Change Becomes Change

Quick Tips for National Cancer Prevention Month

The following was originally posted at Healthy Child Healthy World whose mission is to ignite a movement that inspires parents to protect young children from harmful chemicals. Cancer and chemicals are important issues for our family and this article provides easy tips to reduce our risk of cancer by reducing our exposure to chemicals.

February is National Cancer Prevention Month and while most everyone focuses on diet, exercise, and quitting smoking as the core ways to prevent cancer – they’re forgetting another pillar of prevention. Reducing exposure to carcinogens in our everyday environments.

Hundreds of carcinogenic chemicals have been identified and, unfortunately, they’re quite common in our air, water, food, and everyday products. Here are some easy ways you can reduce your exposure to them.

1. Purge Plastics. Reduce exposure to carcinogens in plastics used for storing and serving food. Avoid microwaving food in plastic or putting plastics in the dishwasher, because heat may cause chemicals to leach out. And opt for safer plastics - those marked (usually at the bottom of a container) 1, 2, 4 or 5. The plastics to avoid are those numbered 3, 6 and 7 (unless they are also marked 'BPA-free')."



2. Eat Healthy. Opt for more organic, whole foods. Ease up on animal fats. And, start reading labels. You are what you eat!



3. Manage Pests Safely. Instead of using toxic pesticides, prevent pests by keeping a clean home. Prevent weeds by using mulch and maintaining a healthy lawn. If you do have a problem, opt for non-toxic methods before reaching for chemicals.



4. Detoxify Your Beauty Routine. Personal care products contain a laundry list of suspect chemicals. Reduce how much you use and to use Skin Deep to find the safest products. You can also print the Healthy Child Pocket Guide to help you on the go.



5. Clean Without Toxic Chemicals. Use gentle castile soap and water - these have been shown to keep surfaces as free of bacteria as antibacterial soaps do. In fact, antibacterial soaps and disposable wipes have not proven any more effective than regular soap in preventing infections among average consumers, but raise significant concerns about developing resistant bacteria. Opt for simple kitchen ingredients for basic cleaning, like vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda - or use natural, non-toxic cleaners instead.

Are You Watching Serving Sizes?

With childhood obesity and health care reform hot topics for our government, we should expect to see new legislature aiming to help Americans better identify what's good for us, and what's not, so that we're better equipped to make smart decisions. One example is front-of-package nutrition labeling, where serving size and nutritional information will be more prominently labeled.

The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is looking at the current information on those labels, like serving size, compared to how we really eat. Would you be surprised to hear that we're not following the serving size recommendation? And guess what that means?

We're taking in more calories, fat and sodium because we're eating larger portions. Now, if you sit down with your bag of chips and really think about this, it makes sense, right? But who does that? How many people are counting their number of chips at a friends' house? Do you know how to divide a big tub of ice cream into 16 equal servings? Does anyone have just one chocolate kiss?

That's not how we eat. We don't measure as often as we probably should if we're truly concerned about watching calories, fat and sodium. Not only will our pocket books feel this, our health is in jeopardy.

According to the NY Times, the serving size for most children’s breakfast cereals is three-quarters of a cup, yet most children are eating two to three cups per meal. The sugar, fat and calorie contents are typically high to begin with - should we be giving them even more? Is that how we want our children starting their day?

To be honest, more realistic serving sizes will be challenging at first. We will intuitively feel like we're getting less or consuming more calories with the old amount of food. Food manufacturers might see some backlash initially. The media will have fun with it.

But it's a good thing. We need a reality check on portion sizing and improving our nation's health. This is one of many steps to get there. Many.

Starting Again

I can't believe that it's a year since we started Change Becomes Change as part of our family Lenten project to do nice deeds for others. We've all learned a lot over the past year and have grown closer as a family in our service journey.

I know we're doing good work in our community and I see little signs that our efforts are also making an impression on the children. We had a special family Valentine's dinner and we each shared what we love about our family. My son said: that we help others.

That kid knows just how to get me all choked up

That same evening we started talking about what we wanted to do for Lent this year. Do we want to make a sacrifice and give something up? Do we want to serve others? It was a unanimous decision to find ways to touch another life each of the next 40 days in a special way.

We generated some new ideas and the kids offered up some of their favorites like feeding the hungry, calling grandparents more often, filling other people's buckets and picking up trash. I was pleased to see that they could reflect back on the past year and recall some of the good deeds they'd accomplished and how good it felt to help.

