green babies, hold the mandrake

[thanate]

I had a moment to browse a different bit of the library than I'm usually in a few weeks back, and picked up a book entitled "Growing Up Green!" out of the childcare section. (Uh, it was the right amount below eye-level?) It purports to be (someone unsettlingly) about "greening your baby"* which I interpreted to be a more tactful wording for how to make raising a kid a little less environmentally irresponsible, which is a topic of potential relevance to my interests. Well... it turns out to be mainly about how not to expose your kids to the world of Horrible Toxins.

I'm of two minds about that one. I mean, there are a whole lot of weird artificially created substances out there, many of which are being billed as edible or useful for growing or storing food, often with large sections of the world turning out to be unintended test studies for things nobody much thought to worry about. There are ridiculously complex nuances to diet and healthy life that we don't even *know* yet, and corporations like Monsanto aren't the least bit interested in worrying about that kind of research.

But on the flip side... 150 years ago there might have been nothing but organically grown food out there, but the only people in the US without significant amounts of lead deposited in their bones were those who were too dirt poor to be eating off (lead) glazed dishes with pewter cups and cutlery. Up through the early 20th century, people regularly got stomach cancer from surviving on pickled & canned greens all winter for lack of fresh. We are such an oversanitized society that kids frequently end up with autoimmune disorders because they never get a chance to build a healthy immune system.** I may well have a lead-contaminated house by modern standards (built in 1930, layers of old paint on top of peeling wallpaper) but the dishes are clean, and nobody here is going to get cholera in the summer.

So I have a bit of a hard time taking someone seriously when she advocates throwing away my microwave because it only promotes instant meals cooked in plastic-- and if I must have one, never cook anything covered (because that requires plastic wrap?), and please put it at head height so it can irradiate my brain, not my reproductive system. (Ok, that might be my wording... but the point was made.) As it happens, the #1 thing my microwave gets used for is heating up tea so I stay hydrated. After that, there's cooking oatmeal in ceramic bowls or steaming corn on the cob (with a few husks left on to keep the steam in) and veggies or casserole, also in ceramic or glass dishes. None of these things involve plasticizers, and all of them are more resource efficient (not to mention fractional cents cheaper) than turning on the stove long enough to boil large quantities of water.

I haven't taken the book back to the library yet, but I haven't finished it, either. Knowledge is good to have... but when the author starts pulling out straw-man questions like "What is a genetic epidemic?"*** I start to get the feeling that I'm really not the intended audience here.


*Not sure if I think this sounds more akin to turning the child orange by feeding it too many carrots or whitewashing a fence, but either way probably not quite what they had in mind.

**Also of interest, a rather fascinating article on geophagy, and its possible utility

***Answer, presented in the same paragraph: reputable doctors agree there's no such thing. Uh, yeah, I could have told you that. Unless you're talking about something like hemophilia, which she wasn't.

Comments

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

I feel much the same way, even though I work in the wellness field! Alas, many treat wellness as a cult membership. Failure to adhere to the most radical and stringent of beliefs and behaviors makes one impure and unworthy. I know folks who will likely die of stress, related to their obsessive need for purity, long before the toxins get them.

On the other hand, the toxin issue hinges as much on what our diet lacks as what our environment contains. Forex, most of our veggies lack minerals such as calcium--and calcium is the natural way to displace lead in the body.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Yeah-- the other thing this lady said that threw me for a loop was advocating dairy-free babies so that you don't transmit any toxins from either the dairy industry or the mother's diet. And while I don't have a lot of good things to say about the modern dairy industry, I just don't see soy as a logical substitute, particularly for people of mostly northern European heritage. And then she brings out testimonials like the lady who's bragging that her soy-raised baby has never been sick in its life, and my first reaction is to worry about what's going to happen to that kid once it hits the germ-fields of elementary school.

Do you have any recommended reading/resources for what actually is worth worrying about or being aware of?

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaargh! Advocating soy in place of any other feeding option...? When there are ongoing studies into the affects of its estrogenic effects?? Just, argh.

I've yet to find a balanced, comprehensive resource that covers the major bases. Most fall into either the "run to the doctor if your child sniffles!" category, or the "raise your child in an isolated bubble!" category. The truth is somewhere in between. I follow a bunch of different journals, which tends to balance things out.

I tell parents to feed their children real food, in as a wide a variety as possible, as often as possible. If they choose to use processed foods, the best guide is to count the listed ingredients rather than try to decipher them. Limit exposure to environmental and food-borne hormones and toxins as much as possible, yet realize we live in a naturally and un-naturally toxic world. Mitigate the impact with high nutritional intake.

Hmm. Maybe I'll post one of my old wellness articles on my LJ.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Admittedly the book is almost a decade old, and the author was mainly pushing no dairy (it was just the particular testimonial that was soy-specific.)

Wellness articles would be cool. :) (although your advice-so-far sounds about like my usual plan for health & nutrition, so that's nice.)