My 10 Year Old Soul Was a Mennonite

Last weekend during my weekly trip to the local Mennonite farm where we buy a portion of our groceries I expressed some of my holiday frustrations to the lady of the house. We have been giving business to this family for almost 4 years and I have developed a pretty comfortable rapport with the farmer's wife during our frequent visits. I told Miss Arlene how ever since I became a parent, I feel as though I have very little support for my critical view of the 'gifting' practices in the mainstream culture. I told her how every year as my kid's birthday and Christmas approach, I agonize over how to handle these occasions without betraying my instincts and without upsetting people in my extended family. In my desperation for some guidance I blurted out,

"How in the world do you handle this stuff?!"

It was a silly question to have asked, as I already knew the answer.

"We don't", she said.

"I know.....", I replied feeling defeated.

We chatted a while longer and she described the way her family handled birthdays and Christmases when she was growing up, and how she and her family handle these occasions with their kids now. She told me how thankful she is that her parents raised her the way they did and she agreed with my observation that mainstream American culture is literally obsessed with 'stuff.' She sympathized with my situation and suggested that I pray for God to bring me clarity on these matters. Today I feel that God has shown me what I needed to see so that I might begin to face the holidays with a more peaceful and happier spirit.

We Are Not Born This Way

I believe that the average human is born with a natural inclination towards order and logic. Consider the cognition of the 3 year old who is constantly asking his parents, “Why?” His brain is not even fully developed, but already he is trying to make sense of things. He is setting up rudimentary experiments to try to establish cause and effect. He is problem-solving. He wants to understand the underlying mechanisms that make things work and perhaps even more so, he wants to understand the reasons why we do all the things we do.

I, myself am no master of logic and reason. I freely admit that I have many habits and behaviors that do not make sense. For instance, I am my own worst enemy when it comes to shopping for clothes. I seem to suffer from the delusion that I can never have too many articles of clothing. I continue on in this delusion well beyond the point of having run out of closet and drawer space to house them all, then I become frustrated and angry at my inability to keep my clothing organized and I exclaim angrily, “I never have enough closet space! If this house just had normal closets, this wouldn’t be a problem!”

During these moments of frustration I try to rationalize that the problem is not having enough space. But the real problem is that I have far more clothing than I can adequately house and manage. And yet I keep buying more clothing. This doesn’t make any sense. Why would a person do this to themselves? Why would a person first create a problem, become frustrated by the problem, continue to feed the problem and then purposefully misunderstand the cause of the problem? I think I figured out why we do this. We do this so that we can continue to shop and buy more stuff without arousing cognitive dissonance. We do this so we can continue to shop-

Because we really like to shop. We like the colors, the lights and the display features in all the stores. We like the pictures of happy families playing in the leaves while wearing all the latest fall fashions. We get a warm feeling inside when we see these things as we walk the aisles of shopping malls, department stores and outlets. These things are comforting and familiar. These things are sentimental to us. These are not habits and ideas we are born with, these are things we are taught.

Nobody is born thinking that they must wear a certain kind of clothing, drive a certain kind of car, have a certain kind of furniture and live in a certain kind of house. Nobody is born thinking that they must have all of these things in measures that exceed what is actually necessary and practical. Nobody is born believing that our culture’s consumptive patterns make any sense at all. Our attitudes and our relationships with these things are developed and reinforced by our culture.

As an adult I believe that I alone, am responsible for my own attitudes, actions and behaviors. But I also believe that when we are children, our family’s habits and the larger culture play a critical role in lending either clarity or confusion to the way we understand and relate to the world. The child relies on his parents and other adults in his life to facilitate his natural inclination towards ordering, sorting and making sense of the world around him. But in many ways I think we (parents and adults) lend much more confusion than we do clarity to our children’s quest for making sense of things. I think one of the most obvious ways we do this is in the way we celebrate birthdays and holidays.

How does our culture celebrate every child's birthday? We say,

"Happy Birthday! This is the day you were born! Your birth marks a very special day in our lives. We decided to show our love for you on this day by giving you a bunch of new stuff!"

And how does our culture teach children to celebrate every Christmas Day? We say,

"Merry Christmas! Today is the day Jesus was born. We express the profundity of our gratitude for this day by giving you a bunch of new stuff! And maybe we also donate to a charity or two, volunteer a couple hours somewhere or give to a local homeless shelter. But we definitely can't celebrate Christmas properly unless we give you some more stuff."

I think that the way our culture approaches children's birthdays and Christmases plants seeds of confusion in our children's hearts and minds about the value and meaning of 'stuff'. We teach them not to invest their emotions in 'stuff', but then we mark every meaningful occasion by giving them more stuff. We teach them not to lie, but then we teach them to believe elaborate fairy tales about a fake Santa Claus (whom wouldn't you know it, brings them more stuff). We teach them to "Be good for goodness' sake" but then we dangle the promise of birthday and Christmas gifts above their heads in an attempt to manipulate their behavior all throughout the year. And then we teach them that we are liars because we end up giving them the stuff regardless of their behavior.

As adults, it our responsibility to help our kids make sense of the world. Why then, do we actively obfuscate the value and meaning of 'stuff' by teaching our kids to expect more and more of it every year for their birthdays and at Christmas?

