Diabetes cure around the corner?

A thrilling announcement has been made from scientists in New Zealand and the UK who have been investigating the cause(s) of diabetes for over 20 years.

They have discovered that a little known hormone called amylin may be the reason behind why some people are unable to digest sugars efficiently.  Normally cells in the pancreas produce two hormones – insulin and amylin, but in some individuals, instead of working together as the hormones are supposed to, the amylin clumps and slows the efficiency of process of digestion.

Knowing the cause, scientists now believe they can better target new diabetic medications to cure diabetes. Given that diabetes is proclaimed to be occurring in epidemic proportions, the question still to be answered is why? Why is amylin reacting in a way that upsets the natural rhythm of digestion? Is it overload of sugars and fats in our systems? Is it a different cause – some hiccup in our energy or electrical body vibrations?

To find out more about this break-through: READ THE ARTICLE HERE

Heather Sylvawood – Amazon Author

Is Wheat ‘Poison on Your Table’?

by Heather Sylvawood, Amazon Author

What if I told you that somewhere in the world wheat is being grown that has been treated with a deadly chemical, and we could consume it without knowing?

What if I told you that the chemical is an industrial toxin called sodium azide and the US Poisons Centre warns medics against giving CPR to victims of the deadly poison?

Clearfield Wheat Treated With Poisons

According to The Alternative Daily, “Clearfield Wheat being grown in the Pacific Northwest is a semi dwarf strain of wheat that has had its seed and embryos exposed to a chemical, sodium azide, which is an industrial toxin …

“The makers of Clearfield wheat claim that their wheat is a result of “enhanced, traditional plant breeding techniques,” making a distinction between genetically-modified wheat. However, although no gene splicing techniques were used, many other methods were, such as the purposeful induction of mutations using chemicals, high dose x-ray and radiation techniques to induce mutations coupled with cross breeding.”

Where is This Wheat Used?

We have no way of knowing where the wheat-based ingredients in products we eat come from or where the manufacturers sourced their wheat. And it’s not just bread-based ingredients that present that risk.

Unless you’re gluten-intolerant you’re unlikely to look at the preservatives and taste enhancers in the products you buy. So this incredibly altered Clearfield Wheat could be used to produce products with any of these numbers on them: 1100, 620 – 625, 1400 range if made from maltodextrin (more common in Europe), malt products, some soy sauces and malt vinegar.

Our Internal Eco-system at Risk From Poisons

As we are becoming increasingly aware, the body eco-system is incredibly resilient, but also incredibly sensitive to substances like poisons. If we continually bombard it with substances foreign to the body it eventually surrenders and we get dis-ease.

Of course we as consumers are partly to blame, because we’re always ready to buy the newest, fastest food available. We buy into the market and the market responds because manufacturers understand our “new/fast is best” mentality will fall for their advertising.

How Poisons Sneak Into Our Foods

Fats need preserving in order to last the time it takes from manufacturer, to shipper, to distributer (often in another country) to retail shelves and finally to your shopping bag. It’s totally understandable that manufacturers look for preservatives to stop foods going rancid. Cooked meats, dairy and some vegetables go rancid or decay within a few days if stored without refrigeration, and only last a few days more inside a fridge.

It’s also totally understandable that manufacturers are going to look for the cheapest form of preservative in order to make the greatest amount of profit. And what preservative enhancing products do we produce in abundance in the world? Wheat, salt and sugar.

Why Do We Like Poisonous Fast Fat Foods?

In order to reach a stage where the need for preservation became imperative, as a species, human beings had to move from eating for life to eating for pleasure. Pleasurable eating has all to do with taste.

According to A. Drewnowski, author of Why Do We Like Fat, “Diets rich in fats tend to be more flavourful and varied, they also are high in energy.” So in the past centuries, human beings, who were focused on surviving, got hooked on the taste and energy-giving properties of animal meats. Given an active lifestyle where a few hours sleep during the hours of darkness was the only sedentary activity you did, such a diet was practical. Besides, the food was consumed unadulterated except for cooking over a fire. No preservative in sight.

Have you ever wondered why we find those adverts of burgers, shining with fat (it’s usually a painted on chemical in the pictures) and dripping with preservative-packed mayo so appealing? They are a promise of a flavourful experience. We know this if we’ve eaten meats and dairy products before. If we had only ever tasted a vegetarian/vegan diet, would those images appeal?

