New Blog

So I have made the jump over to wordpress. I like the features available for blogging better, especially if I decide to get my own domain or anything they make it particularly easy and will host it. I doubt this blog will ever become big enough to really warrant much monetary investment but it just a little hobby after all. My new address is http://chemistryofjoy.wordpress.com, and the blog has been renamed Chemistry of Joy. The title came from a quote that my yoga teacher, Linda, was reading from a book during Savasana, and it just sort of hit me. I don't just want to write about living green and reviews on products I use, although I think it is nice for others to be able to have that information out on the internet for them. I decided I wanted to write more about just every day life even and so I figured the title needed to be something more encompassing of that idea. It isn't just about my silly little car anymore and an attempt to live green. Who knows it could actually get interesting...my life that is. Afterall my husband and I have a bad habit of trying to do everything at once.

Honey, We Shrank His Penis.

Danger of phtalates, endocrine hormone disruptors, to development of male genitalia in utero, as well as advice on how to avoid phtalates.

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Homemade Baby Food

As I was preparing lunch for my daughter today I was considering the fact that since I have gone to making baby food at home, I have saved a considerable amount of money. At first I was hesitant about making baby food at home, I figured it would take a lot of time up, create a big mess (I am a good cook, or so my husband claims, but I have a tendency to leave the kitchen in quite a state of chaos).

But since I was curious and I had a gift certificate, I purchased the So Easy Baby Food Kit from Babies 'R Us for $37.99, it comes with a cookbook, two freezer trays with lids, DVD and nutritional information card. The kit claims you can make baby food easily in 30 minutes per week. I have not sat through the whole DVD so I cannot say much for it, I am sure it is helpful but unfortunately when I do sit down and pop in a DVD I would prefer it be a movie that I can enjoy with my husband.

Pros:

• The cookbook goes over everything from picking the produce, how to store them properly or even encourage them to ripen if they are not. It also includes various ways to cook the produce that you pick including microwave, baking, steaming, etc. The cookbook nicely divides foods into the month ranges that they should be first introduced and provides advice on combining foods, possible allergies, even spices. On the page of each item it includes a line to write the date introduced to your baby and notes.
  
• The trays are handy with their lids, instead of wrapping ice cube trays in cellophane.
• The nutrition cards are great, especially helpful to leave out for babysitters because they cover everything from sources of certain nutrients, age that food should be introduced, and first aid for choking. Big bonus is they are waterproof!

Cons:

• I was not aware when I purchased the kit that the 30 minutes a day was mainly dependent on microwaving all of the produce to cook it, as opposed to baking, steaming and other options. I am not a huge fan of microwaves and much prefer the control I have when I am baking or steaming so that the produce is not overcooked and could lose its valuable nutrients. While the cookbook gives the estimated time to prep each individual produce it is based on microwave times.
  
• The cookbook does not include meat recipes in it, but does include tofu which is a great source of protein.
• The ice trays included are the same pretty much as the conventional ice trays you can buy at a grocery or drug store, it would have been nice if they were slightly larger for serving size purposes. If at least one tray had larger cubes it would be wonderful for when your baby gets older and starts eating larger portions. Right now I end up feeding my daughter about 4-5 ice cubes per meal.

Overall I think it is a bit pricey for something that can be easily researched on the internet. I would like to include in this post a website that I think has some awesome recipes especially for toddlers. The website is Wholesomebabyfood.com, and I would highly recommend it, it also has some great articles on food allergies, sweeteners, and even recipe contests sometimes.

5 Ways to Keep Bisphenol A, or BPA, Out of Your Food

This will be it for me tonight, but I thought I would post this before retiring to go spend time with my husband. This relates to my post "BPA and Human Disease" as it mentions a couple basic ways to avoid BPA in your daily dietary habits other than just disposing of the plastic water bottles with the number 7 on the bottom. I think it is important to note as a mom who bottle feeds that the list includes using powder formula instead of the ready-to-serve kind. To find out more check out the article.

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Medicine Cabinet Au Naturale

I receive the Babycenter Bulletin in my inbox just for random updates and helpful hints on parenting. Yesterday I received their bulletin with a link titled "10 poisons found in every home", which led to an article "Poison-proofing your home". It started making my wheels turn about what could be done about some of the more obvious compounds you can find in your home that your children could possibly get their little hands on and ingest. I already have latches on all the cabinets, but there is always room for improvement. Since I already use all biodegradable natural cleaners, most of them either from Method or Shaklee, my medicine cabinet is the next area to tackle.