If you are thinking, "That's not what we're doing. There is nothing wrong with getting my kids gifts for their birthday and on Christmas", then I challenge you to ask yourself the following questions:

How would your kids react if they didn't get some new stuff for their birthday or on Christmas morning? How emotionally devastated would they be? Would you be willing to try a birthday without gifts? How about a Christmas without presents under the tree? Why or why not? Would this cause your kids to believe that you didn't care about them as much as you used to? All because you didn't make sure they got some new stuff on a certain day of the year? Am I the only one who sees a serious problem here?

Kids aren't born wanting more stuff, we teach them to want it. We teach our kids not only to want stuff, but to expect stuff for these and other occasions, thereby rendering them virtually unable to imagine a birthday, Christmas or holiday that doesn't involve them getting some new stuff!

We teach our kids that it makes sense to go out and buy new stuff even though there's nothing wrong with our old stuff. We teach our kids that if we didn't get them as much stuff this year as we got them last year or if we weren't able to get them any stuff at all, it's because something went wrong (presumably with finances) and we'll get them some other stuff later. We teach our kids that they need so much stuff in order to be happy-

And then we wonder why our kids don't appreciate what they have, why they don't take good care of their belongings, why they cannot keep their bedrooms organized and why we ourselves, never seem to learn that adding more stuff to our lives does not add value or meaning.

Why do we this to ourselves? Why do we do this to our kids?! Why do we embrace and encourage a culture that obscures the meaning of things in our minds when we are kids, and then spend a large portion of our adult years struggling to put all of this stuff BACK into perspective? Doesn't it seem like we're doing this all backwards?
 
Following a Childhood Intuition to an Adult Reality

If you are starting to think that I've 'gone off the deep end' or that I am turning into some kind of religious extremist, you should note that my first notions that our stuff was causing the biggest problems in our lives began taking shape when I was just just 10 years old. These ideas were not based on any religious convictions or any particular ideology. I was just an average kid trying to make sense of the world.

For almost as long as I can remember, I have been internally at war with many aspects of mainstream American culture. Like most people do, I embraced the culture and its practices but I often did so grudgingly. Maybe my initial wariness of popular culture was born merely from a natural obstinance? Maybe I've always had a natural tendency towards being contrary? I think a lot of people who know me have good reason to believe this is true and I don't think I could disagree with them. But maybe my contrariness as a kid was evidence that I was onto something that I didn't fully understand yet-

At any rate, as a kid I knew that I didn’t have much of a choice about whether or not to ‘go along’ with what everyone else was doing. So I partook of mainstream culture like most people do and even came to enjoy and take comfort in many of its practices. I did all this despite the often nagging feeling that we were constructing important pieces of the framework all wrong-

In particular, I noticed pretty early in life that adults become really frustrated and angry when they cannot find something they are looking for. I think there is something innately frustrating about not being able to find something when we need it but I noticed that in many of the cases I observed, the adult was complaining about having too much stuff and saying things like, “I can never find anything when I need it! There’s just too much stuff in here, I can't keep up with it!”

If they weren’t complaining about having too much stuff, they were complaining about not having enough space for their stuff or they were angrily accusing someone else (a child or a spouse) of moving their stuff. Sound familiar? Yeah, me too…

Initially I was inclined to feel sorry for these frustrated adults. That is, until I realized that it was never very long before these same adults turned right around and bought even more stuff. Stuff that they already had, stuff that they didn’t need. Stuff that was obviously weighing them down and making them unhappy- And yet they didn’t seem to notice that buying more stuff was the problem.

Okay, so obviously I didn’t learn enough from these childhood observations because as I mentioned, I struggle with compulsive clothing-shopping as an adult. This is because our stuff isn't just a physical burden. Stuff can be conditioned and transposed into very complex emotional and psychological burdens. Case-in-point: Compulsive-shopping. 

Stuff takes up space, right? Primarily, our stuff takes up space in our homes. It clutters our living space and adds layers of complication to the seemingly never-ending task of keeping our homes organized and functional. But the worst thing about ‘stuff’ that I learned as a kid was not related to the space it takes up in our homes, but rather the space it takes up in our hearts and our minds. Once I became school-aged, I discovered an even more troubling way that our stuff makes us unhappy.

I learned that 'stuff' isn’t just stuff. I learned that stuff has meaning! I learned that stuff can somehow communicate telepathically with other people, telling them what kind of people we are and in what capacity they should like and/or associate with us. In conclusion: Stuff is totally magical!

I will never forget the moment when I first became aware that the clothing I wore to school had the power to make me ‘cool’ or ‘uncool’, popular or unpopular. I instinctively thought this was absurd but the proof for this notion was everywhere. As I looked around my school I could see that it did not matter how mean, obnoxious or uninteresting a person was. If they had the ‘right’ clothes or the 'right' toys/accessories, the other kids seemed to like them more. And we all like to be liked…

As I tried desperately to figure out which were the ‘right' accessories to have and which fashion would win me the most peer approval, I began to wonder,

“Who decides which things are 'cool' anyway?”

“Where do people get these ideas in the first place?”

“Why do we have to care about any of this?”

It didn't take long for the answer to these questions to become clear to me. I realized that perhaps the single source for these ideas is television. Whichever child-predatory company pays the most money to make the flashiest commercial for their product, wins the child's desire. The child takes his desire to his parents and pesters or tries to guilt the parents into buying the thing. If the parents don't give in right away, they often decide to file the idea away as a good birthday or Christmas gift-

I was 11 years old when I decided that if I ever had kids, I would raise them without television. This is also when I began to understand the appeal of homeschooling.

