can lead to cancer of the skin, bladder, liver, and lung. There are no studies of low levels long term arsenic exposure in food; however studies relating to low level arsenic exposure in water have shown increased likelihood of diabetes 2 and poorer neuropsychological functioning.

According to Michael Harbut, M.D., chief of the environmental cancer program at Karmanos Institute in Detroit, he suspects “there is an awful lot of chronic, low-level arsenic poisoning going on that’s never properly diagnosed.”

Why should YOU be concerned? You might be thinking, “I don’t eat rice so I can’t be affected.” Not true, since many products contain rice and its by products. Look for rice flour, brown rice syrup, and simply rice in the crackers, cereal, cereal bars, baby food, gluten free food, energy bars, and energy drinks just for starters. Worse yet, babies eat a lot of rice products such as cereals and needless to say, they are more sensitive to chemicals like arsenic.

Does it affect all rice? No. However, 80% of all rice grown in the US comes from areas where inorganic arsenic is an issue. However, this takes some legwork to know which rice products are safer than others. And It doesn’t matter if you only eat organic rice since arsenic is already in the soil before rice is planted.

What can you do to reduce Arsenic level? Consumer Reports recommends certain guidelines to limit your rice intake. But simply, wash your rice first and cook it in 6 parts water to 1 part rice. Read here for more tips, different grains to source, and how agricultural changes can reduce the problem.

But we need to change regulation by urging FDA to change the standard. Sign the petition asking for regulation. We should not have to agonize over the ingredients so that we don’t exceed the daily rice limitations recommended by Consumer Reports. And please share the petition with your friends and family (ten per day) right on the petition page. You can also share on Facebook, Twitter, and email. It takes a village.

On group fitness and motivation

It's been almost 5 months now since I became a certified Lagree Fitness Instructor and things are a little slow-going at the studio. As much as I am addicted to Pilates on the Megaformer and I LOVE what the workout has done for me physically, my morale was beginning to sag as I came into an empty studio every day and did my own routines...alone. When it comes to a workout as intense as the Lagree Megaformer workout, it becomes difficult to stay motivated to complete the workout alone, with no one urging you on. Music, however pumped-up it might be, can only take you so far.

In the past, I was never much of a fan of group fitness classes. For years when I was single, I worked out alone on the elliptical machines at the gym, or rollerbladed by myself, eventually working up to cycling with my husband. The closest I got to group fitness was yoga. As you might be aware, yoga is a very internal practice. The instructor motivates, but not in a harsh way. Practicing at your own level is always encouraged and discomfort is seen as a sign that modifications are needed. You can "plateau" in yoga if you want to, and it's kind of OK unless you decide to take it further of your own initiative.

Pilates on the Megaformer is completely different than all that. Have I mentioned the word "intense" 50 times yet? It is. In order to make it through 50 minutes of this workout, you need serious encouragement. This comes not only from the instructor and the tempo of the music, but also from the energy in the class atmosphere. I've found that I really NEED to be able to look over at the person next to me and think, "If she can do it, I can do it!", or I will give up from the pain. Sometimes, know that someone else is doing this too is all that keeps me going even though my legs, stomach, and arms are shaking from fatigue. And that, my friends, is how the workout is designed. Reaching that level is what causes this form of exercise to keep burning calories for 24-38 hours after you leave the studio. It's what keeps producing results as you go back. I love it!!

But, it's difficult to maintain alone.

I was feeling a little down and burnt out this weekend, when I heard that Sebastien Lagree would be teaching 4 special classes at the new Pilates Barre studio location at Preston and Forest in Dallas. Only 10 minutes from my house! I did some serious schedule rearranging and made it there to the 5:30pm class last night. I was like a great big geek meeting Sebastien, creator of Lagree Fitness and the Megaformer machine.

Me and Sebastien Lagree!!
I'm sure he doesn't know who I am aside from a weird geeky instructor fan :-)

Of course, there is no one like Sebastien to completely kick it into gear. The energy in that PACKED class was amazing and encouraging. My muscles were shaking probably 15 minutes into the 50 minute class but it was awesome. I came away very encouraged about this workout and what I do.

And now I'd like to draw a parallel to a life lesson about how having people around you who know you to encourage you is important in life as well as in fitness. When I was younger I never had that, but now I do and it has made all the difference in all areas of my life. I guess you could say that I've converted to being a big fan of group fitness, when before I was a fan of solitary workouts.

