I feel pretty good sometimes with the shizz I've figured out for my own bod and can even claim a few bragging rights to some changes in Master Pete. But when it comes to my offspring, I'm clueless. Hopeless sometimes. Frustrated almost always.
Ok, I can fess up to helping them make a fairly smooth transition from cow to almond milk (we called it snowflake water one Christmas - against my anti-cringeworthy law, but egads, it worked). And now even when Stella goes to friends' houses, she says a quiet no thanks to dairy in her cereal and eats it dry. Gets me all verklempt.
The other victory I wave the flag for is the switch from sugared cereals (even though is was only the classic 1g o' sugar Cheerios) to sugar-free cereal and oatmeal only in the mornings. This one took a long build up and multi-coloured warning system, but here they are now, every morning pouring quinoa puffs into a bowl and dropping handfuls of homemade granola into it. I seriously thought this was going to be a dealbreaker and I'd see them with stick and bandana hitching to nana's house for some frosted flakes.
And admittedly one more. My staunchly anti-whole grain bread seven-year old now loves the stuff. No more begging for baguettes. No more lunches arriving back home with untouched sandwich. Tres amazing.
But this is where the transition ends for my girls. I get the daily pre-dinner declaration of "eating vegetables makes you healthy and strong, right, mommy?" paired later with the equally fervent declaration of "I'm not a vegetarian so I don't eat vegetables!"
As lovely as the little ladies are at breaky, at dinner time, the performance is far from stellar.
"We like lots of stuff! Pizza, pasta and sushi." Well, let's call the diversity council and get you a medal. And when you're trying to go cheese, gluten and generally white stuff free, pizza, pasta and sushi become sad imitations of themselves.
I've tried to get help. I now have practically every kids cookbook under the sun - they get excited about cooking with me and following a recipe, but they want to pick all the sweet stuff in the book to try. And trying to find a vegan or even non-cheese based vegetarian cookbook for kids is impossible.
I've gone through stages of saying, what the hell, I'll just let them choose whatever recipe they want. So we've made pesto pasta (not a hit), eggs baked in ham cups (not a hit) and even something called pretend soup, with yogurt and fruit (a huge hit), but I want them to get excited about dairy-free stuff. I've also gone the Jessica Seinfeld route of hiding purees in brownies and such, but it's a lot of bloody work and doesn't really get me to a place of acceptance with these miniature people.
And if I see or hear about another kid happily eating salad for dinner every night, I may kick a puppy. I get a bite of broccoli on a good night.
So this is where I need help. Have you figured this out? Know people how have? I'll try anything once and thank you a million times.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
My chemical romance
I have been a lover of all things girly product since the day I perfected the eyeshadow rainbow in grade seven and got sent to the washroom to "wash that garbage off".
I've been lovingly growing my arsenal of lotions, balms, gels, powders, and serums over the years, throwing out the starter sets from Shoppers and eventually graduating to Holt's and Sephora. If I still felt like a loser teenager sometimes, all I had to do was look on my bathroom counter to see that I'd grown into a big girl with big girl products.
Every once in awhile I'd look at those deodorant crystals in the drugstore and feel a bit intrigued but ultimately dismissive. And the beauty sections of health food stores were for hippies, man. All that rose water and patchouli.
When I was diagnosed, I read first about the stuff I was putting on my pits. All those side convos about the aluminum in deodorant and breast cancer came ringing back to my immediate consciousness and I decided I'd at least try the natural stuff while I learned a bit more. Here's what I read:
I tried a bunch of the hippie stuff - the Tom's, the Nature's Gate and such, but have found only two do the trick. Keep in mind, I'm not a heavy sweater (as opposed to a heavy petter) but I can work up a good one when I want to. The two jewels have been:
I've been lovingly growing my arsenal of lotions, balms, gels, powders, and serums over the years, throwing out the starter sets from Shoppers and eventually graduating to Holt's and Sephora. If I still felt like a loser teenager sometimes, all I had to do was look on my bathroom counter to see that I'd grown into a big girl with big girl products.