For today, they bought food for the hungry after school and made special notes for their grandparents who are coming to visit. We'll be sharing some of the new ideas that we're excited about very soon...so stay tuned.

We'd also love to hear of some new ideas you have to get your children involved in helping others. What have you done with your family? 

Here are some of our favorite ways that we've helped others this past year:

Doing Good with One Click

The Little Things That Count

Feeding the Homeless

Building a Hunger Garden

We Are The World

Can you believe that it's been 25 years since the original We Are the World song and video was recorded?  The cause in need was Africa and the artists included Michael Jackson,Lionel Richie, Diana Ross, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Cindi Lauper and many more.

Fast forward to January 2010 and the tragic earthquake in Haiti. The need is just as great. People around the world are coming together to help this small country in trouble.

If you haven't seen the new We Are The World, check it out here. We watched it many times over the weekend, enough that my children are now walking around the house singing it. The images from Haiti is powerful, even for my young ones, and the words carry much meaning. 

I hope you'll also visit the YouTube channel HERE to catch some of the behind the scenes clips and interviews, as well as find an opportunity to help.

If you can't view this in your reader or email, just click here.

Showing Our Love

In case you haven't looked at your calendar lately, Valentine's Day is this weekend. Before you run out to the Hallmark store, think about this:

What do you have from previous Valentine's Days? All the cards? Gifts? Flowers? Empty candy boxes? Heart-shaped soap? 

Do you even remember what gifts you received in previous years and who gave them to you? Do you remember what gifts you gave, and to whom?

What DO YOU REMEMBER?

Let's Get Movin'

For the first time in our history, the United States is raising a generation of children who may live sicker, shorter lives than their parents. Why? Childhood obesity threatens the health and future of our children. It's time to get moving to fight this epidemic!

Literally. Oh, and our partner in this is First Lady, Michelle Obama. Pretty cool, huh? Yeah, I've been a bit giddy since I first heard of this initiative last week and previewed it here.

From the Let's Move site:

Let's Move! has an ambitious but important goal: to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation. 

Let’s Move will give parents the support they need, provide healthier food in schools, help our kids to be more physically active, and make healthy, affordable food available in every part of our country.

Specifically, with Let's Move she wants to improve nutrition and physical education in schools; promote activity such as walking and biking in community planning; make healthy food more available, particularly in poor areas; and make nutrition information on food packages clearer.

There have been previous efforts (by many) at chipping away at the problems:

• some food manufacturers have curbed marketing to children, decreased the salt and sugar content in some foods, and sought to remove trans fats from their products

• select cities and states have required restaurants to post the calorie and fat content of their offerings

• many parent and health organizations have tried to remove sugary drinks and salty snacks in school vending machines

• a group of food manufacturers attempted to advise consumers on "Smart Choices" in the aisles before the FDA claimed their labels were misleading
  

• fast food chains like McDonald's and Jack in the Box have added produce options for their kids meals
  

But childhood obesity hasn't gone away. Our kids still face life-long disease and health challenges. These are big problems, needing collaboration, ideas and a lot of hard work from everyone involved with children, food and health. 

Stay tuned. I'm sure there's more to come very soon. Until then...get your kids, grandkids or friends moving.

Cooking with Kids: How Are You Growing Lil' Foodies?

I want to share with you some of the incredible work that my friend Michelle is doing to encourage parents cook with their children. Michelle owns a company called What's Cooking that offers healthy cooking classes to kids in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her classes teach kids and their families to enjoy delicious home-made foods, and motivate families to use food and cooking to help those less fortunate. She just started a new feature on her website called What's Cooking With YOUR Kids to showcase how other families are doing this. Here's some of my recent chat with Michelle to learn more about this project:

What was your inspiration?

My What's Cooking with YOUR Kids program was inspired by a blog series on The Perfect Pantry, called "Other People's Pantries".  Readers send Lydia photos of their food pantries and cabinets, and share tips on what type of items are helpful to have on hand and how to stay organized.  It is a fun way for us to see how other people are "doing it."

For me, I was curious about whether or not people are cooking with their kids.  If they are, I wanted to get a glimpse through their virtual kitchen window to see what they were up to.  What types of recipes were they making together?  Do they only make "kid food" or do they make their family meals together?  Did they have tips on where their kids should stand or on jobs their kids felt comfortable doing in the kitchen?  Did anything funny or disgusting ever happen?  

What are you hoping to accomplish?