I imagined that if kids' brains and bedrooms were not filled full of all the 'stuff' they learned of through television commercials or peer comparison in public schools, and if parents and families didn't use every birthday and Christmas as an excuse to buy kids all of this stuff, kids would never miss it!

I began to imagine a world where kids had never heard of or seen such things as ‘hot’ clothing brands and the 'coolest toy.' A world where kids didn’t nag their parents with, “I just have to have this” and “I really need that” when in reality they already had far more than they could ever use. A world where every Christmas and birthday didn’t involve kids drafting a long list of “I want's.” I imagined a world where kids were not measuring 'this year's stuff' against 'last year's stuff' or the stuff a friend or sibling received. A world where kids could just be kids instead of constantly comparing their stuff to someone else's stuff in order to determine how they should feel about themselves. I imagined a world where all of our stuff would just disappear and we wouldn't have to think about it anymore. I decided that this was my utopia.
 
This was not a world where we would hide our kids away from everything and never let them experience life. It was a world where we did not actively fill our kids' hearts and minds full of desire and expectation for senseless 'stuff.' A world where people (including kids) had to work for what they had. I decided that this world would look something like the show, "Little House on the Prairie" ......

I thought to myself,

"Yeah....But that would be really hard. Probably too hard for most of us, including me. That could never work."

I challenged my own argument pointing out,

"It's true that it would be hard. But maybe the only reason it seems so hard for us to imagine is because we are so accustomed to all of this 'stuff' in the first place."

(I totally used the word 'accustomed' back then. I'm sure I have these ideas written down in a lost notebook somewhere, but I digress...)

When I was 11 years old, I started thinking that if kids were raised drastically differently from the way mainstream culture prescribes us to do, they'd probably be a lot less confused and unhappy in life. At 11 years old, I didn't know exactly what all this would entail or how I would ever go about it if I had it to do myself but I knew that it would look a lot different than what most people do. Even back then as I reluctantly resigned myself to doing what everyone else did, in my thoughts I was unknowingly building the foundation for the kind of upbringing I would one day want for my kid.

It has taken me a very, very, VERY long time to become comfortable enough in my unique perspective of the world to be able to step totally outside of cultural norms without shame or insecurity. Until recently I have done so only nervously, always very anxious about what other people must be thinking of me. Today I am profoundly thankful to God for what He started to show me when I was a kid, and for giving me the courage and confidence to do what I believe is right for my own kid today, even if it looks a lot different than what other people do.

I believe that God began working these threads in me as early as He did for a reason. I believe He knew that it would take me a very long time to understand what he was trying to show me. I believe He made me a mother when He did in order to force my childhood intuition to meet back up with my adult self so that I could start putting these pieces together. I believe that God has always been trying to show me my unique path towards becoming my best self and I believe He must have known that this (becoming a wife and mother) was the only way to bring peace and integrity to my fractured soul. You can all think that I'm totally crazy for believing this but I am telling you, I have no choice but to believe it. This is the way it happened.

Please know that this blog entry represents my path and my truth. It is not meant to be prescriptive for anybody else and it is not meant to undercut or insult anyone else's way of doing things. I have seen plenty of really great, loving families raise kids into really great adults while still participating in some, most or all of mainstream cultural practices and I do not believe that there is one right way for every family. I believe there are many right ways for many different families and that God speaks to us all a little differently. I pray that God will continue to speak to your family and mine and continue to shed light upon our unique paths to Him.

Thanks for reading ♥

God Bless the Amish and the Mennonites (and Modern Day Minimalists)

I sincerely hope that my Christian friends do not get upset with me for thinking, writing and sharing the following. With all my heart, I want to understand God’s Word, to be able to apply it to my life and to share it with those around me. Writing and sharing the following critique is an essential step in clarifying my own understanding of the Gospel, as I seek to use it as the primary guide in my life.

I am essentially nobody. I have no authority to speak on any topic, probably least of all the Bible and Christianity. I have only been able to call myself a Christian for just a very short time. That being the case, maybe I just don't 'get it' yet. Maybe more mature Christians have a much deeper and more enlightened understanding of the Gospel than I have? Maybe I’m a heretic? I don’t know the right answer to these questions, but I do know that I was rather disturbed by a recent sermon given at a church that I have come to love dearly.

I reviewed the same sermon again once it was made available for online viewing, thankful I was able to do so. I wanted to give the sermon a second chance to speak to me in a way that it had failed to do the first time around. I quickly realized that the uploaded sermon was from second service (not the one I heard in person) and indeed, it wasn’t near as painful as the one I witnessed earlier that morning. I am thankful that the best choice was made regarding which version of the sermon to upload for public viewing.

Of course, I am only human and it is entirely possible that I perceived the whole thing inaccurately but the sermon I heard in person was one whose message was best summed up in the speaker’s own verbatim words, “Write bigger checks.” Yes, he actually said that. Those words made my skin crawl and left a stain on the entire sermon that I have been trying to mentally ‘clean up’ since I heard it.  

I started to wonder, “Can a church be too big? Does God’s Kindgom really require such impressive buildings, parking lots, high-tech features and ‘apps’ just to get people in the door? To keep people coming back? Surely the building of God’s Kingdom on earth does not depend on ‘writing bigger checks’ to the church.” But this was precisely the message I received yesterday morning.

We were referred to this parable in the Gospel of Luke.

