Today Women’s Voices for the Earth released a report called Dirty Secrets: What’s Hiding in Your Cleaning Products?  I wrote about the report over at Care2.com, but surprisingly (or not), I wasn’t very surprised by the dirty secrets in this report.

There are chemicals in makeup and personal care products. There are chemicals in baby care products. There are chemicals in storage containers and drink bottles and packaging. And yes, there are chemicals in household cleaning products.

I know.

You know.

We know.

And now we need action to get rid of those chemicals. I am pleased that the Canadian government is taking action and reviewing a large list of chemicals and I do hope to see progress in banning them. I’m happy to see companies like Johnson & Johnson making promises to get rid of carcinogens in baby shampoo (but I won’t believe it until I see it and it is verified by independent third parties).

But until the chemicals are gone, more needs to be done to educate consumers and to empower consumers. People need to know about the dangerous chemicals lurking in the everyday products that they use so that they can make educated choices. They need information from the government and non-profit organizations about the safety (or lack thereof) of these products. They also need mandated, clear, truthful ingredient lists on the products that are being sold on the market. Even people who are able to decode a long list of latin words on a package label are probably still only getting half the story.

In my Care2 article, I give people a few suggestions for action. I thought I’d pass those along here too:

• Start by protecting yourself and your family. You can get some recipes for making homemade cleaning products from Healthy Child, Healthy World or Women’s Voices for the Earth.
• Healthy Child, Healthy World also suggests contacted the companies whose cleaning products you use and like and asking them about some of the ingredients you are concerned about. Ask them to disclose all ingredients and ask them to remove dangerous toxins and allergens.
• Share this story and the report with your friends and family, so that they can protect themselves and take action.
• Finally, for those of you in the United States, let your political representatives know how you feel. You can contact your representative directly via Women’s Voices for the Earth’s website and you can sign the Care2 petition asking Congress to support the Cleaning Products Right to Know Act.

Last week my partner went out to our friend’s organic farm and picked tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes. Big ones, small ones. Red ones, green ones, and orange ones. This weekend, I turned most of them from tomatoes into pasta sauce, with smaller amounts going toward ratatouille, salsa and fried green tomatoes. Some are cooked and some are roasted.

My final inventory (minus things already consumed):

• 6 jars bolognese
• 8 jars butternut squash (with orange tomatoes, orange peppers, onion and garlic)
• 2 jars roasted red pepper and tomato
• 3 jars primavera
• 3 jars tomato and garlic
• 2 jars salsa verde

Because I know nothing about canning (perhaps a challenge for another year), I simply froze the sauces in mason jars with the tops still loose and then closed them once the sauce had frozen.

I’m looking forward to a winter of organic, local, sauces that have not only saved me money, but also saved us from way too much sodium and other things that get tossed into commercial sauces.

What have you preserved for the winter? What method did you use?

The Wall Street Journal printed an article last week about how sales of disposable diapers are decreasing and sales of diaper rash ointment are increasing.

The volume of diapers sold in the U.S. slipped 1% in the four weeks ended Sept. 4 from a year earlier, extending a string of similar or steeper declines stretching back to August 2010, according to Consumer Edge Research, whose retail-sales tracking doesn’t include Costco Wholesale Corp. or Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Dollar sales fell nearly 3%, indicating parents are both cutting back and trading down to cheaper private labels.

…

Meantime, sales of diaper-rash ointment have increased 8% over the past year, according to market-research firm SymphonyIRI. Analysts and pediatricians say the higher sales likely reflect either less frequent changes or a shift to lower quality diapers.

In the article, they raise a number of different issues, but ultimately blame the economy and suggest that parents are having to make tough financial decisions, one of which is leaving their baby in a wet or dirty diaper for a longer period of time in order to cut back on costs.

Why might sales of disposable diapers be decreasing?

The good news is that I don’t think the issue is as cut and dry as the Wall Street Journal makes it sound. Certainly, the economy could be one of the issues that is impacting diaper sales (and I’ll discuss that below), but I do think there could be other contributing factors too. One of these is raised briefly in the WSJ article and then quickly dismissed, whereas the others didn’t even seem to be on their radar at all.

So, what are the possible reasons for a decrease in sales of disposable diapers?

• Parents Cannot Afford to Buy Diapers:  Certainly, as WSJ suggested, one reason for the decline in sales of disposable diapers could be that people cannot afford them. Unfortunately, low income parents do not appear to be able to access diapers through programs like WIC in the United States in the same way that they can access food. Some families have apparently been trying to re-use disposable diapers and there has been an increase in cases of diaper rash in low income areas (according to doctors interviewed by the WSJ).

