Green and Natural Parenting

The Kind Diet Cookbook Review

Tiffany — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:02:46 +0000

All finished devouring The Kind Diet and it is WONDERFUL!

This is a book I just heard about last week and hit “buy now” in 2.5 seconds. Why? Well, no doubt it has to be my admiration for the author, actress Alicia Silverstone in combination with my love for the topic… healthier food.

I grew up watching and admiring Alicia and was super stoked to see that instead of becoming a Hollywood party girl she decided to use her stardom to do good things and support important causes. She became an animal rights activist and a vegan. She is also incredibly beautiful and if a picture says a thousand words than it surely says many hundred about how healthy and vibrant Alicia looks. Hair and nails say a lot of about a person’s inner health. Many times I see vegans with yellow, dingy nails or brittle straw hair but that is so not the case here. Alicia is the poster child for how a vegan can look and feel if they are doing it right.

Alicia is vegan, she avoids processed foods and “white stuff”, she incorporates raw foods, and she eats in alignment with macrobiotics. She describes the entire journey in her book and it is fascinating. Such as when she was a vegan with full blown acne sitting in a macrobiotic nutrition coaching session she had bought for her husband. The coach noticed her acne and told her she needed to try macrobiotics too… and Alicia never looked back.

I love how she described finding what made her body feel best. That is important in a world where so many nutrition experts have varying ideas of what is healthy. I was also enjoyed reading about macrobiotics again. I kind of dismissed macrobiotics when I started eating more raw foods cause who wants raw grains and beans ya know? Well, around the time I got this book I started making more grain and beans. All week we have eaten Quinoa, brown rice, beans, etc for our biggest meal and then raw and green smoothies for the rest. I have had so much power and energy I have felt like I could take flight… and I really missed beans.

Last night we had brown rice bowls with black beans, kidney beans, cilantro, onions, tomato, garlic, and cumin. It was sensational! My hubby asked me to make the whole meal again, 5 minutes after we ate it up, so he could eat it at work the next day.

As Alicia did we have a hard time eating raw in winter months. We feel cold and the food has traveled so far it is less nourishing by the time it gets to us. We may feel differently next winter when we, if all goes as planned, will be living through much warmer winters. But for now, this cold weather body is screaming for a vegan macrobiotic diet and I will listen to it. Macrobiotics for anyone not familiar.. well I sum it up as a plant based diet based on whole grains, beans, and veggies. Sounds like a good winter plan to me… combined with raw desserts, raw salads, and lots of green smoothies of course.

The first half of The Kind Diet goes through Alicia’s personal journey and it explains why things like meat, dairy, white sugar and flour, and all that jazz is stuff you should give up. Much of it is health information and much of it is animal cruelty info. It is called the Kind Diet because it is kinder to our bodies and to our planet to eat this way. While some may debate the first part, the second part cannot be disputed. Just this week it finally clicked with me that buying milk from store is supporting the veal industry.

You might think you are doing your part by not buying veal but if you buy milk.. you are contributing to the mistreatment of baby calves. All the boy babies at the dairy farms are sent to become veal. Just this month the HSUS exposed a veal factory in Vermont that was beating calves, shocking them over and over, and even starting to skin them while they were alive. The book also reminded me of disturbing facts that I had forgotten like the fact that cows can live 20-25 years but in a dairy farm they only live 5-7 years because of the abuse and torture their body is put through.

It just makes you take a hard look at what we eat as a society and eliminates any doubt that we ARE being cruel by supporting factory farming of meat, eggs, and dairy. And we don’t need it anyway, which makes it worse.

Anyway I love the book and I love Alicia Silverstone! What I love the most is that she doesn’t get preachy. She just shares the facts and lets you decide. She also has three levels to reach for in her book… flirting, vegan, and superstar. I think she takes the right approach in making the flirting approach easy to manage so that people get a taste of feeling better and WANT to go further. And when you see how real and vibrant, and gorgeous Alicia is you can’t help but think… I want to feel that way or look that way. Her hubby is in the book often as well and he is a vegan cutie too.