“The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” — Luke 12:16-21
 
Here, we have a parable illustrating the often poisonous relationship between acquiring earthly wealth and human folly. I believe the point of this parable is to teach us how important it is not to succumb to the erroneous belief that material things are the measure of our worth (in this life or the next). And further, that if we measure our richness in worldly things we will never have enough, as these have no value at all in the afterlife.

In the Gospels, Jesus teaches us to have a proper perspective and understanding of the real value of worldly riches in contrast to that of spiritual riches. He also makes it clear that in being generous with our worldly riches, we experience liberation from the false sense of security we derive from material possessions, thereby learning to depend more on God as the source of our richness while simultaneously blessing those around us with our resources. And so we rightly should pray that Jesus might transform our hearts and our 'giving' to be a closer reflection of His teaching. So should we be generous with our worldly resources and not be so stingy with them that we elevate their worth in our minds and hearts above that of the riches we have in Christ. But I do not believe that this very profound lesson of the Gospel can or should ever be summed up with the words, "Write bigger checks." To anyone. Even the church. This is just my opinion, for whatever it's worth to those who are reading.

I believe we are called first and foremost to give of ourselves; to give of our time, our attention and yes, our resources. Does this mean that the Gospel prescribes us to “write bigger checks?” Does this mean we must throw money at whatever we perceive to be ‘God’s Kingdom’ on earth? I think the correct answer to these questions is: Emphatically, no. If money and worldly goods should not define our richness, nor should they define the richness of our giving.

Of course, the Gospel does not rule-out money as an option for giving. Maybe I just got too distracted by those words, “Write bigger checks” to see the complete picture. But I know with certainty that I heard those words. And I heard them amongst stories of Christ’s generosity and analogies drawn between the giving of money and Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, all delivered in a formulaic cadence that quite honestly made my stomach turn.

The way I see it, we are in gravest danger of coming to 'worship money' as it were, when we believe that “bigger checks” will go further in accomplishing God’s work on earth than modest donations, volunteered time, attention and direct, intimate caring for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Clarifying Feminism and All the World's 'Ism's' Since Before 39AD

Something really awesome has happened to me over the past several months. About 6 months ago, I discovered the Anti-feminist Movement and the Men’s Rights Movement. Initially I found their perspectives on the topics of civil rights and equal opportunities for women and men to be a breath of fresh air.

I enjoyed the feeling of having support for my criticisms of ideological feminism. I enjoyed feeling as though my view was right, and others' views on the topic were wrong. On occasion, I even delighted in the antagonistic and snarky spirit with which many writers and speakers were attacking ideological feminism and its proponents.

These voices became a  source of great comfort to me, for I cannot count the number of times I have been told by a feminist how I should believe, feel, think and act in regard to ‘women’s issues.’ I cannot count the number of times I have been told to look up the dictionary definition of ‘feminism,' and that if I believe in equal rights and opportunities, I am a feminist (even if I am too stupid to know any better). And I cannot count the number of times I have wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that I refuse to wear the label of a movement that I perceive to be largely responsible for the disintegration of mutual respect between the sexes and the breakdown of families (regardless of what Dictionary.com says feminism is). But then I realized something: None of it matters.

And with that realization, a huge weight lifted from me. As I recognized the error in my thinking, my heart became so light that I laughed out loud at myself for the weight I had been carrying around for so long: A weight that I had been choosing to carry and a weight that meant literally nothing; a weight that is entirely inconsequential and irrelevant. In that moment, I was set free.

All at once, I no longer felt vindicated by humanist counter-theory proponents and anti-feminists. I no longer felt compelled to participate in any debate or opinion about feminism or any other 'ism.' I no longer cared which side of the debate was right and which side was wrong. I saw that they are both wrong. I saw that they both miss the point entirely. They both are missing the one true unifying force of the universe: Christ.

With my new eyes, I could finally see why neither side of the spectrum seemed to be able to accomplish any meaningful and lasting good. Neither side has Christ at its center. And when Christ is not the center, priorities and motivations are guaranteed to be askew. How's that for total awesomeness?!

I thank God for these new eyes and the lightness in my heart and I pray that He will continue to revise my eyes and heart towards a life that honors Him first.

I still care about the social and political impacts of feminism and I still perceive the movement to have accomplished mostly negative things in American culture. But the beautiful thing is: It doesn't matter. And thank God for that!

Humble Pie and Other Health Foods

I meant for my previous post on food to set the scene for my being able to encourage and uplift other parents in their efforts to make healthy choices for their kids. Instead I think I focused more on defending my own family's choices than extending the offer of support to other parents, so let's see if I can get it right this time. What I really want is to be able to help make someone else's journey into learning about 'health food' and changing shopping patterns a little less intimidating and unpleasant than mine has been. I hope you will give me another chance to try.

As I started off in my previous post, I am an expert in nothing and you should not listen to anything I say. I encourage you to always investigate and evaluate my sources and information for yourself. Only you can decide how valuable and trustworthy my sources and information will be to you and I respect everyone's right to come to their own conclusions.

Where To Start?

I think a lot of parents probably feel like if they start learning about toxins in the environment, they will start worrying about everything and will drive themselves crazy. Well....you will. It is literally impossible to avoid exposure to every single toxin out there and it will do you no good to worry about it endlessly. But there are some toxins we can avoid and one of the easiest ways to avoid them is by eating fewer processed and chemically treated foods. 

Where we do not always have control over things like the quality of the air we breathe and toxins in our water, we do have control over the things we actively put into our bodies. As parents this means we have many opportunities to protect our kids from environmental toxins through providing them with the best diet we can manage.