Taste is Also a Learned Thing

Human beings who have discretionary spending are continually expanding their taste sensations. Foods from other cultures are readily available and exotic herbs and spices are integrated into our diets weekly if not daily.  Fast food sauces include them and in their advertising using images of exotic places to sell the product. They sell the concept of visiting the exotic location – “the taste of”. However, many of these exotic foods contain preservatives, whiteners, wheat flour thickeners, flavour enhancers and soy.

If a desired exotic food tastes strange or repellent when we first try it, we work through the challenge by trying it again and again until the taste is familiar. I often think back to my first taste of yoghurt. My mother made a batch from a ‘bug’ she’d been given. It was sour, so sour it put me off for years. Manufacturers, however, started producing flavoured yoghurts – they knew it had to fit our modern, sugar-skewed taste buds. Now I eat an organic, Greek natural yoghurt, but even that has 3g sugar per serve, whereas my mother’s natural yoghurt had none. I’ve learned to like it because I have come to believe it’s good for me!

By Heather Sylvawood, Amazon Author

Is science tying itself in knots over ‘proof’

Or: how opinion is able to masquerade as truth

by Heather Sylvawood, Amazon Author

Let me come totally clean. I am biased. I am biased toward believing that our food resources have been manipulated in the interests of bigger profits. I believe that pesticides and climate change (not necessarily independently) are harming the world as we knew it. However, I am also concerned that science on both sides of various arguments so hung up on double-blind testing that their research stalls on tit-for-tat bickering.

Take this recent report in The Press, Christchurch, from Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014.

The article, by Tim Hunter, describes a “new study into A1 and A2 milk could have profound implications for human health research, says one of its authors, after results suggested A! milk slowed digestion in rates.”

Above: Typical Friesian dairy herd in New Zealand.

I gave up drinking milk when a number of digestive complaints identified for me that the white liquid was affecting several members of my family. The article attracted my attention because our local milk is bought from a farm running only A2 cows and operated on organic principles, although not registered as an organic farm. I was all prepared to find joy in this report as locals swear by the taste and efficacy of the milk, partly because it’s sold raw at Village Milk.

Bit of background here:

Cows producing A1 beta-casein in their milk are of European origin. They began to be bred into herds about the middle of last century (as I understand) increasing the numbers of dairy cows that carried the mutant gene. “Milks that are free of A1 beta casein include all goat milk, all sheep milk, all pure Asian cattle, and all ‘A2 milk’ from cattle. Human milk is also free of A1 beta-casein.” according to Keith Woodford is Professor of Farm Management and Agribusiness at Lincoln University in New Zealand.

“A recent paper published in the European Journal of Nutrition provides particularly strong evidence that A1 beta-casein causes gut inflammation and associated immune effects relative to A2 beta-casein. The trials were conducted with rats and, using normal scientific criteria, the results are sufficiently strong that the differences under these research conditions can be described as ‘conclusive’,” Woodford wrote in his Blog: Posts from Keith Woodford.

The new research

The research published in March by scientists from Ag Research, Massey and Lincoln Universities, New Zealand’s highly respected agricultural research universities, compared rats fed on A1 and A2 milk. The scientists found that the A! milk slowed down the digestion of the rats drinking A2 milk.

Woodford, a co-author of the study said the result for A1-fed rats was consistent with “existing observational evidence that A1 is associated with digestive discomfort, bloating, and constipation relative to A2.” He went on to stay that A2 milk could be a useful tool in managing diabetes.

Now I do have Type 2 diabetes but the thought of trying A2 milk as a drink is not one I can entertain. Perhaps I could make it into yoghurt or cheese?

My milk is better than your milk – bollocks

But here we get into into the “they did, they didn’t” arguing of researchers. While Woodward urges that human trials should be set up to see if the rat results are repeatable in humans, Isobel MacNeill, of Dairy Australia, an industry funded organisation working on dairy investment and research projects said the NZ study was not significant. She was quoted by Tim Hunter, as saying:”It’s not indicative of anything that would come out of a human trial. Overall its a weak study with not a great methodology.” Hmm, I wonder where the impartiality of that comment rests? Can you imagine if A1 milk was proved to be bad for you?

But when I read on I find that the A2 study was funded by the New Zealand Government and A2 Milk, an NZX listed company which owns intellectual property rights around A2 milk research and marketing! Oh, so there are suspects both ways. Where’s the independence?

How opinion is able to masquerade as truth

Which brings me back to the title of this Blog: Is science tying itself in knots over ‘proof’?