Enjoy the book and the video below!

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Reusing and Recycling Election Signs

Tiffany — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:42:15 +0000

Election Day was November 3rd but you or your friends may have some leftover election signs now. If so do not just toss them!

Put Old Campaign Signs to Good Use

The results are in which means election season is officially over. It’s time to take those campaign signs off the front lawn but instead of throwing them away, why not put them to good use!

Disney FamilyFun magazine recommends turning those old campaign signs into special birthday signs for your children. Just prime and paint them “Happy Birthday Ryan!” and reposition them in the front yard for a very special birthday surprise.

Your kids will love this new tradition and the signs can be repainted and stored for years to come!

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We Still Homeschool… Wordless Wednesday

Tiffany — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:42:32 +0000

See & Spell Puzzles

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Vegan Chili with Raw Crackers

Tiffany — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:39:27 +0000

First time I have ever made chili without the meat and its been awhile since we had chili. But this was good… perfect for a cold Fall night and my hubby’s second meatless meals experience.

I didn’t follow a recipe because none I found online sounded good to me. So I winged it. In the slow cooker I threw together some black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, some other beans that were in an unmarked jar, a chopped onion, some chopped garlic, a big can of stewed tomatoes, a jalapeno, and some vegetable stock. Oh and some cumin, chili powder, and other assorted spices.

Together with raw flax, sesame, almond pulp crackers… it was delish. The two younger kids did not like it though… too spicy. They ended up eating crackers, fruit and celery with almond butter.

Next time I will make some of Alicia Silverstone’s vegan cornbread from The Kind Diet… a book I am devouring right now. Just didn’t have any cornmeal or sorghum.

I must say that hubby loved this. He had one bowl at dinner time but after I went to bed he ate all the leftovers up… another meatless meals success story.

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Love Me Some BabyLegs

Tiffany — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:17:12 +0000

Here is a time tested and much loved product for ya. We started buying up these lucious leg warmers when my two youngest were pretty darn young:

Now… nearly 4 years later we STILL love our babylegs. Yesterday my daughter wore organic wool babylegs under a skirt to school. Today is an off-school day for her but she still came out sporting the babylegs… this time to keep her arms worm with a short sleeve tee. The color is called Mossy and they are organic too. I love that any of my kids could wear these… boy or girl, and they do.

My daughter wants you to excuse her messy hair… it WAS first thing in the morning yo!

For breakfast: Bear Naked Granola, almond milk, and deydrated strawberries and blueberries.

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You Want Veggies – He Wants Steak!

Tiffany — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:46:44 +0000

So what do you do when the two people in a marriage have fundamentally different ideas about what constitutes a healthy diet?

My husband and I were discussing my core diet mission plan and asked if he had a choice in this. You see for awhile now he is has been half hearted with the raw vegan thing and often makes his own meals but I REALLY want to get us ALL on the same page. Although he has really amazed me in some respects. This is a guy who used to take hot dogs (eeeeewwww!) and Ramen noodles to work for lunch and now I see him grabbing handfuls of dehydrated fruit and raw flax crackers instead. But the man still loves bacon, ham, steak, pork chops, and all that MEAT.

Yesterday we discussed how we could all get what we want without driving each other crazy and without any more meals were two people are making separate things. He told me he was up to letting me take charge if I back up the truck and start from an easier place… like vegetarian meals with raw side dishes or something. I was ecstatic to say the least! Wahoo!

Tonight I sought to amaze him and prove that meatless can be good. After building up a good repertoire of veggie meals then I can start transitioning him to vegan, followed by mostly raw… in a perfect world, LOL. I like a challenge and he is finally willing to meet me halfway. So back to tonight… Italian is a favorite of his so I made Whole Wheat Capellini with Tomatoes and Artichokes.

You start with the ingredients above… onion and garlic… and saute them in olive oil for a few minutes. Add diced tomatoes and halved artichoke hearts. I use canned artichoke hearts that had been well rinsed and cut.