• Parents are Buying Diapers in Bulk at Discount Retailers: Interestingly, the data in the WSJ article doesn’t include data from sales at Costco and WalMart. So there may not be a decrease in diaper sales at all. Parents may just be buying them in bulk at discount retailers in order to save money.

• Parents May Be Giving Cloth Diapers a Try: There are no good statistics on the use of cloth diapers, although most reports on the issue put the use of cloth diapers in North America at between 5% and 10%. It wouldn’t take a significant increase in the use of cloth diapers to have an impact on the sales of disposable diapers. It is entirely possible that the 1% decrease in the sales of disposable diapers comes from increased use of cloth diapers, both new and used. While there is no concrete data on increases in cloth diaper sales in the past year, there has certainly been an increase in online searches for cloth diapers (source: Google Trends).

• Parents May Be Trying Elimination Communication: There is also a trend toward increased use of elimination communication, whereby parents skip diapers altogether and start pottying their babies right from birth. While this hasn’t caught on as much as cloth diapering, it may be having a small impact on diaper sales.

• Parents are Having Fewer Babies: The WSJ article mentions that the US birth rate has declined. That may also be contributing to a decrease in infant diaper sales (although the increasing aging population is probably contributing to an increase in adult diapers, so it should balance out).

• More Absorbent Diapers = Fewer Diaper Changes: Another factor mentioned in the WSJ article is that more absorbent diapers may mean that parents do not feel the need to change diapers as often as they did before.

What can you do?

If you are planning to have a baby yourself, then saving up for diapers and putting money aside is one good option. You can also register for cloth diapers instead of registering for all the baby products people think they need and then never use. In our case, we purchased all the cloth diapers that we needed before our babies were born, so as long as we could afford to buy the small amount of laundry detergent that they required, we were fine. It was tough making ends meet while I was on maternity leave (especially the first time), so it was really nice to not have to spend money on diapers.

If you have friends who are planning to have babies, you can tell them how much money they can save by cloth diapering. You can also pass along your cloth diapers to them when you are finished with them, thereby making it that much cheaper for them to cloth diaper.

If you want to give to families in need, you can certainly contribute to programs that provide disposable diapers to low income families or take disposable diapers to your local food bank. Although I am a huge supporter of cloth diapers, I do recognize that it is challenging for families that have to lug the diapers to a laundromat or that have their children in a daycare that doesn’t accept cloth diapers.When I donate disposable diapers, I lean toward the green brands to at least minimize the impact they are having on the environment as much as possible.

However, in addition to or instead of donating disposable diapers, you can also donate used or new cloth diapers. There are a number of organizations, ranging from food banks to cloth diapering non-profits that are reaching out to low income families, teaching them about cloth diapering, and helping them access cloth diapers. As my friend Kim from Dirty Diaper Laundry once wrote, “give a family a pack of disposables, diaper a baby for a week. Give a family a cloth diaper kit, diaper a baby(s) for a lifetime.” Ultimately, it would be less expensive in the long run to buy a family a washer, dryer and enough cloth diapers for their baby than to provide them with a fully supply of disposable diapers. Plus they would be able to use the washer and dryer for other purposes too and use the diapers for more than one baby.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, like with infant feeding and so many other parenting issues, there are a variety of different factors that go into the choices that parents make. I would love to see a situation whereby parents are educated about the options for diapering (benefits and drawbacks of different diapering methods) and are supported by society in the choices that they make. I do think that should include making it possible for low income parents to keep their babies bums dry, whether in cloth diapers or disposable diapers. I do support long-term solutions to help make cloth diapering accessible to more families (training, washers and dryers, diapering kits) as well as short-term stop gaps (i.e. donations of disposables) to help families using disposables to get through tough times.

This is a post about families and food, poverty and privilege, accessibility and convenience, taste and nutrition,  consumerism and profit, affordability and sustainability. This is a post about our complex relationship with the way we fuel our bodies that cannot begin to do the topic justice.

Healthy eating? Whose responsibility is it?

You’ve heard it before. People are obese because they have no self-control. No one is forcing them to eat McDonald’s or to scarf down a bag of chips while sitting on the couch. No one. So if they are fat, it is their fault. It doesn’t matter that they also exercise and eat lots of healthy food or that there are thin people who eat a lot more fast food and never seem to gain any weight. That doesn’t matter at all. If you are fat, it is your. own. fault. period.