Setting Realistic Goals at the Grocery Store

Making healthier choices doesn't have to mean going ALL organic or avoiding ALL processed foods. Even if you only buy one organic produce item on your next trip to the grocery store, you are still doing some good.

A non-profit organization called the Environmental Working Group (EWG) puts out an annual list of the top produce items consumers should buy 'organic' called the "Dirty Dozen." This list reflects the top 12 foods with the highest levels of pesticide residues if not purchased 'organic'. Produce items the EWG suggests you buy organic include:

• Apples 
• Strawberries 
• Grapes 
• Celery 
• Peaches 
• Spinach 
• Sweet bell peppers 
• Imported nectarines 
• Cucumbers 
• Cherry tomatoes 
• Imported snap peas 
• Potatoes

If your family already buys some of these items regularly, the knowledge that you can reduce pesticide exposure by buying these products 'organic' should be very encouraging. I didn't know about this list when I first started buying organic food. I just went into the store thinking I was going to be able to buy everything 'organic' and then walked out feeling like a total failure. This does not have to be YOUR experience too! The EWG claims that buying just these 12 items 'organic' can reduce pesticide exposure by up to 80%! Eighty percent! That is a huge difference made by making just a few simple changes.

Of the 12 items on this list, I have had success in finding many of them at our local Giant. From my experience, they carry organic apples, strawberries (inconsistently), grapes, celery, spinach, cucumbers and potatoes (and possibly some others on the list that our family doesn't typically eat). Finding these items amongst the regular produce can be a bit of a challenge until you become familiar with their locations (and even then, they tend to change things around periodically) but do not be like me and be too proud to ask someone for help. It took me over a year to find the organic apples. A YEAR!

The EWG also puts out a "Clean Fifteen" list of the foods that you can probably safely buy without an organic label. These foods are known to retain the lowest amount of pesticide residues. The "Clean Fifteen" include:

• Avocados 
• Sweet corn. Believe it or not, sweet corn (not to be confused with the much more pervasive field corn) is generally low or even free of pesticides
• Pineapples
• Cabbage
• Frozen sweet peas 
• Onions
• Asparagus 
• Mangoes 
• Papayas 
• Kiwis 
• Eggplant 
• Grapefruit 
• Cantaloupe 
• Cauliflower 
• Sweet potatoes

The EWG also provides a list of all common produce items and their relative rank in levels of residual pesticides here. If you can't find or can't afford to buy certain produce items 'organic' but still want to try to avoid pesticide exposure as much as possible, this list can be a guide for you in determining which foods are safest for your family.

Another easy way to avoid toxins through diet is to buy organic (or organic raw) milk and dairy products. Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH/rBST) is given to commercial dairy cows to increase milk production and has been linked to breast, prostate and colon cancers. I think some dairy products will even have a separate label indicating that it contains no rBGH/rBST and I don't think all products that make this claim are necessarily labeled organic. If it's not labeled organic though, you can't be sure that the cows are fed all organic foods which may or may not affect the nutrient value of the product.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of advice for where to find these products in regular grocery stores. I know Giant has some selection of organic milk and dairy products but the range is minimal and I do not know much about the brands they carry.

Consider Supporting a Local Family Farm, Co-Op or 'Health Food' Store

Fortunately, there are local farms and health food stores that offer organic and raw milk and dairy. Our family gets our milk (and some other dairy products) directly from an "all grass-based farm" which means all of their animals are raised on pasture. This means their cows' primary diet is grass and they are only minimally supplemented with 100% organic feed that the farm produces on site. All of their dairy products are also raw which means they have not been pasteurized. Yikes! A lot of people have reservations about consuming raw dairy products but if you're interested in learning more about the risks and benefits, look here.

Our family has been consuming raw dairy for over 3 years from the same farm without incident. While our anecdotal experience alone might not be enough to quell your fears, I recommend researching the health benefits of properly produced raw dairy products versus commercial dairy. If you find yourself interested in trying raw dairy, I might be able to give you some advice on where to find a reliable source depending on where you live. 

Speaking of cows and farming practices, here is what I know: The majority of U.S. farmed cattle (two thirds) are routinely given antibiotics and the aforementioned rBGH/rBST hormones to make the processing of the animal and its products as efficient as possible. Use of the rBGH/rBST hormones almost inevitably leads to various infections of the cows udders and mastitis, which prompts the indiscriminate use of antibiotics on cows in order to fight these infections. These infections also often cause blood and pus to bleed into the cows milk, making the pasteurization process an absolute MUST if you don't want to drink 'sick' milk. The unnatural (grain) diets commercial dairy cows are fed also contribute to the development of infections and illness in the animal which further propels antibiotic use.

The best sources of dairy and beef are from healthy, organically farmed, pastured (grass-fed) cows. You can learn more about the benefits of grass-fed versus grain-fed cows here. I have seen a small selection of grass-fed beef at Giant but the prices are pretty painful. In general, you can expect to pay quite a bit more per pound for grass-fed beef (between 5-15 dollars a pound depending on which cut you want) but Giant's prices are exceptionally outrageous. Probably because of the extra expenses the brands who provide the beef go through to have their product packaged and sent to the store. I think many of the grass-fed beef products available in grocery stores are imported from other countries so it isn't surprising that they are so expensive. If you ever get out to Wegman's however, I have seen it there for $5.20 a lb when you buy a 3 lb pack of ground beef. This is the only place (other than the family farm we shop at) that I have seen a reasonable price on grass-fed beef.