Must we have winners and losers in such research? Is science getting so hung up on there being only one answer, only one ‘right’ product or one ‘right’ way? How far are commercial interests steering the questions that are researched, and does that mean we get to hear only half the truth?

Some of us are affected by A1 milk, and some of us aren’t. Let those who are affected have easy access to A2 and stop the bickering about what is scientifically-proven research. After all, A2 milk is not going to kill us. How much A2 milk was in the Fonterra shipment to China?

by Heather Sylvawood, Amazon Author

Could Round-up be killing more than weeds?

Evidence could be mounting that Monsanto’s wonder weed killer could be having a detrimental effect on human beings.

Research published in the International Journal of Toxicology³ in January (2014) reveals that “glyphosate-based formulations like Roundup pose a threat to human health through cytotoxicity and oxidative effects. Such formulations were also found to be lethal to human liver cells.”

The article goes on to state: “You may think you are safe if you only eat organic produce but nothing could be further from the truth as most of the glyphosate contaminated crops are fed to animals. This means you also need to get organic meat and eggs. Also, beware you CANNOT wash glyphosate off your produce as it is actively integrated into every cell in the plant and impossible to wash off.” (See more of the article here)

Dr Stephanie Seneff has been conducting research at MIT for over three decades. Her research has uncovered significant correlations between the increased use of Glyphosate – the active ingredient in the herbicide, Round-up.

For the past 30 years, Dr Seneff has been passionate about teasing out potential causes of autism, after seeing what it was like for a close friend whose son was diagnosed. She points out the clear correlations between increased glyphosate use over recent years (the result of genetically engineered crops causing weed resistance, necessitating ever-larger amounts to be used) and skyrocketing autism rates.

This is the comparative graph of the rise in autism and the use of the herbicide that Dr Seneff’s research has revealed:

She points out that the rate of autism has risen so quickly, there can be no doubt that it has an environmental cause. “Our genes simply cannot mutate fast enough to account for the rapid rise we’re now seeing. The latest statistics released by the CDC on March 20 show that 1 in 50 children in the US now fall within the autism spectrum^2,3, with a 5:1 boy to girl ratio. Just last year the CDC reported a rate of 1 in 88, which represented a 23% increase since 2010, and 78% since 2007.”

If you listen to te video interview you will hear that exposure to Glyphosate  either directly or in our food can cause:

1. Gut dysbiosis (imbalances in gut bacteria, inflammation, leaky gut, food allergies such as gluten intolerance)
2. Disrupted sulfur metabolism / sulfur and sulfate deficiency

Her research and related articles on the website Mercola.com make fascinating but horrifying reading.

An eco-friendly option to try

From Wendyl’s Green Goddess newsletter comes this welcome recipe. The ingredient should be readily available anywhere in the world, but I have added the contact for New Zealand readers to buy from Wendyl’s website:

Wendyl’s Wild Weedkiller
1kg tub of soda ash
Warm water to make up to 3 litres

Pour the soda ash into a bucket or your weed sprayer then top up with warm water until you have three litres. Shake to dissolve and then spray. Make sure the foliage is quite wet and please do this on a sunny day. You don’t want rain to wash it off. Leave to dry and you will notice a browning off of the plant within hours.
Click here to buy 1kg tubs of soda ash on our website or pop into our shop at 515 Great North Rd, Grey Lynn.

How can you keep your young skin beautiful?

Have you noticed the advertisements for lotions and potions aimed at the Baby Boom  generation? They all promise a return to a youthful skin. We grandmas could be enticed to spend mega-bucks to regain our youthful looks, if we were convinced about the benefits of looking young for our age. And I guess, our grandchildren could be taken in too – convinced that if they don’t start now they’ll look as old as Grandma when they retire. So let’s look at the beliefs behind all that Youth in a Bottle hype.

1. First: The truth is most grandmas do not feel they need to look less than their age. Lines, especially laugh lines, are a badge of honour. Celebrities, however, know that the advance of lines on the face and body means a reduction in take home pay (unless you’re Judi Dench who manages to look fabulous working those facial lines). That’s why female actors take on these awful advertisements that mostly line (lol) the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies.
2. Second: Only expensive lotions and potions continually applied will stop aging. Actually, aging of the skin is natural and depends on inherited DNA which dictates whether you have a dry skin or an oily one. Young people with oily skins should rejoice. Their skin will be less likely to show lines as they age – if that is what they want, or don’t want.
3. Third: Chemical sunscreen is the best barrier against sunburn and cancer. Actually, there are some cheap and sensible things you can do to care for your skin so that it is not put under unnecessary stress while out in the sun.
4. Fourth: Pharmaceutical-produced products for the skin have been tested and found to be safe. Actually, they may contain chemicals that can cause allergies and actually harm some skins.