Or so goes the holier-than-thou mantra.

But I don’t buy it. People are, statistically, heavier now than they ever were before. Did we all go through some sort of metamorphosis that has led us to lose the self-control that previous generations had? No, not really. The problem is that societal influences have changed for the worse and we have simply accepted them. When they cause us harm, we yell about how it is our “personal responsibility” to just deal with it and do better. That isn’t always easy when the cards are stacked against us.

• Families are busier. There are more two-income or single-parent families where there simply isn’t one person home all day to clip coupons, leisurely visit multiple grocery stores to get the best deals, tend to a backyard garden, and prepare homemade meals from scratch. Instead of just running off to the local playground or into the woods with some friends, children are involved in after-school activities that their parents drive them to and from. Parents are trying to squeeze some me-time into the week too.

• Food is less nutritious. Yes, vegetables are still vegetables and everyone should strive to have a well balanced diet that includes lots of whole foods. However, there are many processed foods that have unnecessarily high amounts of fat, sugar and salt. Bread has added salt and tons of sugar. Pasta sauces are dripping with fat and have astronomical sodium levels. Things that could be baked are instead deep fried. Things that should be sweet are instead sickeningly sweet. I wrote recently about some better processed food brands that we have found and like, but they are few and far between.  I lost weight when we moved to Europe and gained it all back when we returned to Canada and I am convinced that the main reason is the added sugar in bread and other processed foods that we rely on.

• Nutritious food is less accessible and less affordable. With the rise of fast food and convenience stores, a lot of small grocery stores, bakeries, markets, and health food stores have gone out of business. This has created a lot of food deserts in major cities in industrialized countries, i.e. areas that are lacking access to “affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet.” Unfortunately, food deserts are more common in low income areas, where people are less likely to be able to afford healthier fast food options and aren’t necessarily able to just hop in a car to go to a grocery store in another part of the city. When buying healthy food requires a four hour round trip on a public bus with three children in tow, parents are understandably less likely to make the effort. When nutritious food is available, the prices are often high, especially outside of the growing season in a country like Canada.

• Pervasive marketing. Fast food and other unhealthy, over-processed options are marketed to death (literally). We cannot escape them. Even if you don’t watch television, you are subject to billboards, in-store displays, trucks that are no longer just trucks but instead a zoomed in giant picture of a Big Mac or chocolate chip cookies, vending machines, window displays, and more.  Major brands sneak their way into sporting events, cultural events, museums, recreational facilities, and schools under the guise of sponsorship dollars. On top of all of this, we need to account for the health washing that happens, i.e. all the labels and commercials that tell us how healthy the not-so-healthy food is.

There are other things that play into obesity rates for sure, such as sedentary lifestyles and genes. But what we put into our bodies does continue to be one significant determinant of our weight and of overall obesity rates.

We can’t simply blame people for putting the wrong things into their bodies when the cards are stacked against them like this. To do so is to speak with the blinders of privilege. Yes, I know that some people manage to eat great food all the time while clipping coupons and earning minimum wage. But that doesn’t mean that it is easy for everyone or that it is the top priority for everyone. We can work hard to eat really well all of the time, but we shouldn’t have to.

Yes, we eat fast food

On average, we probably eat out about twice per week. One of those meals is probably at a fast food chain and the other is usually at a less than ideal restaurant. We aren’t perfect. I know what is in that food. I know it isn’t optimal nutrition. I also know that it isn’t making up the vast majority of the food that my family eats. We make choices among the bad choices. We’ll opt for a chain with fresh ingredients and crayons over one with suspect ingredients and cheap toxic toys. I know that it doesn’t make the food healthy. But yes, we do take advantage of convenience and even of cheap convenience sometimes.

Could we do better?

Yes, of course we could. But quite honestly, it just isn’t worth the effort all the time.

If our kids have an activity on Saturday morning and we then have other plans in the city in the afternoon, it simply doesn’t make sense to drive all the way home in between. I could pack a picnic lunch, which we could eat outdoors if the weather is nice or could eat in the car if it is awful outside. Of course, I could. But to be perfectly frank, after working all week and packing nutritious school lunches every single day during the week, sometimes I just want a break too. Not only do I want a break from slaving over food preparation, but I also want a break from the whining about the things that they don’t want to eat. So yes, sometimes it is just easier and better for my mental health to stop at Harvey’s for a burger and fries than it is to go the extra mile to ensure that everything that goes into our families mouths is perfectly nutritious.