Say 'NO' to GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)
I recommend avoiding genetically modified (GM) foods as much as possible. This is probably the most difficult of all, considering that GM foods account for between 70-90% of the foods in grocery stores. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food have been shown to cause organ damage, gastrointestinal and immune system disorders, accelerated aging, and infertility. Many GMOs are developed for the express purpose of granting the crop tolerance to the popular pesticides and herbicides used by commercial growers. This means that you can expect most GM foods to contain some level of residual toxins.

Even worse, GMO farming practices increase the use of pesticides and herbicides! This is because over time, weeds and pests adapt to current pesticide and herbicide formulations which prompts the use of greater and greater concentrations and in some cases the necessity of developing a new chemical altogether. Seriously scary stuff and it has many dangerous implications for not just human health but the health of our environment and the sustainability of organic farming methods.

Genetically modified organisms are currently not required by the FDA to be labeled so it is sometimes impossible to know whether or not a product uses GM ingredients. The best way to ensure a product is free of GM ingredients is to make sure it has the USDA Organic label. Foods with the USDA Organic label prohibit the use of chemical/synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic hormones, GMOs and all aspects of GMO farming.

More recently, the NON GMO Project label was developed to prohibit GMOs and performs mandatory checks for GMOs at multiple levels of production. The NON GMO Project label does not however, guarantee that chemicals, pesticides, hormones and antibiotics have not been used in the food's production. 

When you look at the chart below you can see that the NON GMO Project label doesn't give you much more than the USDA Organic label already ensures. I think the point of the NON GMO Project is to offer food manufacturers a way to provide consumers with extra assurance that their products are being tested for GMOs at all levels of production. The NON GMO Project label alone is not very comforting to me personally as it still leaves room for all of the above chemicals to have been to used in the production of the food.

Giant in Carlisle has a pretty decent 'organic foods' section so you won't feel like a total dumb-dumb when looking for things like organic breads, cereals, packaged soups, etc. There's even a small freezer section where you can find some of the familiar comfort foods you like in their (sometimes less tasty) 'organic' forms. The prices can be a little steep for some of these things so you may want to focus more on fresh organic foods as changing those purchases alone can significantly reduce pesticide exposure.

Fluorescent Blue Things Are Not Food

Last but not least to avoid are artificial food dyes. This is my least favorite to deal with in person and even my least favorite to write about now. Partly because it makes me so angry that major food producers work so hard to tempt our kids with bright and exciting colored foods. Food colors that do not exist in nature and many of which are known to be carcinogenic, cause chromosomal damage and all sorts of auto-immune and neuro-behavioral problems. I just get so angry that some of these products are even allowed to be called 'food' and that they are aggressively marketed towards our most innocent and vulnerable population: Our children.

Click on the infographic below and pay close attention to Red #4 and Yellow #5. Look at how many of these dyes are banned in other countries and notice that "Kelloggs" and "Kraft", two of America's largest food manufacturers NO LONGER USE ARTIFICIAL DYES IN THEIR UK PRODUCTS!

And now go ahead and cry for a few minutes as you reflect on why companies like Kellogg's and Kraft think it's okay to poison kids in America but not in the UK. And then realize that neither one cares about who they poison, they just want your money. This one gets me pretty furious. The fact that this stuff is allowed to be given to children in America, children whose bodies and brains are not fully developed and are especially vulnerable to these chemical threats is one of the most insidiously immoral things I can think of.

So Now What?

As parents, instead of giving into a sense of futility about all of the environmental factors we can't control, I think we should all feel empowered by knowing that some little changes in diet can go a long way in ensuring better health for our kids. And it doesn't have to be the seemingly overwhelming and impossible task that it sometimes feels like. Making a positive impact on your kid's health can be as simple as buying a few more organic products at the grocery store or it can be as complicated as diving through time and space to intercept a candy bar before it enters your 3 year old's mouth. You probably won't want to be as weird about it as me, though.

I hope at least one person finds some of this information helpful ♥ Thanks for reading.

References:

http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/list.php

http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2014/04/corn

http://animalrights.about.com/od/animalsusedforfood/f/AntibioticsrGBH.htm

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/15/inhumane-treatment-on-dairy-cows.aspx

http://higherperspective.com/2014/09/grainfed-grassfed-beef.html?utm_source=MAM

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/10-Reasons-to-Avoid-GMOs

http://www.nongmoproject.org/product-verification/faqs/

http://www.bostonorganics.com/wordpress/2013/10/24/avoid-gmos-the-difference-between-organic-and-non-gmo-labels/

http://www.special-education-degree.net/food-dyes/

Reflections on Food, Health and Being the 'Weird' Parents

Before getting to the meat of this entry (no pun intended), I want to first make it clear that I am by no means an expert on the topics of food, health or nutrition. I do not have any fancy degrees or certifications declaring me knowledgeable on these topics and you should not believe anything I have to say about them. Instead, I encourage all parents to look into these matters for themselves and make the decisions they feel are in the best interest of their families.
 
On Being the 'Weird' Parents and Handling Criticism

As many people know, my husband and I have always been very particular about our kid's diet. We are the 'weird' parents who are known to pack 'special' food for our kid when traveling, and at restaurants, family gatherings and parties. We are the 'crazy' parents who have been known to intercept the unidentified ice-cream bar, the chocolate chip cookie and the piece of candy from entering our kid's mouth at a family get-together. Yes, we are those weirdos. 