Is a tan okay?

Okay, most of us look better with a tanned skin – no argument here. However, some skins take a tan safely and other fairer skins simply burn. Susceptible skins may do more than burn, they may grow skin cancers. Sensible thing is to protect your skin before going out to the beach or pool party.

So how do you choose good protection?

Some commercially developed sunscreens are advertised as being anti-aging! (Now why is Grandma not surprised?) These sunscreens usually contain Vitamin A which is an anti-oxidant, one of those buzz-words in health care. In medical use Vitamin A is applied to the skin to improve wound healing, reduce wrinkles, and to protect the skin against UV radiation. But take a look at this report: The Problem with Vitamin A. The cure may be worse than the cause.

Unfortunately, recognising Vitamin A in a sunscreen list of ingredients is not that easy. It goes by various names including: 3-Dehydroretinol, 3-Déhydrorétinol, Acétate de Rétinol, Antixerophthalmic Vitamin, Axerophtholum, Dehydroretinol, Déhydrorétinol, Fat-Soluble Vitamin, Oleovitamin A, Palmitate de Rétinol, Retinoids, Rétinoïdes, Retinol, Rétinol, Retinol Acetate and others.

Sensible people might then decide to go the totally natural way and make their own. Here is a sunscreen recipe gleaned from ‘The make-your-own Cosmetic & Fragrance Book’, by Elizabeth Franke. An updated version of the original book is available here: WorldCat.org.

Franke’s sunscreen recipe uses:
⦁    1 cup lanolin
⦁    ¼ cup sesame oil
⦁    ¾ cup very strong tea, made with 3 tsp of tea and infused for 20 minutes
Method: Blend the ingredients together in an electric blender while the tea is slowing poured in.

Unfortunately, some people are allergic to lanolin, which is an oil extracted from sheep’s wool. So try the lanolin on a sensitive but less exposed part of your anatomy before making up the sunscreen. If you go too long under the sun, then there is always this Sun-soothing Lotion to be applied.

Sun-soothing Lotion
⦁    2 tbsp cucumber
⦁    2 tbsp room warm milk
⦁    2 tbsp very strong tea
⦁    2 tbsp witch hazel
Method: The cucumber is pulped and squeezed through a cloth, then stirring all the time the milk, tea and finally witch hazel is added.  

Witch hazel certainly sounds rather on the edge, but it turns out to be an essential oil, extracted from the Witch Hazel tree. No doubt Wise Medicine Women have used its healing properties for centuries and it can be bought as an essential oil from a number of different online stores like Medshop Express (click the picture to link).

I think the lesson to be learned is that there are cheap, effective alternative natural remedies to pharmaceutical medicines. However, just as with allergies to chemical medicines, some people may be allergic even to natural materials. Testing on a small area of skin is essential before use, but at least you can be sure no animals will have been harmed in the testing.
Heather Sylvawood, Amazon Author

Bergamot and Yarrow tea anyone?

It is always risky to recommend a food to others if you don’t research it thoroughly, and it is even riskier these days when so many are discovering they have fallen foul of an allergy or food intolerance.

Take, for instance: herbal teas. What innocuous little things are herbal teas? Lots of big names in the tea market sell herbs blended with common teas, or mixed herbs on their own – which are generally referred to as Tisanes.

Warning about Yarrow

In a recent blog post I shared my experiment with using Yarrow as a tea. And then, investigating other herbs today, I chanced upon a Wikipedia article on the effects of Herbal Teas. For instance: if you rushed out and gathered Yarrow and made tea after reading my blog post you might well have had an allergic reaction. Unfortunately I don’t know what allergic reaction. The article doesn’t state it. But then again people also have allergic reactions to pharmaceuticals that have gone through years of testing.

When the pharmaceutical industry was first starting it used herbs as the basis of all medicines. Herbs WERE medicine; they were simply popular cures dressed up with fancy labels or containers. Later, when scientists were able to identify and extract the active ingredient that cured, the industry developed synthetic substances that mimicked the effect of these herbs. It was about then that the pharmaceutical scientists unhooked their hands from the herbalists.

