Guide to Avoiding Pesticide in Your Produce

Every year the Environmental Working Group publishes a list of the "dirty dozen" and the "clean fifteen". The "dirty dozen" are fruits and vegetables that either are highly treated with pesticides OR retain significant amounts of pesticide. These are the foods that you want to buy organic. Overall, they are fruits and vegetables with thin skins such as peaches, potatoes and berries but also include some leafy greens such as kale and spinach.

The "clean fifteen" are fruits and vegetables that retain little pesticide or are not treated with pesticide ( or a very small amount).

These are the fruits and vegetables that you can risk buying non-organic. Generally these have thicker skins like kiwi and melon. These also include grapefruit, eggplant and cabbage. Since organic is often more costly then conventional, you can save some money by buying conventionally grown "clean fifteen" and organically grown "dirty dozen".

You can also save money by buying organic frozen fruits and veggies. Frozen fruits are a great snack. Frozen vegetables can be even more nutritious then fresh as they are frozen right in the fields, retaining most of their vitamins and minerals. Fresh veggies often travel long distances and lose nutrients through exposure to heat and air. Just remember whatever you cook, frozen or fresh, use as little water as possible and cook for as short a time as possible.

And when you wash your fresh veggies and fruits, don't waste money on produce washes, plain water is more effective.

Find the guide at http://static.foodnews.org/pdf/EWG-shoppers-guide.pdf

-Patricia

There is sawdust in my granola bar!

Yep, fish oil in your juice. Anti-oxidants added to your tortillas. What is going on with all of those extras in your food! Many are often marketing tools, that may be healthful in small amounts but lead to discomfort in larger amounts.

Nutritional additives are being added to everything and it can often lead to unplanned results.

Especially in young kids. Inulin is a fiber also often referred to as a "pre-biotic" otherwise known as food for the good bacteria, the probiotics, living in your gut. Inulin is a good thing, a health promoting fiber that may help maintain blood sugar, help battle constipation and increase calcium absorption.

But inulin can also cause bloating, gas and stomach upset- and it just may take one fiber bar to cause that icky feeling.

These types of food additives can be especially troubling when your child starts to complain about their tummy hurting. You rack your brain trying to think what they could have eaten that they could be allergic to. Or wonder if they have food poisoning but it might just be that added fiber to their granola bar, bread, cookie, cracker or pasta.

What to look for? Remember to read labels. Ingredients such as inulin, chicory root extract, oligosaccharide or oligofructose. For kids, it is best to limit those products where inulin is the first ingredient. When you offer foods high in added fiber, start slow, give your child's body a chance to adapt. While these "nutriceuticals" can provide health promoting ingredients, take a moment and think if your child might be able to get these nutrients "naturally", like inulin from root vegetables (onion or garlic) or a nice plate of jicama slices with some guacamole dip!

-Patricia

Uh OH- Spaghetti-O recall!

All the SpaghettiOs with Meatballs, SpaghettiOs A to Z with Meatballs, and SpaghettiOs Fun Shapes with Meatballs (cars) produced since December 2008 should be returned to the store where purchased for an exchange or full refund.

The recalled products have "EST 4K," as well as a use-by date between June 2010 and December 2011 printed on the bottom of the can. They were manufactured between December 2008 and June 2010 and distributed nationwide.

So your child is not spaghetti-O deprived after the recall, make your own. Kids like Spaghettios because they are easy to swallow and fun shapes. Buy some fun pasta- look at TraderJoe's, Whole Foods or Cost Plus for great shapes, cook up some tomato sauce and then water down the tomato sauce just a tad or mix in a little milk to make the taste a bit sweeter and blander. For variety, toss in some chopped cooked veggies, chicken or fish. Toss with grated cheese and eat!

-Patricia

To Sip, Suck or Drink

Cups.
Sippy cups with soft tops, with hard tops, with tiny holes, with one big hole. Stainless steel, BPA-free, toxic plastic. Straw cups, juice boxes.

What do you use? Why? Do you want a cup that won't spill all over the back seat? Want a cup that is almost just like a bottle? Need Dora, Diego, Elmo or Mickey?
Does it matter?

What matters most is that you introduce a cup, usually a sippy, straw or open cup (with assistance) starting between 6 months and 9 months. It will be messy. It will be ineffective BUT if you want to wean from the bottle or breast at about a year or just have another way to offer fluids to your breastfed baby, you need to introduce the cup.
Water is the best fluid to start with. Some kids just don't want to drink what they get from the breast or bottle in a cup, so you can wait until they learn the cup before giving milk. If you start with a sippy cup, babies often get confused about sucking from a cup. Just take out that sucking piece from the sippy cup or buy one without the piece. Despite the plethora of sippy cup choices, there is no one best cup and actually kids don't even need them to learn to drink but they are a convenience and DO allow your child to be more independent with drinking.