What about you? Have you noticed a difference in your motivation when you are surrounded with others who can encourage you?

Illness and what to do about it

 Ever since last Thursday, I've had some kind of weird stomach thing going on. It started out with 3 days of nausea, which always makes me paranoid since I'm terrible at tracking my cycles and I my first thought is always, "Oh no, I am somehow pregnant!". This has happened multiple times in the last year, which does make me wonder what the heck is up with my stomach.

In this particular case, the nausea progressed by Saturday into some really gross stuff. I won't go into it, but most of the things I was eating came right back out in some way or another.

Now the dilemma. Of course, I tried at first to just let it run its course. When it kept up for more than 2 hours nonstop, I tried herbal teas (chamomile and ginger) and essential oils (peppermint, applied to the stomach area). After 5 hours, nothing had changed so I progressed to Pepto Bismol. Here's where it gets a little iffy for me. I get annoyed to be taking a medication at all. I mean, what is even IN that hot pink stuff? Why is it hot pink?!

But then again, how long can I really be spending in the bathroom with two small children? And how long until I dehydrate at this point?

Long story short, the Pepto seemed to work at first but then...didn't. Either that, or I ate "real" food (shrimp) too soon and made myself sick all over again. I progressed to Immodium AD. Reached the maximum dosage for that and still saw no improvement.

I was in communication all afternoon with my mom and my herbalist/crunchy friend. My mom (a Registered Nurse) suggested going to a doctor, who would definitely give me some kind of medicine with a long medicine-y name that contains who-knows-what but would probably fix my stomach. However, since I don't really have a primary care doctor it would be Urgent Care, which our insurance pretty much consistently refuses to pay for.

My crunchy friend recommended seeing the chiropractor I just took my son to when he had tummy issues. It's true that she seems to have "fixed" him. We will see next week. I have never been to a chiropractor myself, although I take my kids, because it is way more expensive for adults. Unfortunately, the chiropractor is kind of hard to get in to see on short notice, is a 40 minute drive away, and her office doesn't even open until 2pm on Mondays. Oh, and I have no childcare for my kids whether I go to a conventional doctor or a chiropractor. Let me remind you how amazingly fun it is to bring two toddlers into a waiting room and a patient care room for hours on end when you're already incapacitated. Not so much.

Politics aside, what is the point of having "the best health care in the world" in this country if I can't figure out a way to get convenient and affordable treatment in a timely manner? The "green" side of the question is why I can't get more natural health care treatment at all. Why do I have to ingest mysterious chemicals? If I want to see a chiropractor, why do I pay cash because my insurance doesn't even apply?

I'd like to hear from both the crunchy and the un-crunchy folks here. What is your approach - conventional or alternative? And is it even feasible for a SAHM to go to the doctor at all?

All the Drama on the Internets Episode #3

Every so often I like to give you a bulleted list of some recent "green" stories in the news and why half of the people are excited to hear about the news or study and the other half are super offended by it for some reason. DRAMA ENSUES. Almost 100% of the time, I am somewhere in the middle. I just figured that some of you might want to know what's out there and read for yourselves. Just in case you aren't already immersed in social media 24/7 like I am...

Rice found to contain arsenic - Kind of a followup to the story a while back about how brown rice syrup used in toddler formula contained arsenic - great article about arsenic in rice at that time by Anna at Green Talk. Now Consumer Reports has confirmed that there are really high levels of arsenic in both white and brown rices, and they say that we should definitely be limiting our intake. Which sucks because my kids love rice. Then CR said that well, what if you just rinse it? So I have no idea. My family is probably full of arsenic. Probably the only thing we can do is sign my friend Anna's petition to the FDA to set limits on the arsenic levels allowed in rice.

BPA connected to obesity in white children - I don't think anyone in the "green" community is surprised that BPA exposure continues to turn up more and more negative effects. What I find depressing about this study is that even after all the evidence we have about the dangers of BPA, it has still not been banned in the U.S. And there are some arguments that the replacement chemicals in lieu of BPA are even worse than BPA because they are relatively untested. Companies wishing to ingratiate themselves to green-minded consumers removed BPA but substituted pretty much any random chemical they could find in their products just so they could slap "BPA free" on the label. For myself, I get discouraged at the slow process of banning such a damaging chemical, because it makes me worry how long it is going to take to remove other dangerous chemicals like phthalates. Are we going to have to go through this 10 year process of arguing whether or not every single chemical is "dangerous enough" before we stop marinating ourselves and our children in chemicals??