Now western medicine does not trust anything that hints of herb and generally labels it as quackery. But those same scientists still go back to analysing herbs/plants for the active ingredients that appear to fix the human body.

Bergamot and cholesterol

Take Bergamot for instance: I recently chanced on a report of a double-blind test of the fruit. Testing led by the University Magna Graecia in southern Italy and published in the International Journal of Cardiology, showed that the fruit could significantly help people reduce their cholesterol without taking drugs. What better way to prolong heart life than to eat an orange a day?

So I looked up what was available in the bergamot market and came across the BergaMet Mega website,  which was offering capsules with this amazing juice dried out. The website, bless them, actually tells you the ingredients: “Each bottle contains 60 tablets which each contain 650mg of pure juice Bergamot dehydrated (entitled to 35% in composition of polyphenols) and 50 mg of ascorbic acid”. Of course, like any herbal (dare I say) medicine, there are a lot of get-out clauses and warnings.

I wonder if these warnings would be in such large print if a big pharmaceutical company had created a potion that mimicked the active ingredients in bergamot? Perhaps they have? Perhaps they’re called Statins?

As for me? I’m off to plant and carefully tend a Bergamot orange, if I can find one in New Zealand.

Heather Sylvawood, author of Searing Heat, a high country tale.

PS: Bergamot is thought to be a hybrid of sour orange and citron or lemon. The tress have been grown in the Mediterranean for several centuries. The tree is small to medium at maturity and thorn-less. The fruit is mostly round, with a little bit of a neck and a nipple, and they’re juicy.

Foods for a Fatty Like Me

If you tend to be larger than you’re supposed to be, finding foods that satisfy you and keep you on the right side of the scales is a challenge. You could go for all the sugar-free (chemical laden) foods that line the supermarket shelves or simply eat raw (as I tried for a month – it certainly worked for a while).

No matter what ‘diet’ or eating regime you follow, you are likely to feel hungry, because we ‘fatties’ are used to eating more than is necessary. I’ve got to the point, though, of deciding hungry is not a nice state to be in. Therefore I have to find foods that nourish and satisfy my taste buds at the same time. For instance, those rice ‘biscuits’ that look like bits of polystyrene stuck together just do not do it for me.

I am also trying to avoid foods with large numbers of chemicals disguised as harmless numbers – which accounts for about 99% of products on supermarket shelves. I mean you have to understand that some of those innocuous numbers are there for a good reason. We don’t want to be eating stale-tasting food, or food that has gone ‘off’, so a little preservative is good for us if we shop in a supermarket. If we browse in our garden we can be sure (as long as we wash the produce before we eat it) by and large we’re not going to get sick eating fresh and we’re not going to be swallow a bunch of numbers. However, for most people that is not possible, or possible only during the growing season. Supermarket food is our only alternative.

I’ve also worked out that wheat products (basically bread) play havoc with my digestion so I am avoiding gluten. The path I’ve chosen is expensive! So what are my choices? Grow my own and eat copious salads, or educate myself into reading labels and uncovering some gems.

That’s what I did this afternoon. I ate some Gluten-free Corn Chips  made by a NZ company called GoNutz.  This company packages nuts and snack foods for retail outlets, and while I’m well aware how snack foods are adding to our waist-lines, I was at first pleasantly surprised when I read the list of ingredients in these Wholegrain Corn Chips. Reduced fat and Low G.I. (better for diabetics), and there were only three sets of numbers!

Calcium 529 = Prepared from chalk as an acidity regulator. I’m fine with that.

Stabiliser 464 = Hydroxypropylmethylcellulose goes by the number 464 or E464.  It is a commercially prepared, chemically modified wood cellulose product. It is reputed to contain small amounts of heavy metals including:

• Arsenic
• Lead
• Mercury
• Cadmium

Oh dear. We have all heard how accumulation of heavy metals in the body can have life-threatening effects. It’s not as if there aren’t alternatives.

Research into safe stabilisers

A safer alternative cold be Furcellaria 408, A natural polysaccharide, produced from seaweed  in Denmark. It is used as a thickening agent, stabiliser and emulsifier especially in products for diabetics. Acceptable daily Intake: Up to 75 mg/kg body weight so you could eat a lot and still not have any poor effects.

Canola Oil (which contained an antioxidant 319 = Tertiary-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ). So I looked that up and found out that TBHQ is used in many foods, ranging from crackers to crisps to fast foods. TBHQ is in fact a chemical preservative which is a form of butane. It is used in foodstuffs to delay them going rancid and greatly extends their storage life on supermarket shelves. Oh dear. Oh dear.