Sometimes, preserving some extra family time (instead of spending it all in the grocery store, garden and kitchen) and preserving some extra family peace is more important than perfect nutrition. As long as we are generally healthy, I’m okay with that because I know that the food we put into our bodies is just one part of our overall health. Getting out and doing fun things as a family and getting enough rest are other parts of that equation too.

Convenience shouldn’t suck

I think the subtitle says it all, but let me explain.

When we were moving to Berlin last year, some of you may remember that I was concerned when I learned there would be a McDonald’s about one block from our apartment. In the end, it wasn’t an issue at all. The kids asked a few times if we could go there, I said “no” and explained why and they accepted it. Why did they accept it? They accepted it because there were delicious real food treats that were equally accessible. They accepted it because there were numerous playgrounds in the area that were much nicer than the trashy one at the McDonald’s. They accepted it because there were fun things to do that were much more appealing than a stupid plastic toy. Ultimately, when held up against what else was on offer, McDonald’s simply didn’t make the cut.

Almost every subway and train station in Berlin has at least one bakery in it that sells fresh baked goods, but also sandwiches full of fresh ingredients and also fresh fruit. This photo, provided by my friend Danielle from 50% of my DNA, shows an example of one of those. But the ones that we passed multiple times every single day had a much bigger choice than what you see here. There was a Subway (the sandwich chain, not the underground train) a couple of blocks from our house, but we never once step foot into it (although we did eat at another Subway once in another part of the city). Here in Canada, I see Subway as one of the better fast food options. In Berlin, it wasn’t even on my radar most of the time because there were so many other convenient options to choose from.

Let me draw you a picture of the area that we lived in. When we were coming home and got off the U-Bahn (subway), we immediately passed by a wood oven pizza place that made fresh pizzas starting at around $2. Right next to that was a small grocery store and fruit market that was open 24 hours per day. During the day, the fresh fruit spilled out onto the sidewalks and made it so easy to grab whatever we needed for a quick afternoon snack. We got fresh bread at the bakery every morning for breakfast (there were at least three bakeries within a 5 minute walk of our apartment). There were numerous grocery stores, ranging from cheap bulk stores to the upscale organic ones within a few blocks of our apartment. Some of them, like the Bio Company that we liked to shop at, also sold affordable snacks and meals that you could eat right there.

The kids and I often packed some cheese, apple slices, and our stainless steel water bottles and headed out for the day. I would buy some bread at the bakery whichever subway station we got off at and we’d have a picnic lunch somewhere in the park. We ate ice cream almost every single day, but it was Italian-style gelato that did not have excessive amounts of sugar in it. We ate out several times per week and had our choice of dozens and dozens of restaurants within a few blocks of our house, ranging from amazing little vegetarian cafes to traditional German style food to Moroccan, Thai, Italian and all sorts of other ethnic foods.

Berlin offered accessible, affordable, and nutritious convenience, not just in our part of town (which was one of the poorest parts of the city and would likely be a food desert in North America) but across the city. Ottawa and Gatineau don’t even come close, not even downtown and certainly not in the suburbs. Convenience shouldn’t have to suck, but in North America it seems like it frequently does.

I don’t expect people to be perfect

We are all humans. The food that we put into our bodies is only one of many things that we need to worry about on a daily basis. Some days, making the best choices from an ethical and health perspective is not always possible. Or at least it isn’t possible without giving something else up. Some people have been able to make changes to their lives that allow them to make the best choices most of the time. Not all of us can and not all of us have the motivation to do so.

As Ottawa obesity doctor Yoni Freedhoff often says, “It’s about the healthiest life you can enjoy, not the healthiest life you can tolerate.”

If people want to make a healthy choices, they should be at least as accessible and affordable as unhealthy choices. In that type of world, I think that people would be more likely to make healthy choices more often. They wouldn’t feel like they had to turn to an unhealthy choice because it was the only convenient, affordable, or appetizing option that was available to them. Like our experience in Berlin, they would be able to pass by McDonald’s without giving it a second thought because there were dozens of options that were better in every single way.

We can all make a difference

But how do we get there? The world will not magically change overnight. The crappy foods, the food desserts, the pervasive marketing, the accessibility and affordability issues are not going to go away on their own. If we continue down the path that we are on now, we are going to continue to endanger our health and the environment. Our current approach to feeding the population of the world is not sustainable. It is destructive and is making irreparable damage. None of us can change this on our own, none of us should have to change this on our own, but all of us can help.