I found a little article on Gaiam Life as I was using StumbleUpon, it is titled "9 Holistic Remedies You need in Your Medicine Cabinet" and it includes some nice affordable holistic remedies. It contains holistic remedies that naturopathic doctors use at home and suggest that their patients use as well for everything from insomnia to athlete's foot. Some suggested additions to your medicine cabinet include simple things like Vitamin C for cold and flu, white vinegar for athlete's foot, arnica for bruises swelling and pain relief, and honey for cuts and dry skin. It is important to remember that not all natural products are safe for children, especially out of that list Vitamin C and especially arnica can be hazardous if ingested in large quantities. But overall the list appears to have far less toxic substances than the normal medicines I have in my first aid kit. To read the article which contains all 9 remedies, their uses, directions, and why they work click on the read more below link. Note I have just started using digg, as I figured it would be easier to link to articles that I find and want to post about here.

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Fountain of Youth?

Telomerase is an enzyme (indicated by the "-ase" ending) that adds DNA sequences to the three prime end of a DNA strand in the telomere region. Telomeres are condensed DNA material at the end of a DNA strand that provide structure to the DNA strand.

So what is the big deal about telomeres and telomerase you may ask? Why am I geeking out over scientific nonsense on an blog focusing mainly on an eco-friendly lifestyle? Well I am glad you ask (or you clicked on a link or typed in a url to lead yourself away from my blog already).

As we live our lives our cells are continuously replacing themselves and during this replication process, mitosis, DNA sequences usually within the telomere region are lost. Telomerase allows for the replacement of these regions of DNA. As we ag our level of telomerase declines as well as the length of our telomeres, which is part of what causes us to age.

In a study done by scientists and doctors at UCSF and the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Saulsalito, 30 prostate cancer patients were instructed to follow a low-fat diet, exercise moderately, and reduce their stress. Within a mere 3 months levels of telomerase, which was being concentrated on in the prostrate tissues of these patients, rose significantly. While the researchers can only speculate that the increased levels of telomerase are due to the change in lifestyle and are calling for a larger and more strictly controlled research project on this subject, their findings are encouraging for a couple reasons. Low levels of telomerase is often indicative of disease risk and premature death rates in cancer patients, and it is related to the natural aging process.

Dr. Dean Ornish, the director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and one of the leading researchers, has long been a proponent of a healthier lifestyle to prevent and even reverse certain diseases including heart disease. The findings of these researchers has been published in the British Lancet Oncology, and the article that I gleamed the information on this research project is titled "Changing diet, exercise found to extend lives" in the San Francisco Chronicle.

I can only hope that these types of research trials will encourage people to adopt a healthier lifestyle, even if it is for the vain goal of preventing themselves from aging. This in turn would help the earth since people wouldn't be consuming tons of unnecessary calories and wasting food that ends up in landfills along with the packaging for all of those food products and maybe even go outside and exercise instead of sitting in front of a screen of some sort or behind a steering wheel for most of their day. I would hope that it would be common sense to people that eating a well balanced diet, exercising, and reducing stress (the one thing I often fail at) is the best way to stay healthy, then again we are in an obesity epidemic in the United States.

BPA and Human Disease

Since BPA is technically an environmental concern if you consider anything that is around you as part of your environment, I figured it fitting to write about an article I was reading this morning that I found on http://news.google.com in the Science and Health section. The FDA is currently reviewing the possible health risks of BPA, or bisphenol-A, a chemical compound used to produce polycarbonate plastic a clear shatter-resistant plastic. BPA can be found in everything from the majority of baby bottles on the market to food utensils and even dental fillings.

In the Journal of the American Medical Association, British researchers have published a finding that indicates that the highest levels of BPA in 25% of adults was associated with these individuals being twice as likely to have heart disease and/or diabetes when compared with 25% of the sampled adults with the lowest levels of BPA. BPA levels were measured in a population of 1,455 U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 74 through blood and urine samples. The study has shown to correlate with previous studies found in animal laboratory tests, but there is still much research to be done to determine whether BPA is in fact the cause or the high levels found in urine and blood are a symptom of another problem. To read the full article click on the title, "Common Plastics Chemical Linked to Human Disease" by Michael Kahn.

While I am not trying to run around adding to the hysteria over BPA, I do think it is important to be hesistant about human made compounds that we consume and assimilate into our body.
All this does is to reaffirm the need for further study of BPA when it is related to human consumption especially when those consumers are young children who are still developing. While the government can say something is safe, I do not plan on gambling with the health of my children. Since I could not breastfeed due to medical reasons I made sure I went with BPA-free baby bottles. Companies including Born Free, Green to Grow, Dr. Brown's, and Nuby have BPA-free baby bottles and sippy cups available a local retailers and many online retailers. I just recently noticed Playtex has also jumped on the bandwagon and I anticipate that many other larger companies will too as this continues to be a concern for parents. And for all of us adults instead of using tons of disposable plastic bottles, which contain BPA, think about investing in a reusable bottle. Companies such as Sigg, Camelbak, and Nalgene all make bottles that are BPA-free and there are a variety of colors and sizes to match anyone's fashion and lifestyle.