Canola Oil Research

I did some more research and found out that Olive oil is a better healthy choice than Canola Oil, though more expensive. It is claimed that Olive oil can even help prevent or reverse type 2 diabetes, since it helps your body produce adiponectin, a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar levels. As Go Nutz corn chips claim to be Low G.I. the implication is that the food is better for diabetics. The product is already a higher priced option, and if like me you’re looking for safe, tasty fill-me-up foods, you are prepared for that extra cost.

I guess I will have to leave my corn munchies to corn on the cob out of my own garden. For now at least – unless Go Nutz go Olive oil and seaweed and make a great product even greater.

Learn more:

Natural News

Thoroughbred Foods

Have you any favourite snacks that are gluten-free, ‘number’-free and use natural stabilisers? Let us know below:

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Georgeous Guest: Julie Lobko + Herbed Quinoa with Orange and Pistachio Sauce recipe

Georgeous Guest: Julie Lobko + Herbed Quinoa with Orange and Pistachio Sauce recipe.

Food Intolerance Can Be Turned Into Eco Baby Benefit

If you or others in your family have a food intolerance and you’re expecting a new family member, NOW is the time to act.  Whether you’ve discovered your current baby or child has a dairy intolerance or milk allergy, is gluten-intolerant, or reacts to soy, nuts or other foods, you will be making major changes to your diet. Your weekly grocery shop will never be the same! You will become intimately acquainted with food labels and the ‘numbers’ that food manufacturers hide behind when adding the nasties to basic foods.

You will also be amazed how many foods contain a milk or wheat product to give it more substance or enhance the taste! A few shockers included crisps, gravy, stock cubes, bread crumbed food, cereals, sweets and processed meats. Then when you take a look at the products that are manufactured on ‘production lines also manufacturing soy, milk, wheat, nut products’ you’ll start to wonder what you’ll ever be able to feed your family again.

Be prepared for any new addition to have some intolerance as well. That’s where NOW is a very good time to start changes in your own diet. What you eat feeds your fetus for nine months and if your unborn child has a tendency toward an intolerance the food you eat will lessen or increase that intolerance. Play safe.

When faced with the dilemma of a child with allergies, it is far easier to start from scratch – slow cook from raw verifiable foods or feed raw finger foods. Shop for meats in a butcher who prepares the cuts for you that day. Ask whether they use preservatives in their mince or sausage products. If you shop for meat in a Supermarket you can expect that some preservatives are added to prolong the shelf-life, and shop assistants won’t have a clue.

Even supposedly non-gluten food like rolled oats may in fact contain gluten through cross-contamination from wheat in the location. Cereals are commercially grown in a rotation of crops where wheat is one crop. Wheat seed dropped during harvest may grown among rye or oats in a following harvest. Mechanical harvesters don’t discriminate when they harvest the next crop – they just gather the seed whatever the plant. Only grains that are grown exclusively on cropping land and tested for the presence of gluten can be relied on to be gluten-free.

Cook your baby foods from raw, adding little or no salt. Babies (and you) don’t really need it as a taste enhancer – we’ve just become so used to over-salted foods like crisps and crackers that our adult palates expect the extra taste boost.

Often the change in diet will improve the health of the whole family. Except from causes like celiacs disease, when gluten is an absolute ‘No-No’, an extreme reaction in one child will indicate that there is the likelihood of a level of intolerance in others. Afterall, all your children will have come from the same gene-pool and each parent has provided half that gene-pool. The chances of most of you having some intolerance to the offending food is high.

The diet change is likely to lead you too review other products you use around your children. What is in the creams and lotions you massage into their skins? What is in the fabrics you place against their skin?

Welcoming the new addition

Be aware that not everyone will understand the changes you’re putting into place. If you’re welcoming a new addition or holding a birthday party, be up front about your preferences.

Your friends should know that you want a green baby shower or birthday party, so include eco-friendly baby websites, stores, gift ideas, and wrapping suggestions on the invitations. Ask your guests to wrap the gifts in recycled or reusable materials, like a baby blanket or in a box that can later be used as storage. And if they are bringing food to share, ask them to restrict it to fresh fruit and raw vegetable nibbles.

You can also serve the food with regular dishes rather than disposable ones. Load up the dishwasher (not your rubbish bin) and celebrate with a clean conscience.