Saute those for about 10 minutes, reduce heat, and add some vegetable stock and cream. I wonder if nut milk would be a tasty alternative… I will have to try it. While this is cooking you can make up a pot of whole wheat pasta. Thin pasta like capellini works best. Dole out the pasta, top with the tomato artichoke sauce, and sprinkle with a hard Italian cheese (optional).

Oh yummo!! We hadn’t had pasta in quite awhile and it was such a treat. The serving sizes were on the small side… those are small plates, but it was filling. My hubby went out and got the bread while the meal was cooking… I told him I wanted a hard, whole wheat bread but he came home with something like French and it was white. I didn’t like it or eat it. Guess I might need to look into bread making if he is going to insist on bread.

Anyway… no meat and hubby LOVED it. He had three servings. He did keep saying that some bacon or prosciutto would really rock this dish but admitted that it was stellar on its own. My stomach was upset by the cream but I got lots of sympathy points from hubs. He cleaned!

Along with this meal we all had a big Cranberry Spinach Smoothie with banana, goji berries, flax seed, and Amazing Grass mixed in. Another big yum!

So… for you veggies and vegans…. can you direct me to some recipes powerful enough to win a meat eater’s heart? Now that he is willing to try, I need to convince him that meatless is GOOD. Comment and let me know!

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Natural Ways to Improve Vision Problems

Tiffany — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:56:35 +0000

This week my daughter came home from school on Thursday with vision screening results. I didn’t even know they were being tested but I was interested in the results all the same. The paper says she tested at 20/32 in each eye. Immediately I started to get antsy that this was bad news. Beyond the fact that I just want my baby to have the best vision with which to see this gorgeous world we live in… I was a child who wore glasses and I don’t want that for my kids.

I didn’t get teased or called “four eyes” or anything but wearing them was a pain in the butt! They got dirty, they got scratched, they got lost, and they gave me headaches. By the time I reached my teen years and got obsessed interested in boys I talked my mom into letting me switch to contacts. Glasses were so not sexy IMO. Well, I had a really active social life, and at 16 I graduated highschool and started college AND working full time. I didn’t sleep much and I wore my contacts all the time. After a couple years the whites of my eyes turned completely red with blood vessels that grew in there in a desperate attempt to reach oxygen that was being blocked by the contacts. My optometrist told me he could no longer prescribe contacts for me and that if I cared about my eyes I would never, ever wear any again.

I went back to glasses until I was 24ish if I recall correctly, and hated every minute of it. Then I got Lasik and it was the single best thing I ever spent money on. It has been amazing to live for the past 8 years with perfect vision. THAT is what I want for my kids but of course I would prefer they not have to go through a risky surgery to get it.

In doing a bit of research on what the vision scales mean, 20/32 is actually classified as near normal but to me it means there has likely been some vision deterioration and she, as well as my other kids, may need to adopt some serious “vision specific” healthy habits in order to contradict the bad vision genes they got from me.

The core of any natural vision improvement program would have to be a healthy, natural diet obviously. I have actually started writing out a core diet mission plan of sorts so we can be reminded of our goals.

Our core diet mission plan:

* A plant based diet… high raw
* Heavy on leafy greens like spinach, kale, collards and chard
* Fruit and especially “berries”… raspberries, cranberries, blackberries, blueberries, goji berries
* Nuts and Seeds
* Superfoods (goji berries, chlorella, chia seeds, maca)
* Herbs

Supplements Plan:

* Elderberry Syrup daily (homemade or Sambucol)
* Greens powders (like Amazing Grass)
* Algae

I think keeping a mission plan is good because as you learn and grow things change. 2 years ago my mission plan would have been something like “an omnivore’s diet, high on veggies, fruit, raw dairy, beans and legumes, whole grains, and fish (cooked and raw)”. There would have been no emphasis on leafy greens and there would have been a whole lot more animal products, grains, and pastas than there are now.

So… now that I have my core diet I see something important to vision that I need to add:

* Colored veggies with lots of phytonutrients like orange carrots, yellow squash, and red cabbage

So we need to more colored veggies, uncooked, in juices… to the mix. We do green smoothies but I think we need to start having a daily glass of carrot/apple juice from our juicer. We could juice beets and add them to smoothies.