How about a straw? These are great for kids who may be having some trouble managing thin liquids, kids who cough often when drinking even small amounts of water (we all have trouble when we take TOO big a sip.) If your older infant or child, does cough most of the time with even small amounts of thin liquids, talk to your physician or other health care provider. Kids need to have the skills to close their lips around a straw and sometimes those larger straws with straw cups work well.

Open cup? These are great to use. Every notice how your infant is interested in whatever you are drinking? If it is not soda, beer, wine, mixed drinks or coffee- share a sip. It is a great way to introduce a cup. I love little shot glasses! They are the perfect size for little hands to practice and often have lobsters, cowboy hats or state flags on them (what could be more enticing on your cup!)
-Patricia

A spoonful of .....salt!

Salt is back in the news and worth reading about. Thirty years ago, clear links were made regarding salt and high blood pressure. At that time greater regulation of processed foods, which accounts for 80% of salt intake, was fought by large food companies. New research has confirmed past research and efforts are being directed again toward regulating salt.

Why regulate? Because between high salt intake and the rising incidence of obesity, high blood pressure is being seen at an increasing rate in children and reducing salt intake could save 150,000 lives per year.

You may have put your salt shaker away but the food industry has not. Just one cup of canned chicken soup has more sodium (salt) then you should have in a day. Just one cup! Adding salt to food influences flavor and texture. It allows cheaper, less flavorful ingredients to be used.

So what can you do?

1. Read the label of any processed food, you do want to have more than 1500 mg of sodium per day, the lower your intake the better. Processed food includes canned foods as well as crackers, cookies and breads.

2. Look for fresh, minimally processed food for snacks and meals. Think about fruit (dried or fresh), veggies, roasted nuts and seeds. When buying any processed or canned foods, look for the unsalted or low sodium options.

3. Make your own whenever possible. Invest in a air popper for popcorn so you can control your salt. Try your hand at making soup and freeze extras to use later. Use marinades made from simple ingredients rather than packaged or jarred marinades ( check out our newsletter archives, July 2009, for a marinade recipe).

4. When salty foods are eaten, make sure you monitor how much- don't eat from the bag, put some in a cup. Reduce the amount by mixing unsalted foods (nuts,tortilla chips, dried fruit) with the salted chips or nuts.

5. Use some flavorful substitutes for salt: paprika is great sprinkled on popcorn, add some fresh dill to stews and soups, a splash of balsamic vinegar wakes up roasted veggies.

Salt and sugar are primal tastes. We all are drawn towards these flavors. Although we naturally like salty foods, by avoiding or limiting highly salted foods, our kids will learn to prefer appropriately salted foods and ultimately enjoy the taste of real food- not the salt.

-Patricia

What IS a food allergy?

The New York Times, May 11, 2010, published a great article highlighting the lack of consensus about what IS a food allergy. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have organized an expert panel to "impose order on the chaos of food allergy testing". The goal of the panel is to clarify diagnosis, definition and testing. Conclusions of the panel will be presented by the end of June 2010.

Until then, some interesting information cited by the panel include:

• People who test positive for allergies either by skin prick or blood test have less then a 50% chance of actually having an allergy!
• Having IgE or IgG antibodies does not necessarily mean you are allergic to specific foods. The presence of the antibodies can be transient and rather meaningless.

-Patricia

Baby led weaning... what's for lunch?

Your six to nine month old is starting to enjoy food! But she wants to feed herself, what to do?

Find soft foods to grab and enjoy. Steam up some sweet potato, carrot, broccoli and cauliflower. How about some dissolvable crackers like graham crackers or Ritz crackers (try the whole wheat). Cheerios or other cereals such as Chex, Shredded Spoonfuls or Mighty Bites are fun, avoid the sweetened varieties. Summer fruits are also good choices- apricots, peaches, nectarines and plums. Remember to buy organic when buying soft skinned fruits. Noodles are good choices and can be finger foods. Toss the noodles in a little pesto or olive oil for flavor.

What NOT to have for lunch? Avoid sweetened foods and salty foods. Highly processed foods don't belong in a baby's diet.

The following are "choke" foods, meaning due to their size and texture they can be dangerous to kids under 3.

Avoid or CLOSELY supervise grapes, olives, hot dogs, pickles, popcorn, nuts, chewy meats, spoonfuls of peanut butter (peanut butter should be mixed with applesauce, smashed banana or spread thinly on bread/crackers). Cut all round food lengthwise. Avoid hard candy.

And remember to include your baby in family meals as much as possible.

-Patricia