Sugar- The Big Sweet White Lie

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With such a focus on the organic food movement, I find it so surprising that so many people, even seemingly well-informed, health conscious people, are so uninformed about the disastrous health effects of sugar.

I'll be the first to admit it, I'd been a sugar addict most of my life! This vice runs strong in my family and I struggle with it at times… Make no mistake about this; sugar is an addiction you'd do well to break your family of sooner than later.

Refined sugar is a derivative of sugar cane or sugar beets that is stripped of all fiber, enzymes and vitamins. From there, the resulting product is chemically processed which alters the sugar and leaves behind chemical by-products. The resulting form is rendered so toxic and unnatural to the body that the immune system must work overtime just to process it. Unnatural levels of insulin produced by this processing throws immunity, among other bodily functions off balance. It's estimated that, the amount of sugar found in just one candy bar can lower the body's immune defenses by 40% in as short as half an hour! Among a host of other serious consequences of habitual sugar consumption, research has also linked white sugar use to serious conditions such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Cancer and ADHD.

I was going to write more of a research article for this blog, citing a few more of the ill effects sugar has on our system each time we consume it, but I stumbled on this simple yet comprehensive article listing 141 more reasons you should not eat sugar along with supporting research cited at the end! Check it out!

Other forms of sugar such as honey, fructose, maple syrup, agave syrup and molasses in their pure forms cause a similar insulin spike but studies suggest that it is to a smaller, less dramatic degree than white sugar, not causing the severe imbalance in the body when used in moderation. Additionally these sugars in their raw forms do not contain the by-products of chemical processing and they actually do have nutritional value (of varying degrees, depending on type and form of the sweetener).

Highly processed forms of these however can be just as dangerous as refined sugar, and are added to a large portion of processed foods, think high fructose corn syrup and maltose. Once I started looking, I realized that dangerous processed sugar was added to about everything I ate in one form or another. This fact alone prompted me to stop eating processed foods too… Well not so much that fact alone. I had quit sugar for one month entirely and had never felt or looked healthier. To start eating processed foods again would mean to start eating bad sugars again and to me it just wasn't worth it! Most processed foods aren't very healthy for you anyway, sugar or no sugar.

What about artificial sweeteners, you ask? Ugh, please don't do it! So many reasons that these chemical sweeteners are just plain TERRIBLE for your health but that's a whole other blog post!

I mean, of course it's great to eat organic, and eat from the 5 food groups, etc, etc, etc. BUT, just realize that just because the bar is "granola" and the label says "organic" does not a virtuous food make! Even worse is when the tub is "ice cream" and the label says "sugar free" but again, another post, another day…

There are just some foods that are not even a good idea in moderation. By just cutting out the refined sugar in your family's diet you can be eating that much healthier today with positive health consequences immediately noticeable! Sugar withdrawals will be tough at first, especially for the kids. Try to keep a lot of dried fruit and trail mixes (no sugar added of course) and fresh fruit in the house at first, as a quick, healthy fix of good sugars. Once you get the ball rolling you'll wonder how you ever lived otherwise.

On her first birthday my daughter got her first taste of refined sugar. I had baked a flourless chocolate cake just to see how she'd react to the whole birthday experience. The only dark chocolate bar I could find in a pinch had some white sugar, and for the rest of the recipe I substituted sugar for equal parts honey… Not exactly a picture of healthy eating but what can I say??? Well, me and the hubby enjoyed the cake anyway. Baby took one bite then threw it off her highchair, and proceeded to eat the garnish of berries! OK, so it was probably a really rich cake for a baby but it still made me happy inside! I know it's idealistic to think that I can keep a toddler away from sugar forever but according to a theory of Dr Sears' if you can just keep the kiddies fed optimally for at least the first 3 years of life they will not develop a craving for unhealthy foods. So far, so good here, so perhaps that bit of info will inspire hope in you as well!

Protecting the Gift - A Quick View Book Review

Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane)

by Gavin De Becker

**** Stars of 5, Highly Recommend!

I really liked this book. It is a book of empowerment for us as parents which centers on enabling to our children of all ages with the authority and tools keep themselves safe. De Becker, a security consultant and survivor of childhood abuse/dysfunctional family, uses his experience in his field, personal anecdotes and the true stories of others to put together a very engaging and informative read. The only shortcoming in this book for me was that it contained a great deal of true-story type accounts. Although they illustrate his points well, I would have liked to see a little more research information and statistical data to back up his experience and theories instead of so many of these. A perfect read for me has a better balance of the two.