We have also been called hypocritical for occasionally following different dietary standards ourselves, than the much stricter standards we have for our son. I understand the confused and sometimes judgmental reactions we receive. I will even admit that our parenting philosophy regarding food is sometimes hypocritical. But I think sometimes onlookers fail to consider that in some areas, perhaps there is good reasoning behind having different standards for children and adults. Almost all parents will at some point run into an area where they seem to have a double standard between what they do themselves and what they find appropriate for their children. Almost all parents are in some sense or another, hypocrites. I believe many of the differences in standards we tend to have for children and adults are born out of a natural human tendency to regard the care and protection of children as much more important than that of adults and in general, I think this is a good thing.

For example, most parents wouldn't allow their child to consume an alcoholic beverage, a cigarette or other known hazardous substance before the child is old enough to intelligently weigh the risks and benefits of these substances for themselves. Why then, should hazardous chemicals in foods be treated any differently? In my opinion they shouldn't be. The World Health Organization (WHO) seems to (at least in part) agree with me-

As a 2008 WHO presentation entitled, "Children Are Not Little Adults" explains, 

"All children deserve the right to grow up in a healthy environment where they can reach their full potential as citizens of the world. Sustainable development has at its core healthy children. Health is much more than mere absence of illness. It is the responsibility of today’s adults to identify hazards and conditions that impair children’s ability to grow and mature safely and in good health.

We now recognize that children, including the embryo, fetus, infant and all life stages until the completion of adolescence, are often at a different and increased risk from environmental hazards from that of adults, for reasons that can be divided into four major categories.

1. Children often have different, and sometimes unique, exposures to environmental hazards from those of adults.

2. Due to their dynamic developmental physiology children are often subjected to higher exposures to pollutants found in air, water and food. These exposures may be handled quite differently by an immature set of systems to the way they are dealt with in adults. Furthermore, the developmental component of a child’s physiology is changing: maturing, differentiating and growing in phases known as "developmental windows". These "critical windows of vulnerability" have no parallel in adult physiology and create unique risks for children exposed to hazards that can alter normal function and structure.

3. Children have a longer life expectancy. Therefore they have longer to manifest a disease with a long latency period, and longer to live with toxic damage. 

4. Finally, children are politically powerless; they are defenceless. With no political standing of their own, they must rely on adults to protect them from toxic environmental agents."

This being the case, I pray to God that Nature will have mercy on my developing baby in spite of my occasional weakness for a soda and pizza during my pregnancy so far...

When it comes to my kid's diet, my (imperfect) philosophy is this:

Where I as an adult can intelligently weigh the risks and benefits of what I put into my body, my 3 year old is not capable of doing the same for himself. Therefore it is my responsibility as a parent to make these choices for him according to what I believe is in his best interest. Would it be ideal if parents never did or ate anything that they would not also choose for their kid/s? Sure. Am I a hypocrite for sometimes indulging in foods that I do not allow my kid to eat? Yes. But on the whole, the foods my family has in common far outnumber the foods that we don’t. To the extent that our family is financially and practically able (barring occasional lapses in personal willpower) we all eat organic foods, pastured meat and dairy products and try to limit processed foods. And YES, occasionally we are hypocrites. I think most parents would be lying if they claimed that they've never fallen into this category at one time or another.

On Becoming a New Mom and Learning About Health and Diet

When our son was first born, I didn’t know the first thing about proper nutrition for an adult, let alone for a child. The only thing I knew was that breast milk was supposed to be better than formula due mostly to the passage of antibodies, immune-boosters and essential enzymes to the baby’s system. I later learned that for these same reasons, breast milk is more healthful than formula even in spite of a mother’s poor diet, and that the immune-boosting properties of breast milk can have long-lasting positive health effects for a child well into his/her adulthood. So I had about 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding to do my research and figure out what in the world I was going to feed this kid once we started introducing solid foods.

During that time I did a lot of research and reading but to be honest, many times I found myself not understanding what I had read, not knowing how to interpret certain information or which sources to trust. I often became so frustrated and overwhelmed by conflicting information and mixed consensus that I wanted to just throw my hands up in the air and let my kid eat whatever he wanted. But instead of giving up altogether, when I became too frustrated I would take a break from reading and try to decide which health tips I had read about that seemed to make the most logical sense and seemed feasible for me to accomplish with my limited knowledge. Luckily I also had the full support of my husband and together we were able to come away with a basic set of dietary tenets for our son that we felt were most critical.

   

First we decided on only organic fruits and vegetables. During my research I learned that the extensive body of research on organic versus conventional produce overwhelmingly indicates that organic produce contains higher levels of antioxidants, lower levels of pesticides and lower levels of toxic metals that accumulate in the body and contribute to disease.

According to a 2004 report by Pesticide Action Network, North America (PANNA), "Many U.S. residents carry toxic pesticides in their bodies above government assessed "acceptable" levels." Of 9,282 people tested nationwide by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), PANNA researchers found that 100 percent had pesticides in their blood and urine, indicating that "government and industry have failed to safeguard public health from pesticide exposures." Kristin Schafer, lead author of the 2004 PANNA report stated that, "The average person in this group carried a toxic cocktail of 13 of the 23 pesticides we analyzed."

The report further states that, "While the government develops safety levels for each chemical separately, this study shows that in the real world we are exposed to multiple chemicals simultaneously," explained Margaret Reeves, of PANNA. "The synergistic effects of multiple exposures are unknown, but a growing body of research suggests that even at very low levels, the combination of these chemicals can be harmful to our health."