If we each choose one change that we want to make in our own lives and follow through, that will make a difference. If we all choose one issue to educate other people about, that will make a difference. None of us has to take it all on. All of us can, incrementally, take on more.If more of us make changes in our own lives and our own choices, it will put more  pressure on the food system to make changes too. As consumers and as human beings concerned about the  sustainability of our planet and the health of its inhabitants, we can make a difference.

However, we shouldn’t have to carry the entire burden. We still need governments to put regulations in place that will protect us, protect the environment, and protect animals. We need industry to partner with us in seeking out healthier solutions. Even organizations that are making foods on the unhealthy end of the scale should be looking for solutions to reduce sodium, sugar and fat content, to buy more local ingredients, to buy more organic ingredients, and to insist on ethical treatment of the animals that we eat and the human beings who process that food.

We need to shape up. We need the governments to shape up. We need industry to shape up. Boiling it all down to “personal responsibility” will not resolve the systemic problems in our food system. If we want food fuel for our human bodies, we need to work together to make changes.

I have food on the mind lately. I’m trying to feed our family better and I’m also working on a post in my head as a follow up to the McDonald’s post. I want to talk about our food system, our relationship with it, how it impacts our lives, and what needs to change. But I still have to finish working through my train of thought.

In the meantime, in addition to sharing cookies with you yesterday, I thought I would share today’s journey of food from local farmers and our own backyard garden onto our dinner plate.

Good farmer’s markets know it is smart to do something to attract families. Ours often has free attractions and activities for kids. Today’s attraction was free face painting.

Our bounty from the farmer’s market! I always go around and check the organic stands first and then go back to other local vendors if I’m missing something I need. Today we got garlic scapes, cucumbers, asparagus, onions, and Japanese turnips. We also picked up some bread, some cheese, and some wild game sausages.

Here are a few odds and ends from our property and garden. I already harvested a lot yesterday, so there wasn’t much left to take today. I picked some wild strawberries that grow in different spots around our property. I found a few more peas in our garden and I picked some of the rainbow chard, which probably could have grown a bit more, but looked like it was getting attacked by some sort of pest, so I figured I’d better grab some before someone else at it all.

For dinner tonight, we fired up the BBQ to make the sausages we bought at the market. I also made an Asian-inspired vegan quinoa dish. I cooked the quinoa in a toasted sesame miso broth and also chopped up the fine part of the garlic scapes (the part that is like chives) and mixed it into the broth. I then sauteed the garlic scapes, along with some julienned carrots, and some of the onion from the farmer’s market. When it was almost done, I added some chick peas and the stalks of the swiss chard. Once that was tender, I threw in the leaves of the swiss chard, the leaves from the Japanese turnips, and one finely chopped tomato. I then mixed it with the quinoa in a bowl. At the table, I added just a touch of sesame dressing to it for extra taste. We served all of that along with chopped vegetables and hummus. The vegetables included the Japanese turnips, one of the cucumbers, the peas from our garden, and some other random veggies I had in the fridge.

This is a typical lazy Sunday for us, where I have lots of time to shop carefully, spend time in the garden, and spend time cooking a healthy, nutritious meal. Not every day is like this though. Not even close.

Note: This post is being submitted for inclusion in the Healthy Child, Healthy World Summer Garden Show and Tell.

Recently on Care2, I wrote a post called Does Your Annual Food Waste Exceed Your Body Waste? It has some pretty scary statistics on the amount of food that we waste in the developing world. We always try to keep the amount of food that we waste to a minimum and I’m always frustrated when I end up having to throw good food away. Overall, I think we do quite well. Well enough, in any case, that when Julian recently went to put something in the garbage can and noticed a pile of mouldy bread in there, he said “What is all this food doing in the garbage?” That said, he is also the one who frustrates me the most when it comes to food waste, for example arriving home day after day with the yoghurt I sent him for a snack still in his lunchbox and very warm at the end of a long day.

I’m always on the lookout for things that can help us reduce our food waste. I already freeze a lot of things, like pieces of leftover sausage or cooked chicken that can be easily added to another dish on another day. We also freeze a lot of fruit if it looks like it will go bad before we have the chance to eat it and I then use that fruit later in smoothies or baking. I also take the ends of the bread that no one wants to eat and put them into a bag in the freezer and then toss that bread into the food processor when a recipe I’m using calls for bread crumbs.