We have also been forgetting the algae oils lately so I think we will start using chlorella tablets in conjunction. It’s green algae and it’s a superfood. They taste good and you just chew them like nuts. But the DHA in the oils is essential for healthy eyes so we need to be more vigilant about this.

We also need to concentrate on the “dark” berries… blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, etc. The bioflavonoids are good for your eyes.

So what do you think? What are your tips for improving or reversing eye vision issues?

Update: Stacy (below) linked to an awesome article that points out that SLS in shampoo might be large culprit in eye degeneration among modern kids. EXCELLENT point! We already avoid SLS but the reminder never hurts! Yet another reason I love shampoo bars instead of bottled shampoo.

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Boiron Homeopathic Remedies

Tiffany — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:35:32 +0000

Hot on the heels of my post about staying well this season with healthy eating I thought it was a good time to post about Boiron Homeopathic Remedies for Children.

Boiron graciously sent me three of their homeopathic products… the Oscillo, Coldcalm, and Chestal for Children. Since we never buy over the counter medicines I am always eager to try homeopathic remedies. My kids don’t get sick for long usually or have severe symptoms so we usually just let things run their course. Unlike when I was growing up and got children’s fever medication at the first sign of a fever, I realize that fevers are the body’s natural way of healing so I don’t medicate my kids fevers away. I also won’t try to suppress a cough but if requested I can use teas or herbs to try and make their throats more comfy.

Looking at the Boiron ingredients I like what I see for the most part… allium cepa (onion), Belladonna, kali bichromicum and the like… homeopathic ingredients. The children’s chestal is sweetened with honey.

The Coldcalm is a dose of little pellets that dissolve in the mouth and is supposed to help with sneezing, running nose, congestion, and sore throat. The Chestal Honey is supposed to help with throat discomfort and loosening phlegm. The Oscillococcinum is more pellets designed to help with body aches and chills from the flu.

Boiron is heads and tails better in terms of healthiness than what you will find in a drugstore IMO. I love that homeopathics are getting more mainstream. I was not, however, so thrilled with one of the inactive ingredients… sucrose (table sugar). Since white sugar suppresses the immune system I am not sure why it makes an appearance here. Yes, I am sure it tastes better but it seems to me that selling an unsweetened version you could dissolve in tea and honey would make more sense.

For parents stuck in the habit of reaching for that Tylenol cold medicine this is a much better alternative. It also good for parents who are just getting to know about homeopathic and herbal remedies. I am just learning myself and taking a class about herbs for kids. Until I know how to set my own home apothecary Boiron products will be a convenient alternative. There is a coupon for $1 off on their web site for anyone who may be interested.

Stay Well – Stay Away from the White Stuff

Tiffany — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:49:55 +0000

LOTS of news sources are talking about staying well this season. Mostly if seems they share a message of doom and gloom and then follow it up with talk of vaccines. Or they promise to share the secrets for staying well and it ends up being obvious things like get enough sleep and wash your hands.

As a natural family we are taking a different approach. There will be no vaccines… EVER. Instead we usually like to tackle the season of sickness with healthy eating, natural germ killers, and herbal tinctures.

Why exactly do so many people get sick this time of year? Well, public schooling makes sharing the germs all to easy. The average person starts eating badly this time of year to. White sugar suppresses the immune system up to 50% for 24-48 hours and starting with Halloween kids eat lots of candy. My own kids got sick after we went to a Halloween party early this month. It is not rocket science to figure out why. I love Halloween but the candy part sucks big time.

White flour is another thing people consume alot of during the winter months and it too is bad news. People bake, they eat lots of bread and pasta, and they get sick. White flour and rice has had all the good stuff removed during processing and it is left with chemicals from the bleaching and enrichment processes. These chemicals suppress our immune system. Add white sugar in baked desserts and you get a double whammy.

Staying healthy this winter will be a whole heckuva alot easier if we stay away from the white stuff. The good news is that there are some wonderful, nutritious and delicious alternatives to white pasta, white (refined) sugar, and rice.

