When J was a baby I was showered with all sorts of "name brand" products. Johnson and Johnson lotion and soap, Desitin, Pampers and Huggies, Dreft laundry soap, Banana Boat sunscreen for kids... The list goes on. My decision to cloth diaper him at five months jump started a transformation in me that has since become a bit of an obsession! The big kicker for me came when J was a year and a half and we were told to watch the movie 'Food Inc'. Wow, I think that's all I can muster. It was a life changing movie for both Z and me and we have since completely changed the way we live.
I research anything and everything I put on or in my kids bodies. I was amazed to find that many of these "name brand" products are actually filled with soo many chemicals. Some of which are cancer causing agents. What a scary thought to think I am putting these things on my brand new little baby.
At first I felt angry. How can these companies willingly put these chemicals in to our children's soap, detergents, sunblocks, our food. We trust these companies to supply us with safe products for our families. My anger quickly turned to "how can I change this in my house". I slowly started to integrate different products in to our homes. I weeded out the bad, fairly quickly, and brought in some safer alternatives. I admit, it was very overwhelming at first. Food was the slowest change. We started with meat. We had always trusted Gold 'n' Plump as our source of chicken; they're "all natural" right? What a crock! I learned so much about these mass produced companies and I'm fairly certain neither Z nor I will ever buy it again. Beef has been out of our diet (with an occasional grass fed splurge here and there) for the past two years; mostly because neither of us really care too much for it. It was definitely a hard change for both of us, Z especially though. We went from eating meat with almost every dinner meal to eating organic meat a couple of times a week. Our palates have changed drastically over the past two years and we are exploring many other foods.
After we made the meat change we started to buy our fruits and vegetables organic off of the "dirty dozen" list. J loves apples and they were one of the highest in pesticides so we always buy them organic. Peppers are also one of the top in pesticides so we either buy organic (which is super expensive) or from the farmers market or we just don't buy them very often!
Our most recent change came when we joined a co-op this past fall. We try and buy all of our food either organic or locally from the co-op. Cheese is really expensive organic but if you buy it locally from a co-op it's really not too bad. Instead of buying all organic meat we buy a lot of it from local farms around here and same goes with eggs. I trust the co-op and I trust that they research/visit the farms where the food is produced from. We have started buying fruits and vegetables in season and we love the farmers markets!!
The same goes for our products. We buy our Castile soap in bulk from the co-op, for all of us. We use a laundry soap called Ecos that is sold for a really good price at Costco! The sunblocks we choose to use are Badger, CA Baby, and Alba. These have very few chemicals in them- you can research all sunblocks and what is in them on the EWG sunblock guide page. My sister and I both make our own homemade deodorant (it's crazy cheap and you'll find it works amazingly well!). I use Booty Balm on my kids bottoms or coconut oil if I am out. We try and use essential oils, vitamins and homeopaths to fight off infections and keep our immune systems up.
What I have learned over the past three years since starting this transformation is that name brand isn't always best. My intentions behind writing this blog are not to preach or to scare you but to inform you on what is out there. I wish I had known more prior to having children. I felt very frustrated that I thought I was doing right for my baby but really the products I was using weren't safe for his little skin. The foods that we were feeding him, while they were mostly "healthy" (fruits, meats, vegetables, cheese, etc), were filled with additives, pesticides, hormones, dyes, etc.
I feel as though our job as parents is to be each others support system. To not judge but to inform each other because a lot of times we just didn't know. At the end of the day we are all trying to do best for our little ones and we want to provide them with a healthy life. I am still learning. This transformation is still brewing and I think I will forever be making modifications. After all that old saying "knowledge is power" might actually hold true in this case!
Are there any changes you have made to your life since having kids? Anything you read on here that you were surprised about?
Happy Monday to you all, hope your week is starting off with sun and smiles!
-Megs
No comments:
Post a Comment