The author draws on his personal and professional experience to show us where the more statistically probable dangers for our family are (rather than the more sensationalized top news story type parental worries like kidnapping, YAY De Becker!), how to use instinct, information and critical thinking to assess risk to make the best possible judgment call, while having our kids empowered with the tools they need to keep themselves safe. Being empowered by his philosophy of knowledge and awareness with the triple-protection method described above has made all the difference to my peace of mind!

Contents

Chapter One; The Search for Certainty- Here, De Becker addresses some of the common concerns that parents have and gives a general overview of his views, his work and this book.

Chapter Two; Intuition- The Source of Safety- As the title would suggest, De Becker is a big proponent of intuition as a tool for protecting our children. He claims everyone has the gift of intuition as a tool for prediction of danger, but that other factors, mainly denial, may interfere with these messages. Stories are used to illustrate the many ways we receive and deny subtle signals.

Chapter Three; Worry- This chapter explores true fear vs. unwarranted fear

Chapter Four; Survival Signals- This chapter addresses kidnapping by strangers and outlines the tactics most used by predators to win you/your child's misplaced trust.

Chapter Five; Talk to Strangers- Here, the author explores the ineffective maxims we teach our children (never talk to strangers, etc). De Becker shows more effective things to teach your children to actually produce the desired effect of each ambiguous statement.

Chapter Six; The Changing of the Guard- This chapter introduces "The Test of Twelve" basically, twelve things that your child should know/be capable of before being alone in a public place, and shows how this empowerment is more effective than the old standby of telling your child fearful stories.

Chapter Seven; Babysitters and Nannies- All about how to evaluate the people you will entrust your children to.

Chapter Eight; Children Away From Home- Among other things, this chapter addresses how to evaluate childcare facilities and employees.

Chapter Nine; Sexual Predators- As the title implies, this chapter highlights Sexual Predators. The focus is on family/acquaintance abuse and covers warning signs, how to evaluate the people you choose to include in your child's life, and how to teach your child about boundaries and sovereignty over their body.

Chapter Ten; Children at School- Explores some of the potential dangers of school and includes how to approach the principal regarding the personal safety of your child.

Chapter Eleven; Protecting Ophelia- This chapter is about how to better ensure the safety of teenage girls. It covers boys/dating, sexual predation and a few words on suicide.

Chapter Twelve; Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and Smith & Wesson- Kids and gun safety.

Chapter Thirteen; Friends as Enemies- Covers teen violence. Some topics include warning signs and harmful friendships.

Chapter Fourteen; All in the Family- This chapter looks at violence within the family and explores spousal abuse as a precursor to violence against children, includes a list of warning signs.

Chapter Fifteen; Protecting the Village- A chapter regarding adults reaching out to children at risk.

Chapter Sixteen; Protecting the Gift- A few closing words and anecdotes that again implore us to honor our intuition.

Book ends with Acknowledgements, Appendices, (one strictly dedicated to resources, the others like short guides) and Recommended Reading.

*Please Note*

If this sounds like a book that you may be interested in purchasing, please use one of the links found on this page or below. With no additional expense or effort, you can help to support this site while getting the cheapest price on the net at the same time, a win-win!

Quick-View Book Reviews

I guess I've just done this too many times so I'm just bitter.

There will be a book that I've been interesting in reading or one that keeps getting talked about, how it's a "must read" and "so good" whatever… and it even has 5 stars at Amazon so it must be good right?

I guess it's just taken me quite a while to drill the notion of subjectivity into my thick skull! What is a fab read for one parent may not be for another! Or maybe it was a fab read, but just not quite the take on the subject matter I was hoping for, what have you.

So with this in mind, I'm starting a book review aspect to this blog. I'm calling it "quick-view" because in addition to giving my opinion of the book I will give you a little synopsis of the contents, chapter by chapter. You can get an opinionated book review anywhere, and what I think of it may mean much or next to nothing to you, who knows, but at least you can take it with a grain of salt and ascertain the value of the book to you for yourself.

If you have an Attachment Parenting, Green Living, Family Life or any other topic that may fit into the vibe of this site and you want to see it reviewed let me know… I'm a dork like that.

The first review is "Protecting the Gift" by Gavin De Becker and will be coming in the next day or so, enjoy!

Baby Einstein DVDs: The Devil?

All of the hype surrounding these and other such DVDs got the gears in my head cranking. It all started the other day when my husband came home from work reporting that these type of DVDs were "bad" and as such, our 15 month old daughter was no longer allowed to watch them. I was intrigued as to what exactly these findings were, since these videos are a relatively new concept for babies.

As I'm sure you realize, right now there is a lot regarding Baby DVDs on the net. To sum up the substance-less news blurbs: Too much videos bad - positive interaction good.

Uh, duh?