Every once in awhile I'd look at those deodorant crystals in the drugstore and feel a bit intrigued but ultimately dismissive. And the beauty sections of health food stores were for hippies, man. All that rose water and patchouli.
When I was diagnosed, I read first about the stuff I was putting on my pits. All those side convos about the aluminum in deodorant and breast cancer came ringing back to my immediate consciousness and I decided I'd at least try the natural stuff while I learned a bit more. Here's what I read:
- Deodorants that contain aluminum, which stops you from sweating, can act like estrogen and fuel cancer cells
- Deodorants that contain parabens, which are preservatives to keep the product from spoiling, can also act like estrogen and fuel cancer cells
I tried a bunch of the hippie stuff - the Tom's, the Nature's Gate and such, but have found only two do the trick. Keep in mind, I'm not a heavy sweater (as opposed to a heavy petter) but I can work up a good one when I want to. The two jewels have been:
Avalon Organics Deodorant Spray
Lavanila Deodorant
Since my deodorant transformation, I've been purging the rest of my products bit by painful bit. Sometimes it's been hard. I spent some decent coin on some of that carcinogenic shizz! But mostly it's been freeing. And as of yesterday with my latest nail polish purge, I am chemical free in the lady product department except for a single Mac lipstick I haven't been able to part with.
When you start reading about formaldehyde in nail polish, silicon in primer and sodium laureth sulfate in your shampoo (see David Suzuki's Dirty Dozen or the Environmental Working Group's cosmetic database) and how these things are not doing good things (and are doing potentially super narsty things) to our bods, I hope you're inspired to purge, too, and put an end to your own chemical romance.
Other recos:
Korres makeup (I use the eyeliner and lip glosses as well as the body lotions)
Tarte makeup (I use the gel and powder blush, the eyebrow pencil and the Amazonian Clay mascara)
Boscia skin care products (I use the face washes and moisturizers)
Josie Maran products (I use the Argan oil)
Annmarie Gianni skin care products (I use the face washes and herbal oils)
Dr. Hauschka skin care products (I use the moisturizers)
Saturday, February 4, 2012
It does a body bad
The thing I find most interesting about the wellness conversation in general is that most people are quite willing to adopt new things that "studies have shown" have health benefits, like green tea, kale and the gazillion other superfoods touted by all and sundry. But when it comes to really questioning some of the stuff we've been putting in our bods since babies that similar "studies have shown" are detrimental to our health, the willingness to change goes in the toilet.
The culture (or cult) of milk falls squarely into this category. Like cigarettes before it, cow's milk is gaining a bit of a bad rep and it's only a matter of time before it gets really bad, and not just according to the granola circles. But unlike cigarettes, we give the stuff to kids and to speak ill of it is still considered blasphemous, odd or just plain annoying. Most of us have fond memories (from our childhood or from just this morning) of drinking milk, eating yogurt, smothering cheese over every damn thing under the sun. It's tasty. It's calcium. It's just not something you need to mess with, thank you.
But more than meat, more than chemicals on my bod and in my house, more than the running and the guitar playing and the meditating to the Ramones, eliminating dairy consumption from my family is the number one priority. Have I done it completely? Shit, no. It IS hard to get it right out. It's everywhere and although I may not eat it myself anymore, getting it away from my kids has been a brutal challenge.
Other than the fact that we're the only mammals who drink another mammal's milk, here's why milk is messing up our lives:
But where do I get my calcium? Because most of us can't digest milk, we're not getting all that lovely calcium we're promised. Also, there's a problem with us and calcium - it's not necessarily that we don't get enough intake, it's that we don't retain it properly, either because other things in our diets cancel it out (cola and caffeine are big culprits here) or we don't get enough vitamin D, which helps calcium absorption. There are plenty of things that have natural calcium, including dark, leafy greens and beans, and if you can pump a little iron, you're helping your bones and muscles out even more. Non-dairy milk is often calcium fortified, so you're covered there, too, yo!