Our next tenet was to aim for a diet rich in high quality fats, proteins and vegetables, while keeping grains and sugars to a minimum. The Weston A. Price Foundation (a non-profit charity that promotes nutrition education, based on the field research of the late Dr. Weston A. Price) recommends a rethinking of current USDA dietary guidelines citing that these guidelines "are based on the flawed notion that cholesterol and saturated fat are unhealthy. They are unrealistic, unworkable, unscientific and impractical; they have resulted in widespread nutrient deficiencies and contributed to a proliferation of obesity and degenerative disease, including problems with growth, behavior and learning in children."

The following outline shows the foundation's suggested replacement dietary guidelines:

"The Weston A. Price Foundation strongly urges the USDA Dietary Guidelines committee to scrap the food pyramid and replace it with the following Healthy 4 Life guidelines, based on four groups of whole foods.

Every day, eat high quality, whole foods to provide an abundance of nutrients, chosen from each of the following four groups:

1. Animal foods: meat and organ meats, poultry, and eggs from pastured animals; fish and shellfish; whole raw cheese, milk and other dairy products from pastured animals; and broth made from animal bones.
2. Grains, legumes and nuts: whole-grain baked goods, breakfast porridges, whole grain rice; beans and lentils; peanuts, cashews and nuts, properly prepared to improve digestibility.
3. Fruits and Vegetables: preferably fresh or frozen, preferably locally grown, either raw, cooked or in soups and stews, and also as lacto-fermented condiments.
4. Fats and Oils: unrefined saturated and monounsaturated fats including butter, lard, tallow and other animal fats; palm oil and coconut oil; olive oil; cod liver oil for vitamins A and D.

Avoid: foods containing refined sweeteners such as candies, sodas, cookies, cakes etc.; white flour products such as pasta and white bread; processed foods; modern soy foods; polyunsaturated and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and fried foods."

Additionally, Dr. William Coda Martin explains that refined sugar meets the definition of a poison, saying “Sugar is worse than nothing because it drains and leaches the body of precious vitamins and minerals through the demand its digestion, detoxification and elimination makes upon one's entire system.” (Sugar Blues, © 1975 by William Dufty).

With the combined knowledge that children's systems are more vulnerable and more adversely impacted by environmental toxins than adult's, the unacceptable levels of pesticides and toxic chemicals in the average American's bloodstream and the Weston A. Price Foundation's Dietary Guidelines for optimal health, my husband and I developed our seemingly odd approach to our son's diet and thus became the 'weird' parents we are today. 

A Strange New Grocery Store

I remember the first time I went shopping for organic food by myself. It was one of the most uncomfortable and humbling experiences of my life. I had done all the research and reading and now I was ready to enter the grocery store with an enlightened new perspective! Except I couldn't find anything I was looking for...

I walked down the same aisles again and again and again to the point where I was on the verge of tears. I looked and looked for the organic labels in the produce section but I wasn't finding them. I knew that my regular grocery store was known for offering a selection of organic produce so it had to be that I was just too dumb to find and read labels properly. I was too embarrassed to ask a store associate to help me so I entered the checkout with barely anything in my cart and cried the whole way home. No joke. It was a nightmare.

When my son was just 6 months old, my family took a trip to visit my in-laws in California. Being that my mother-in-law is very knowledgeable and familiar with buying organic foods, I learned a lot just from shopping alongside her. Many of the stores she shopped at carried exclusively organic and/or local produce but some were just regular grocery stores where you still had to look very carefully at everything. Becoming more familiar with organic labels and learning more from her about what ingredients to look for and which to avoid went a long way in building my grocery-shopping confidence and over time, grocery shopping became easier. That said, I do not envy the situations of parents without available supports and resources in this area. I know exactly how intimidating the process can be when faced all alone and I know how stupid it makes you feel when you fail miserably at the very basic first step of FINDING THE ORGANIC FOOD!

Supporting and Encouraging Each Other as Parents

Because so many of our responsibilities as parents are daunting and our choices full of virtual unknowns, we need to do our best to try to support and encourage one another. For the most part I believe every parent does his or her personal best to make what they believe are the best choices for their kid/s. No parent ever does this perfectly and I am certainly no exception but I think there is a basic truth across all parents no matter what their philosophy, and that is that we all care, we all weigh risks versus benefits and we all want the best for our kids. The way each individual family works to achieve these goals will look a little (or a lot) different from one family to the next but we all have the same concerns and the same goal: Building a good life for our kids. I think this means that we all need to give each other the benefit of doubt, cut each other some slack and stop with the harsh judgments and criticisms. It is okay to disagree with or question the parental approaches of others, but ultimately we should remember that we are all doing the best we can the best way we know how to do. We ought to simply support one another and encourage each other to keep learning, to keep educating ourselves, to share new information and tips (not criticisms) openly with other parents and to collectively work to do the very best we can for our kids.

Thanks for reading ♥

References:

http://www.who.int/ceh/capacity/Children_are_not_little_adults.pdf

http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/feeding-eating/breastfeeding/why-breast-is-best/how-human-milk-protects-babies-illness

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/858156-organic-food-contains-up-to-60-percent-more-antioxidants/ 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/residues052404.cfm 

http://www.westonaprice.org/ 

http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/comments-on-the-usda-dietary-guidelines/ 

http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/sugar-problem/refined-sugar-the-sweetest-poison-of-all