This morning I was making breakfast for my family and noticed that we had way more boxes and bags of cereal than we needed in the cupboard and that most of them hadn’t been touched in a while. When I pulled them all out, I noticed that most of them didn’t even have one full serving of cereal in them. I figured that I could probably use all of the leftover cereal to make cookies or muffins, so I searched online to find a recipe and found a Cookies from Leftover Cereal recipe on CheapCooking.com. I used whole wheat flour for the flour (the recipe didn’t specify which kind) and used a mixture of dark chocolate chips and the President’s Choice Mini Peanut Butter Melts for the chocolate chips. I used the leftovers of four different kinds of cereal, most of which were different organic muesli type cereals and one that was the crumbs left in the bottom of a box of Kashi Cinnamon Harvest Squares.  I think that cranberries would be an excellent addition to the cookies too. I also meant to add a few tablespoons of flax seed to them, but forget to get it out (I’m easily distracted  by mini-bakers helping me).

The result was around 50 absolutely delicious cookies that my kids just love. I guess these would fall into the category of what passes as “breakfast cookies”, although I don’t think I would serve them as breakfast. On top of the sugar that is already in the cereal itself (not as bad as some brands mind you, and at least not high fructose corn syrup), the recipe adds more sugar and fat (butter) and puts it firmly in the sweet treat category for me. But so delicious!

My Care2 post has a few tips on reducing your food waste. Do you have any other tips or great recipes that you use to get rid of the leftovers?

Today I got a press release via e-mail from the public relations person responsible for the “Moms against Cooties” campaign. Basically, the idea behind this campaign is that they want you to disinfect, disinfect, and disinfect some more and don’t forget to tell your child’s daycare to disinfect and disinfect and disinfect some more.

Since I’m a “Mom against Toxic Chemicals” who thinks that “cooties” (come on, we’re adults, let’s call them germs) are part of life and not the devil, I was naturally curious who was behind this campaign.

So I clicked through to the Moms against Cooties website and discovered in the small print at the bottom that “Moms Against Cooties is brought to you by the Water Quality and Health Council.” Sounds like an interesting organization, but I wasn’t sure what they would have against cooties. Since they don’t link to the Water Quality and Health Council from the cooties website, I Googled it.

The main page of the Water Quality and Health website doesn’t give any hint about who is behind it. But I clicked on the “About Us” page and found out that [emphasis mine]:

The Water Quality and Health Council is an independent, multidisciplinary group sponsored by the Chlorine Chemistry Division of the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade association.  The group comprises scientific experts, health professionals and consumer advocates who serve as advisors to the Chlorine Chemistry Division of the American Chemistry Council.

Interesting. I wonder why they didn’t plaster that on the front page of the “Moms Against Cooties” website? I wonder why they didn’t mention it in the press release?

I originally posted this article on Care2.com in February 2011. I am reposting it here as part of the Healthy Child, Healthy World initiative to educate parents about the over-use of antibiotics. Most of the antibiotics in the US are administered to animals living in concentrated, industrial feeding operations. This week, Healthy Child, Healthy World bloggers are discussing the impact this has on our food, our health and our environment (I’ll update with a link to the Healthy Child, Healthy World discussion and posts on this topic once it goes up).

Alarming Amounts of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in Canadian Chicken

Do you know what is in your meat?

If you buy your meat at a supermarket in Canada, it is likely to be contaminated with multiple antibiotic-resistant superbugs like salmonella and E. coli.  Researchers with CBC’s Marketplace bought 100 samples of chicken from major brands at large chain supermarkets in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver and tested them for bacteria.  Their findings: Two-thirds of the chicken samples tested had bacteria, which often happens with raw chicken, but all of that bacteria was resistant to at least one antibiotic. Some of the samples were resistant to between six and eight types of antibiotics.

Some of the brands included in this study were:

• Lilydale: resistant to 5 antibiotics.
• Maple Leaf Prime: resistant to 6 antibiotics.
• Rava: resistant to 7 antibiotics.
• Loblaws Club Pack: resistant to 8 antibiotics.

Some experts say that chicken in Canada get antibiotics every day as part of their feed, regardless of whether they are sick or not. The Chicken Farmers of Canada claim that there is only “judicious” use of antibiotics (and not simply routine use of it).

The Marketplace researchers even tested brands advertised as “antibiotic-free,” such as Loblaws “Free From” brand, as well as organic chicken brands. They were alarmed to find that even these chickens had antibiotic-resistant bugs. One organic farmer in Quebec said that they do not use any antibiotics at all, but they do buy conventional chicks (which are then raised organic) and he says the only conceivable way his meat could have been exposed to antibiotics is if the eggs were injected with antibiotics before he takes the chicks.