Okay, okay, I rant. I know I do. We've all lived next to, grown up on or seen pictures of beautiful farms with dairy cows grazing peacefully in the meadow. Two things on that little image: the multi-billion dollar dairy industry and its agenda, and growth hormones. See where that cigarettes = dairy thing lines up on part one? And if you're happy getting an extra shot of hormones in your morning cereal, fill your boots. If you're happy with this additive, but are dead set against changing your milky ways, at least consider organic.
If you're ready to ditch the milk mustache, coconut, rice, hemp or almond milk are peachy keen. You can learn to live with black coffee. I know it's hard. I still have a block of parmesan in my fridge. I still buy yogurt for kids' lunches and give them ice cream for a treat. But we've switched to almond milk for everyone, Tofutti cream cheese for the girls, and I'm still experimenting with soy and coconut yogurt. The fake cheeses are atrocious, so don't waste your money.
I know it's everywhere, in everything and on every bloody food surface. But you won't regret weaning yourself.
The culture (or cult) of milk falls squarely into this category. Like cigarettes before it, cow's milk is gaining a bit of a bad rep and it's only a matter of time before it gets really bad, and not just according to the granola circles. But unlike cigarettes, we give the stuff to kids and to speak ill of it is still considered blasphemous, odd or just plain annoying. Most of us have fond memories (from our childhood or from just this morning) of drinking milk, eating yogurt, smothering cheese over every damn thing under the sun. It's tasty. It's calcium. It's just not something you need to mess with, thank you.
But more than meat, more than chemicals on my bod and in my house, more than the running and the guitar playing and the meditating to the Ramones, eliminating dairy consumption from my family is the number one priority. Have I done it completely? Shit, no. It IS hard to get it right out. It's everywhere and although I may not eat it myself anymore, getting it away from my kids has been a brutal challenge.
Other than the fact that we're the only mammals who drink another mammal's milk, here's why milk is messing up our lives:
- Cow's milk is meant to fatten up calves - it has more than three times as much protein as breast milk
- Beyond childhood, most of us stop producing lactase which we need to digest lactose
- The protein in cow's milk is difficult for all humans to digest - most of us can't digest it at all
- A high animal protein diet, particularly protein containing casein, is linked to cancer, Crohn's, allergies, eczema, asthma and arthritis
But where do I get my calcium? Because most of us can't digest milk, we're not getting all that lovely calcium we're promised. Also, there's a problem with us and calcium - it's not necessarily that we don't get enough intake, it's that we don't retain it properly, either because other things in our diets cancel it out (cola and caffeine are big culprits here) or we don't get enough vitamin D, which helps calcium absorption. There are plenty of things that have natural calcium, including dark, leafy greens and beans, and if you can pump a little iron, you're helping your bones and muscles out even more. Non-dairy milk is often calcium fortified, so you're covered there, too, yo!
Okay, okay, I rant. I know I do. We've all lived next to, grown up on or seen pictures of beautiful farms with dairy cows grazing peacefully in the meadow. Two things on that little image: the multi-billion dollar dairy industry and its agenda, and growth hormones. See where that cigarettes = dairy thing lines up on part one? And if you're happy getting an extra shot of hormones in your morning cereal, fill your boots. If you're happy with this additive, but are dead set against changing your milky ways, at least consider organic.
If you're ready to ditch the milk mustache, coconut, rice, hemp or almond milk are peachy keen. You can learn to live with black coffee. I know it's hard. I still have a block of parmesan in my fridge. I still buy yogurt for kids' lunches and give them ice cream for a treat. But we've switched to almond milk for everyone, Tofutti cream cheese for the girls, and I'm still experimenting with soy and coconut yogurt. The fake cheeses are atrocious, so don't waste your money.
I know it's everywhere, in everything and on every bloody food surface. But you won't regret weaning yourself.
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