I'm going to make a leap on this one but I'm thinking that most of us know this. The moms I know use these as more of a tool than anything else, either to keep baby engaged as she does something that would be tougher to do holding the little one, or to watch with baby as part of interaction.

But, if you are one of the moms who bought these because you thought they would raise a few IQ points, or if the media hype surrounding these has got you down in general take heart & read on.

The research findings as the media at large would have you believe them are misleadingly reported. See it for yourself. You can find the actual research paper written by Frederick Zimmerman, et al here. This is the research paper containing the findings on which the media buzz right now is based.

Just like you probably are, I am a mom that has too much to do in a given day. I'll be honest with you, I just skimmed the article. Here is some meandering about the bits that stood out to me most, I hope you'll get a chance to check the paper out for yourself to see what you think though :D

Research Methodology, flaw 1: Correlation Does Not Imply Causation!- First off this study is based on self-reported data. Basically, the researchers called families for a phone interview and ascertained the child's score using a standard language assessment test for infants (haw many words baby comprehends) or toddlers (how many words baby can say). While there is nothing wrong with this method per se, in research a study based in self report is generally regarded as one of the less reliable ways to get an accurate collection of data for a given population. Another problem with this type of study is that, without experimental manipulation it becomes very tough to control for all of the variables that would give you evidence that your findings are true or untrue. For example, even though the researchers found their data to suggest more time in front of the tube = lower vocabulary acquisition, did they take into account family history? What about parental interaction? To what degree and in what context? The paper itself states "The analysis presented here is not a direct test of the developmental impact of viewing baby DVDs/videos. We did not test through experimental manipulation whether viewing baby DVDs/videos has a positive or negative impact on vocabulary acquisition." The paper goes on to say that this research may serve as a starting point for future research in this field. With some background in research, this is what I had guessed that this paper would be all about, a preliminary basis for further research. But for someone who may have no experience in research, is the above stated what the media build had led you to believe? Bottom line: There is no way to know if 3-hour-a-day-baby-video-watcher little Johnny would have better, worse or the same level of language acquisition without videos. To truly evaluate the relationship between language acquisition and baby DVDs a different type of research methodology would have to be utilized. There are too many variables that cannot be controlled for. The paper covers this in more depth and cites another potential causal factor for their findings, being that a pre existing delay in language development may be an underlying motive for the purchase of these types of videos.

 

So is this type of programming geared at infants the devil??? Research has yet to actually prove these to be detrimental and to be honest, in short intervals, with verbal interaction re. what is going on in the video (I think kids staring at the TV with mouths agape is just plain scary!) I find these to be a good tool around here for our potty learning. I think that a more relevant study to us as parents would be on parental interaction/verbal exposure as it relates to language acquisition… Maybe this is all beside the point.

 

Let's face it- there will always be some uber-trendy item that people will fall back on in one way or another. The responsibility ultimately falls on us as parents to discern value, if any, in these for our family. Inform yourself! Don't fall into the habit of going with the hype one way or the other.

 

At the least you can look at it this way, if you now feel that those DVDs are totally useless for your family, you don't have to feel guilty for re gifting them!

 

AP and EC- A Few Words on Elimination Communication and Attachment Parenting

I know, I know, so early in this blog I am inundating you with just the type of personal accounts that I rant about in my earlier posts… Well, I hope this is not quite the case, I hope to inundate you with some fresh food for thought at the very least! I'm so excited about the benefits of EC and their enrichment in my attachment parenting experience with my daughter that I can't help but put a little blurb in this blog early on. I hope to do a review of Ingrid Bauer's book Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene as soon as I get it back! This is one of those books I lend out quite often yet always wish I had on me LOL! I hope that this information along with the resources will prompt you to look into the topic of Elimination Communication and dispel some preconceptions along the way.

Many people I talk to have the idea that EC is about early potty training. Let me begin right here by saying that nothing could be farther from the truth.

OK, well not all that far really but totally off base. EC or Elimination Communication is all about Communication between mother and baby (or instead of mother insert father, caregiver, parents or whatever the case may be) Albeit, communication about elimination, but nonetheless the emphasis is the communication between baby & parent(s). Any potty learning that happens is a happy consequence of the communication about elimination LOL.

This premise of EC is practiced in most other non industrialized nations. It's simple;

listen to baby's "language" at an early age (sounds, expressions, etc)

allow yourself to tune in, and focus awareness at your baby's means of communication at their most basic

once your baby has made their need to eliminate known, do *something* about it

A good example of a baby's means of communicating is crying. We all know that one. Many "in tune" mothers and fathers can even distinguish the nuances of baby's different cries: he's tired, she's hungry, etc. and as good attachment parenting caregivers we attend to these needs right away. Many of us can even see the signs of discomfort that an infant communicates before elimination as well. Especially in a newborn they are not difficult to comprehend, reddening of the face, grunting, basically getting the hang of taking care of their elimination needs.