I think that deep down, many people doubt their abilities in the kitchen - and are therefore nervous about cooking with their kids.  Or, maybe they are great cooks, but are unsure about how to "teach" their kids or make it safe for them to participate.  By starting this series, my goal was to show lots of success stories, so that we could inspire others to give it a shot.  I would love it if someone were to read these posts and say, "hey - if she can do it with her 3 kids, I can do it too!"  Or maybe someone will realize that kids can make more than just cookies!  They can help you prepare the veggies for your stir-fry or they can become Head Salad Maker of your household.

Why is it important to cook with our kids?

I could probably go on for days about why I think it's important for children to learn to cook - especially with their families.  But if I were to give you the super-duper abbreviated edition, I would start by saying that it gives kids the experience to make good food choices for the rest of their lives.  They can learn that their choice of ingredients can not only affect their personal health, but it can effect the environment, too.  Plus, kids who get the opportunity to cook are exposed to a greater variety of flavors and become better eaters.  They also get to spend quality time with the family - which is hard to come by, these days (with such a prevalence of t.v., video games, etc.). 

How can families share how they're cooking with their kids on your site?

So far, I have received a variety of submissions.  I adore when photos are included - they really make these stories come to life.  Some people share silly stories, while others share touching tales of culinary wisdom being passed down from one generation to another. But all of them are wonderful - and will speak differently to each of my readers. You can submit yours by sending a note to Michelle(at)WhatsCooking(dot)info

We hope you're cooking, baking and having fun with your kids in the kitchen too!

Michelle Obama Tackles Childhood Obesity

Our first lady has recently announced that she’s launching an initiative this month to bring solutions and improvement to a growing problem in America: childhood obesity.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16% of children (over 9 million) 6 to 19 years old are overweight or obese -- a number that has tripled since 1980 - another 15% were considered at risk of becoming overweight.

Over the past three decades the childhood obesity rate has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2 to 5 years and adolescents aged 12 to 19 years, and it has more than tripled for children aged 6-11 years. Overweight adolescents have a 70% chance of becoming overweight or obese adults. This increases to 80% if one or more parent is overweight or obese.

She has her work cut out for her, to say the least. But if our children, and their children, have a chance, it’s going to take the muscle that those strong first-lady arms hold to tackle this one.

How did we get here? Experts say poor nutrition and lack of movement. Instead of riding their bikes ‘till the street lights come on, kids today are often playing computer games. Physical education and sport programs have been cut from many schools. One-third of children ages 4 to 19 eat fast food every day. And have you looked at the lunches served in the school cafeteria lately?

From USA Today: 

Michelle Obama, speaking at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said the idea was simple: "To put in place common-sense initiatives and solutions that empower families and communities to make healthy decisions for their kids".

The initiative will involve the federal government working with local officials and leaders in the business and non-profit sectors, she said, to provide more nutritious food in schools, allow more opportunities for kids to be physically active and give more communities access to affordable, healthful food.

Mrs Obama is hopeful and has high ambitions. She believes that parents want healthier lives for their children but don’t always know what to do. Choices at the market can be confusing and difficult to make. Some low-income areas are what experts refer to as “food deserts” – convenience stores might be the best choice for food options and we all know how fresh and healthy food is there.

In our own communities, there are simple things we can all do to help support this initiative:

• Fight to keep physical education in our schools (how about nutrition class too?)

• Demand that schools remove sodas and vending machines full of sugary, salty snacks

• Break-down obstacles to walk or bike to school

• Support your local YMCA and rec center programs

I’m in this fight…are you?

 

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What Do Farmers Eat...and Avoid?

I've shared with you a few times here the reasons we buy fresh, organic foods, but those are our personal opinions and reasons. Even though I consider myself to be educated in this area, those are still my opinions and I'll admit that I'm passionate around local, organic real foods. So who's opinion matters to you? Who do you trust?

When I'm not sure or have a new question, I look to the food experts that are well-known in the industry and well-respected by the food community. I also like knowing how growers feel and what they're eating at home with their family.

As you can probably imagine, I was very interested, and curious, when I came across this headline: The 7 Foods Experts Won't Eat. I had to know: what could be so horrible that farmers, doctors and scientists wouldn't eat?

If you enjoy tomatoes, beef, popcorn, potatoes, salmon, milk or apples (and who doesn't love at least one of those?) I urge you to READ THIS NOW. It's a quick read and may affect your next trip to the grocery store. I know it's changed ours.

I hope you'll come back here and leave a comment below to let us know if you'll make a change too.