EWG releases "Green Cleaning Guide" - The same non-profit organization that provides us the Skin Deep Cosmetics database finally released a guide to cleaning products that rates them based on toxicity. At first, everyone was like, "Hooray! Now we have a definitive guide!". But now, all the green folks are all, "Hey, this guide is crappy because conventional (not "green") companies are getting good scores!". I think I have mentioned before how I feel about the EWG's rating system. I actually don't agree with their assessment on many of the cosmetics products, because they tend to assign ratings to products which also get the label "not enough data to determine". If you don't have enough data, don't assign a rating! On the other hand, if a conventional company makes a product that has fewer toxins than, say, Seventh Generation -- great! I am glad! I am not going to get mad because a big company "wins". It's a win for everyone if all companies remove more toxins from their products. I'm not going to be elitist about it, I just want the freaking chemicals gone, people. On a side note, I am making more and more of my cleaning products from essential oils, vinegar, and baking soda so this guide applies to me a lot less.

There you have it, now you're up to date on everything that I know for the moment. I'm sure by the time I hit "publish" there will be all new drama, and I'll be back with another update when there is!

Homemade honey beauty treatments

Last night I was excited to be part of a gathering of bloggers at one of my favorite businesses, spa habitat, in West Village in Dallas to meet with representatives from the National Honey Board. It was a wonderful evening full of sweet treats and homemade beauty treatments!

After the initial mingling, we each sat down with our plate of honey-based snacks to a number of natural ingredients laid out in front of us.

Amy Bohn, owner of all four spa habitat locations, guided us through the creation of four separate facial treatments using ordinary kitchen ingredients and honey!

It was fun and intimidating to be at an event where you take all your makeup off, but many of the bloggers were fearless. Here, Jennifer from Real Posh Mom demonstrates a treatment on her hand...

Here's Bella from Bellaesque, who looked absolutely glowing by the end of the evening, trying the Honey Facial Wash (recipe below):

Valerie from Charmed Valerie rubbing on the Honey-Lemon Holistic Purifying Treatment (recipe below):

I can't remember what treatment Farah from The Dallas Diva was trying here, but it looks fun!

Things just got messier and messier as we went along, and even I put some gooey stuff on my face.

Ultimately, I learned so much about honey! Did you know that new research has recently been published proving that skin treated with honey retains and maintains more moisture than skin that had not been treated with honey? And honey can be used in conjunction with essential oils for amazing natural beauty results.

To show you some of the things that can be done with honey, here are 4 of the recipes we made last night so that you can make them at home for yourself! Please feel free to share!

Honey Facial Wash

1 teaspoon honey
1 drop of lavender essential oil
Warm water

Place honey on the tips of your fingers, and add 1 drop of essential oil to the honey. Rub the honey on your fingertips to warm the honey. Massage the honey onto your dry face (avoiding your eye area). Allow the honey to sit on your face for a few minutes, then rinse off with warm water and a facial cloth.

Honey-Lemon Holistic Purifying Treatment

1⁄2 fresh lemon, sliced in half
3 to 4 drops of honey
Cold water

Add drops of honey to the lemon. Rub the lemon on your face, emphasizing the T-Zone area (nose, chin, etc.). Leave the lemon and honey mixture on your face for 5 minutes, then wash off with cold water.

Honey-Lemon Exfoliating and Moisturizing Facial Scrub

1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons fine salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons organic olive oil

Mix honey, salt, lemon juice and olive oil in a bowl. Massage into the skin for 2 minutes and then rinse with warm water and towel dry.

Moisturizing Honey Banana Mask

1 tablespoon of banana
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon plain Greek yogurt

Place banana, honey and yogurt into a bowl. Mash with a fork. Apply with your fingers to your face. Let dry for 20 to 30 minutes. Wash with a warm washcloth.

Enjoy!
And a big "thank you" to the National Honey Board, who can be found at Honey.com, and Amy at spa habitat for hosting!