So without even trying, by applying attachment parenting techniques you are halfway to practicing EC as well.

The next issue is the more difficult- thinking outside of the box.

American society has many of us believing in the commercialized world that we perpetuate. We eat, breathe, wear, speak, live an ideal that is perpetuated by commercialism and television… if it's not McDonalds or Starbucks, Nike or Hummer what in the world is wrong with you? So- even if you are that rare soul that is willing to take an initiative, to cook at home while everyone is hanging out at McDonalds, just know that all your friends and family hanging out at MickyD's are going to think you're weird at least at first, until they see the results of EC in action.

Many people say, "…oh that sounds so nice but I don't have the time" or "I work" or "that's just too much for me with a new baby" but I have a feeling that these statements are again, just to serve as a reason to go to McDonalds. Just substitute "the baby's hungry" as the question posed to the replies above.

I mean, you were planning to change that diaper, weren't you?

OK I'll stop now, my point being that as a parent who is actively practicing attachment parenting you should promptly attend to the baby's needs in one way or the other right?

So why not the other?

Remember EC is first and foremost about communication. Don't feel that you must stay home all day with a naked baby, trying your hardest to tune into your baby's every smallest whimper to decipher if it means a poo or a pee. Just as long as you are*aware* and *doing something about it* whether this is pottying your little one or changing your baby's diaper right away you are already practicing EC on a level already!

Wasn't that easy??? And you didn't even have to reveal your secret identity as crazy vegan hippie mama who doesn't think McDonalds is so cool anymore!

The reasoning behind the diaper free aspect (that scares everyone) is that baby humans, like most other higher intelligence mammalians, are born with the intrinsic desire to be clean and dry. By keeping a "communicating" baby in a soiled diaper for any period of time you are inadvertently telling your perceptive little one "It's okay to go in your diaper. I know it feels yucky but just go with it."

And so it goes, the longer the baby gets this message, the more difficult it becomes to un-learn when the time that you decide to cross that bridge comes.

But I'll say it again, EC is not about that. It's all about the communication!

And, just like anything else AP, you do your best. There is no ECing parent that I know of that goes diaper free full time. You'll have accidents. Sometimes you'll be too stressed or preoccupied out to tune in, this is where diaper back ups come in. If you work and you may only have a limited amount of time to use this practice with your child. No worries, it's all good. You do your best and forget the rest :D

But just think of the benefits of even just part time EC! There will be less diapers to wash or buy, you will enjoy yet another level of closeness by sharing this intimate learning experience and have a baby who potty learns earlier and easier.

All things considered I feel that it is actually cleaner, easier and more AP than the conventional alternative. I'm not saying it will be a journey without bumps in the road though.

I started full time EC with my daughter at about 6 weeks. I had researched the topic in pregnancy, intrigued by the concept and curious as to how exactly the majority of people living on this Earth dealt with this issue, since most do not even have access to diapers in any conventional sense. I wanted to begin when she was a few days old but a funky allergic reaction (which, strangely enough I happened to get to the root of through practicing EC) kept her in disposables at birth. Even then, with a stressed out, half hearted attempt at tuning in I was amazed to find that my little girl really was communicating with me about this (among other things) and how easy it was if you just TRY!

Today my girlie is 15 months and, amid the all the distractions that come with being newly mobile I have to admit some days are better than others. While we were enjoying about a 90% overall success rate with her from ages 6weeks to about 10months we now have an overall success rate of about 50%. The small successes make it all worthwhile though. From about 8months she would stay dry all night even though I nurse on demand through the night. She is pretty darn reliable with regards to holding it for short-med outings (I have never asked her to, she just hates being wet in a diaper and this is the only time I put one on her.) Just two days ago she told me that she had to go potty and went to it, got on it and peed in it all by herself. Just a minute ago, as I am typing this and she is running around the house like a crazy girl and I had that feeling- hmmm, speaking of EC… I asked her if she had to go and guess what??? With this renewed awareness and (yay) willingness to take the time to focus on elimination needs I have a feeling potty learning gradhood is just around the corner!

And even through the misses there is always communication, even when I'm too distracted to realize it at the moment :D

For more info:

The most comprehensive guide on the subject is Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene IMO! Go to the website to see a FAQs and table of contents of the book and more.

Great pictures of EC in action, to give you an idea of how the elimination part of EC is actually done with baby, at Free to EC

Find ECing families in your area at diaperfreebaby.org