Researchers are very concerned about these findings because the overuse of antibiotics in meat being consumed by Canadians means that oral antibiotics no longer work to fight the superbugs with which people are infected.  One researcher from McMaster University who was interviewed on Marketplace said: “It’s the bugs against the drugs and the bugs are winning.” Experts are particularly concerned because half of the salmonella bugs found were resistant to Ceftiofur, one of the only antibiotics that can be used to treat food poisoning in pregnant women and children.

The Chicken Farmers of Canada are not particularly concerned and say that if people cook their chicken properly, they will not be infected with the bugs. However, most people are not as careful as they think they are when handling raw meat. Also, people are often infected with these superbugs due to unsafe food handling practices in restaurants or other food service businesses.

Are you concerned about the overuse of antibiotics in livestock? How has this or will this change your eating habits?

Source for all findings in this post is the CBC’s Marketplace on television on Friday, February 11, 2011 and the accompanying CBC news article. Image credit: hotcouponworld.com on flickr.

This summer I’m planning to plant our first vegetable garden at this house. It is the first year in a long time when I won’t be spending a significant part of the planting or growing season out of the country and where I don’t have an infant to care for. I’m hoping to get the kids involved in helping too and look forward to eating food from our own garden. The only thing I’ve planted here in the past is mixed lettuce in planters. But I’m getting prepared. I have a copy of The Canadian Edible Garden that I got for Christmas and we’re going out to buy seeds sometime soon. My hope is that between our garden, our weekly organic Community Supported Agriculture basket, and visits to the farmer’s market, that maybe I won’t have to buy vegetables from the grocery store all summer long (I don’t think I’ll get away with it entirely for fruit though).

But I have a question for the experienced Canadian (or Northern US) gardeners out there. We unfortunately do not have a space to put our garden that gets a lot of a sun. I can do a few planters in sunny spaces, but the main garden will be in an area that gets only a couple of hours of sun each day. So, I’m wondering which vegetables tend to grow well in shady spaces in the Canadian climate. Any suggestions?

Image credit: wwworks on flickr

#lysolmoms is a toxic fail whale

Today brings us yet another round of Think Before You Tweet.  Twitter Moms is hosting a Lysol Twitter Party with the theme of Healthy Babies.  It is scheduled to take place on twitter from 7:00pm to 8:00pm EST on Tuesday, December 7 using the hashtag #lysolmoms. There are already more than 100 people signed up to attend the twitter party for the chance of winning one of 10 $25 gift cards (presumably for Lysol products, but that isn’t really clear in the invite).

While most people are happily confirming their attendance in the RSVP section with “WOOHOO” and “Wouldn’t miss it!“, a few moms have decided to think before they tweet. For example, twitter moms member Teresa Avila (@WellnessMomCA) said:

I fail to see how Lysol and keeping yourself or your babies healthy has anything to do with each other. There are much safer alternatives that kill germs, without the harmful side effects!

Ethanol is the primary ingredient in Lysol spray and is highly flammable, especially under pressure. Prolonged inhalation in a closed environment will create headaches, cough, fatigue and drowsiness. Skin exposure might result in severe redness and burning. Lysol spray uses denatured ethanol, which can cause ethanol poisoning when ingested.

Lysol spray contains carbon dioxide. It is colorless and odorless. In low amounts, carbon dioxide can affect your concentration. Increased amounts will cause your breathing rate to increase. And prolonged exposure can cause death from suffocation.

When using Lysol spray, be sure there is plenty of ventilation. Do not spray near your face and risk inhaling the fumes. Use on fabrics such as rayon, acrylic plastics and wood will cause damage.

Keep Lysol spray out of the reach of children and do not expose your children or pets to the spray. Do not spray on or near food because of the risk of ethanol poisoning.

I have not used store brands for 6 years now, because of chemical sensitivities brought on by these types of chemicals along with being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which is linked to chemical exposure. I only wish I had know the statistics before.

Another member, Amanda Kloster (@onlygreencanada), posted:

I don’t know how “Lysol” and “raising healthy babies” go together. Lysol products contain so many chemicals! Toxicologist Shawn Ellis found Lysol products have up to 1000 times more chemical particles than their competitors, recorded at around 1,200 parts per million (average household is about 50 parts per million). These chemicals have been found to cause permanent eye damage, kidney and liver issues, and asthma. Google it or read more at http://bit.ly/gmcvKM

I think these women are right to be concerned. I was concerned the moment the e-mail about the twitter party hit my inbox.

