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Could you make your home more healthy?

For many moms, once they get pregnant, they become aware of buying organic food and making healthy eating choices. At some point,  you may question your beauty care routine, the cleaners you use in your home and the toys your kids are chewing on. Our buying choices are not that simple these days. Today there are more than 80,000 chemicals registered for use in the U.S., many of which have not been tested for human safety. These toxic chemicals are entering our home environment, and we need to be educated to make the healthy choice.

Support the Chemical Safety Improvement Act

Postcards I wrote encouraging US Senators to support for the Chemical Safety Improvement Act.

This month I’m partnering with Seventh Generation and Healthy Child Healthy World to spread the message to support the Chemical Safety Improvement Act (CSIA) that is up for approval by congress. This bill hasn’t been changed in 35 years, and clearly times have changed. Remember all the baby bottle manufacturers that had to remove BPA in it’s products? It’s not because the government told them to, it’s because MOMS got together and were very loud and demanded a change. It would be awesome to see more Moms get together and voice their support for CSIA. You can learn more here and also show your support of updating the CSIA.  The stat that always jumps out to me is that there are 1328 chemicals in the European Union that have been banned….only 11 have been banned in the U.S. Let’s do something about it.

So are you ready to learn a little more about what to be aware of on product labels? Who can you trust? I got to participate in a virtual Healthy Baby Home Party and even I learned some new info about what to be concerned with. Turns out the “natural” unscented baby wipes I have been using have some questionable preservatives in them. I’m going to try out the Seventh Generation Wipes and see how we like them. (Seventh Generation baby products are now easily found at Target!)

We watched this video and it was eye-opening. What do you think?

Makes you think twice about the toys the kids are chewing on…especially in my case with a 5 month old teething baby.

Ready to learn a little more? Join in the Twitter chat next week on Thursday, November 14th at 1:00 EST.

Click here to join in and follow the conversation: http://twtvite.com/healthybabyhome

Join Seventh Generation for a fun, informative Twitter party to talk about all-natural baby product options! We’ll also talk about the Healthy Baby Home Party which give moms an interesting and engaging way to educate friends and family on topics like creating a healthy environment for the next generation. There will be a chance to win a month’s worth of diapers and wipes from Seventh Generation! There will be 5 winners, all chosen randomly from answering trivia questions.

Hashtag: #HealthyBabyHome

Hosts: @TheMotherhood, @TheMotherhood25, @CooperMunroe, @EmilyMcKhann

(If you are not following me on Twitter yet, you can find me here @EmilyARoach)

 

I participated in this program on behalf of Seventh Generation and The Motherhood. It’s a cause that means a lot to me and the more parents that speak up, the better it will be for the healthy of our children. And their children. All opinions shared here are my own.

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Eco News of the Week Feb 2013

I find myself perplexed sometimes when I hear the latest eco-news. Sometimes it scares me, other times it confuses me. This week there were so many articles I found interesting I thought I would share a few plus some advice.

What you should know about Tervis cups?

This article shares which Tervis cups are BPA free, and which are not. The popular tumblers have been BPA free since 1/1/11. I received a set of Tervis cups when I got married in 2005 so I think they will be moved to the top shelf so we don’t use them often. In the article, a representative from Tervis responds in the comment section discussing when each type of cup made the switch. I’m pretty skeptical of most plastics these days so I’m slowly converting all cups over to glass. Even the kids are using glass; Duralex Cupswork great. They have been dropped numerous times and haven’t broken.

Are you going to drink artificially sweetened milk?

Buying milk is already complicated. Organic, hormone-free, raw  milk, local, and conventional. These are just some of the choices we have to make. This week, a petition filed by the dairy industry is under review with the FDA to let them add artificial sweeteners to milk and other milk based products (yogurt, cheese, etc) and avoid having to label them. If you don’t let your kids have aspartame, which is  a rule for my house, it will be really difficult to figure it out. The sweeteners will be listed as “optional ingredients” and require no special labeling.  A few months ago, we switched to buying our milk from the local dairy farm. (We use Thatcher Farm.) I like that we are supporting a local business, the milk is super fresh, plus our glass bottles get reused.

Thatcher Farm Milk Glass Bottles Food Fight You Tube video

This little video takes aim at the world of processed food and beyond. It’s a story of urban gangsters fighting grocery store crimes. Makes me appreciate how easy it is for me to get access to healthy and fresh produce.

Turtleback making a switch to biodegradable plastic

Although some news is scary, other times it’s positive. One company making plastic drink holders for the beach is making an effort to switch to a biodegradable plastic. I wouldn’t call this an essential beach item by any means, but at least if people are going to buy them, they won’t end up in the ocean forever.

Are we really avoiding BPA?

This is one of those articles that is frustrating, but raises some issues. Even if you eat an organic diet, you still may end up with high levels of BPA/endocrine disruptors in your bloodstream. The two big culprits here are milk and spices. Two possible ways to fix it~ buy milk in glass bottles and switch spices to glass containers. Spices just look prettier in glass jars anyways.

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What Level of Green Are You?

This little video about “green shoppers” made me smile.  I’m constantly thinking about the question, what shade of green are you? There are so many different factors that come into play when you live a sustainable, or green, lifestyle. It can be hard to do it all. Food, clothing, car choice, baby products, face creams, and the list goes on and on. Sometimes we just need to take a step back and laugh at how complicated things have become.

What do you think of the video?

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