* Quinoa is a protein-rich grain which is native to the Andes. It has a delightful flavor and is easy to prepare. You can use it in place of rice for stir fry and you can use it cold in salad. It tastes great either way. It can also be made into pasta.

* Whole wheat pasta has become a high demand product that you can often find it in your local supermarket right alongside the traditional white pasta. It’s higher in fiber, protein, B vitamins, and minerals than standard white flour varieties. You can also bake with whole wheat flour obviously.

* Buckwheat is another awesome alternative. My husband loves the stuff in pancakes and soba noodles? Soba is made from buckwheat and is high in protein and fiber. It’s delicious with Japanese recipes and flavors and also wonderful in soup.

* Spelt can be used to make gluten-free bread and cereal, and can also be used to make pasta. It has a sweet, nutty flavor.

* Brown rice is just as filling and versatile as white rice but it’s much healthier for you. It is a great source of fiber, has a bit of protein and other nutrients and has a delightful texture.

* Honey can be used in baking instead of sugar. Banana bread with whole wheat flour, honey, and extra bananas tastes every bit as good as banana bread made with the white stuff. Honey is also great for sweetening tea.

* Agave Nectar is what we use for most of our desserts like raw chocolate fudge cookies. There is a raging debate on how similar the extraction method is to that of HFCS but we rarely use more than a few tablespoons a week.

* Dehydrated dates and other fruits are the reason we can get away with using so little agave in our cookies, nut bars, pies, etc. They are amazingly sweet and combined with good old fashioned nuts you have pie crusts and breakfast bars.

Avoiding foods and sweeteners that actually work to encourage sickness will be a great component in the battle to stay well. Killing germs is another but we don’t crazy with that here. We use soap and hot water and Four Thieves Vinegar which is a blend of wine vinegar, herbs, and garlic.

To encourage wellness we drink green juices, green smoothies, and tea with herbal tinctures. Herb Pharm’s Children’s Herbal Compound is a good one for kids that was recommended to me by an herbalist mom.

Staying well or getting well fast after an illness does not require elusive information… just some common sense practices and healthy eating. If we aren’t willing to saddle that pony and ride it then we shouldn’t be surprised when we get sick. It does, however, provide some teachings moments when your kids see a direct correlation between sugar intake and illness. Some things need to be learned the hard way.

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Green Christmas Gift Guide

Tiffany — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:14:00 +0000

Been kinda absent but I have an excuse… I have been finishing my 2009 Green Christmas Gift Guide. It includes my top green older kids toys list, my top green toddler toys list, my top green baby toys list, and my eco moms and dads gift list. It took awhile to research it and find the BEST toys (in my opinion of course). I am only buying one or two small things for my kids this year so I wanted value.

My fave toy this year would have to be the E-Racer. My boys will be thrilled with these! The E-Racers will thrill eco-minded moms and kids with sleek design and nimble handling and the extra benefit of having a tiny environmental impact. The body of each E-Racer is built from one single piece of renewable bamboo and finished in non-toxic, water based paints. Simple, sustainable, classic, beautiful.

I am also loving these Nesting Rainbows for my daughter. They would make excellent fairy and gnome homes.

I have also been busy making lenses at Squidoo. While searching for some leg warmers, tights, and socks for my daughter I decided to create this Funky Leg Warmers, Socks, and Tights page to highlight some of my awesome finds. I’ve got some other great lenses there to like Sexy Nursing Bras and Soft Sole Shoes. Oh and my Vita-Mix 5200 review lens.

And speaking of shopping I spotted two really good deals on organics kids clothes this week. Hanna Anderrson is offering 20% off of their organic long johns. I ordered some for my kidlets… just couldn’t pass that deal up. Also BabyLegs is having some great sales and a pumpkin hunt for coupon codes. I bought several pairs including a couple sets of organic wool leg warmers for only $7. Plus shipping is free through the end of the month. Woot!

Organic kids clothing can be so expensive.. I just LOVE finding good deals. Happy Shopping…

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