On a general level, I think that with any corporately sponsored twitter party, people need to be aware that the companies have their own interests at heart.  Lysol is obviously not going to organize a twitter party to tell you not to use its products nor is it going to organize a neutral twitter party that will provide truly neutral information on how to best keep babies healthy. With this type of event, people attending or watching on twitter should expect a series of carefully crafted tweets by the twitter party hosts (@twittermoms and @goodgirlgonered) about how wonderful Lysol is and how it helps keep babies healthy. They should also expect people who are only interested in a $25 gift certificate to re-tweet and help spread those messages to their friends while interjecting their enthusiasm for Lysol products (whether that is true enthusiasm or enthusiasm manufactured by the potential of winning a prize).

When it comes to Lysol in particular, it looks like the company has invested a lot in developing partnerships to help spread the word that people should “routinely clean and disinfect surfaces“, indicating that “cleaning with soap, water, and scrubbing removes dirt and most germs,” but that “using a disinfectant cleaner kills germs, giving even better protection.”  The problem is that messages like these breed dirt and germ fear in our society. It has parents keeping their children out of the natural dirt outside (Dirt is Good!), teachers slathering antibacterial crap on kids hands, and people constantly disinfecting things, all while exposing kids to more and more chemicals and not allowing them to develop natural resistance to the bugs around them.

In its report called Disinfectant Overkill, Women’s Voices for the Earth outlines some of the concerns with the overuse of disinfectants:

As stories on the dangers of flu viruses, contaminated foods, and contagious illnesses proliferate in the media, advertisers increasingly try to convince consumers that antimicrobial cleaning products will protect their homes and families from infection. Likewise, manufacturers have capitalized on consumer fears by producing more products that contain antimicrobial chemicals. However, it is unnecessary to disinfect one’s homes to the degree that advertisers and manufacturers would have consumers believe.

Antimicrobial cleaning products (also known as disinfectants) are specifically intended to both clean surfaces and kill germs such as bacteria, viruses, or fungi. But research has shown that some of the most common antimicrobial chemicals used in cleaners could have serious health consequences, especially for women, cleaning workers, and young children. Also, the overuse of antimicrobials contributes to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which some scientists say could leave the public with fewer tools in the fight against infectious diseases.

I agree with this conclusion. I do not think that routine disinfecting is a good idea (despite what Lysol and its partners recommend). I think people should consider alternatives to antibacterials and disinfectants. If I have a virus spreading like wildfire through my home, in addition to regular good practices like hand washing, I might consider using a natural disinfectant product (e.g. Seventh Generation Disinfectants), but I  don’t see the need to use those on a daily basis. If you absolutely must use a product like Lysol in your home, I think the one important message with regards to healthy babies would be to keep it away from your babies and anything they might touch or use.  But I think the best approach is just to avoid it altogether.

In its report card on cleaning product companies, The Dirt in Cleaning Product Companies, Women’s Voices for the Earth gave Reckitt Benckiser, the company that makes Lysol, an overall grade of C minus. While not all of its products are considered to be a concern (7 out of 65 products were flagged as problematic), the report indicated that the five companies reviewed “are failing to provide the public with the information they need to make informed buying decisions. It’s time for these companies to act like leaders and set an industry standard for comprehensive product labeling and removal of potentially harmful ingredients from ALL of their product lines.“  In particular, in the case of Lysol, the report flagged the following products as problematic because they contain the toxic ingredient benzalkonium chloride which has been linked to asthma:

• Lysol Brand II Disinfectant All-Purpose Cleaner (Dilutable) – Fresh Scent
• Lysol Brand II Disinfectant All-Purpose Cleaner (Dilutable) – Country Scent
• Lysol Brand II Disinfectant All-Purpose Cleaner (Dilutable) – Lemon Scent
• Lysol Brand Disinfectant Deodorizing All-Purpose Cleaner (Dilutable) – Fresh Scent
• Lysol Brand Disinfectant Deoderizing Cleaner – Mountain Air Scent

These products are not only unnecessary, but they are also potentially hazardous to our health. Before you jump on the bandwagon and tweet in support of #lysolmoms, think about what you are doing. Even if you do use those products in your home, are you really comfortable recommending them to others given the potential hazards? How do you think it affects your social capital when you tweet about toxic products under the guise of keeping babies healthy? Is it worth it for a chance to win a $25 gift card?

Image credit: Matthias Töpfer on flickr