My eggs come from organically fed, pasture raised hens that truly do get access to the outdoors.  The farm has converted old school buses into chicken coops that travel around the farm, giving the hens fresh pecking grounds and spreading their waste as fertilizer all over the farm.  And my farm isn’t afraid to send me images of how they care for their hens.

Where do your eggs come from?  How are the hens treated?  Have you bothered to find out more about the kind of producer you are supporting?  Try looking into supporting a local farm.  It’s quite easy for us to do this as the eggs come to a delivery location in our neighborhood.  And they cost about what we’d pay for organic eggs at the grocery store.

This motivated me to find an alternative.  Today I purchased a product made by Alba called Un-Petroleum Multi-Purpose Jelly.  It is made of castor seed oil, coconut oil, beeswax, hydrogenated castor oil, and vitamin E.  Amazingly, it has a texture like petroleum jelly and no scent or flavor at all.  I’ve finally found a healthier, more environmentally friendly alternative!

First, Deirdre tackles food, explaining the importance of organic food, eating less animal products, and eating more fresh produce.  While this information isn’t new or hard to find, in this book it is concise and easy to read.  Then she moves onto personal-care products, listing ingredients to avoid and giving examples of products that are high in dangerous chemicals.  This is the best book I’ve found on the subject.  I appreciate her exhaustive lists of safer products out there.  Finally, she moves onto clothing and medication.  Both topics are interesting, but not covered in much depth.

Here are the top 15 ingredients she suggests avoiding in personal-care products:

1. Oils and fats extracted from animals, which can be contaminated with pesticides and chemicals, and are used as conditioning agents in sunscreen, shaving gel, and hair spray.
2. Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT), an antioxidant added to products to prevent other ingredients from changing color as they age.  It’s found in products like lipsticks, moisturizers, foundations, fragrance, bar soap, shaving products, deoderants, body wash, facial cleansers shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, etc, etc.
3. Coal-tar Colors (often show up as FD&C or D&C colors), which are derived from petroleum and are used to control itching, soften scaly skin, and dye hair.
4. Diazolidnyl Urea, an antimicrobial preservative which can release formaldehyde (a carcinogen) and other impurities.  It’s found in moisturizers, styling products, shampoos and conditioners, anti-aging treatments, facial cleansers, sunscreens, mascara, deodorant, lipsticks, shaving products, liquid hand soap, fragrance, etc.
5. Diethanolamine (DEA), which is used to make products foam (often called cocamide DEA or lauramide DEA).  It’s found in shampoos, body wash, facial cleansers, liquid hand soap, bar soap, body scrubs, deodorant, moisturizer, and hair spray.
6. Formaldehyde, used as a disinfectant and preservative, but is a known carcinogen.  It is also a component of many other chemicals, like quaternium-15.  While banned or restricted by the EU, Japan, and Canada, it can still be found in nail products, hair dyes, hair gels, deodorants, shampoos, soaps and shaving creams in the U.S.
7. Fragrance, which includes hundreds of chemicals and potentially toxic ingredients that companies don’t have to list on the label since they are “trade secrets.”  By some estimates, 95% of chemicals in fragrance formulas are derived from petroleum.  Many fragrances also contain diethyl and dibutyl phthalates, known to disrupt hormones, to make the fragrance last longer.
8. Nanoparticles, where chemicals are reduced to sizes aout one hundred thousand times small than the width of a human hair.  Found in sunscreens, deodorant, soap, toothpaste, anti-wrinkle cream, moisturizer, foundation, face powder, lipstick, blude, nail polish, perfume, and after-shave lotion.
9. Parabens, which are used as preservatives.  Are known estrogen-mimickers and can potentially raise your risk for certain types of cancer.  Found in moisturizers, shampoos, conditioners, hair gels, foundations, facial masks, skin creams, deodorants, and baby lotions.
10. Petroleum and its byproducts.  Banned in the EU, but still used here as good old Vaseline.  Also found in creams, lotions, styling gels, concealers, mascaras, eye makeup, and lip products.
11. Phthalates (dibutyl phthalate, or DBP, and diethyl phthalate), which are used as solvents and plasticizers in personal-care products like nail polish.  May also be in personal-care products with fragrance, although not listed as an ingredient.
12. Placenta.  Some anti-wrinkle creams and hair relaxers can contain extracts from cow and human placentas.
13. Propylene Glycol, which is used as a conditioning agent that keeps products from melting in high heat or freezing in the cold.  Also helps other ingredients penetrate skin more readily.  Found in shampoos, conditioners, bar soaps, body washes, face cleansers, liquid hand soap, hair dyes, shaving products, moisturizers, toothpastes, sunscreens, perfumes, deodorants, nail polish, lip products, and eye makeup.
14. Sodium Lauryl Sulface (SLS), which makes other ingredients penetrate your skin more deeply.  Also beware of sodium laureth sulfate.  Found in shampoos, conditioners, var soaps, body washes, facial cleansers, liquid hand soaps, hair dyes, mascara, shaving products, moisturizers, toothpastes, sunscreens, perfumes, etc.
15. Talc, which is irritating to our respiratory system.  Found in blush, eye shadow, face powder, baby powder, perfume, and soap.

Recently, I recommended the book Real Food for Mothers and Babies by Nina Planck.  Now I’d like to borrow some information from her chapter on nursing.  It really confirms why I believe babies shouldn’t just be exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of life, but why you should also consider nursing past one year.  I nursed my first son until 15 months, my second until 21, and plan to nurse my third until as close to 2 years as I can.  In addition to being the best possible nutrition for baby, there are many benefits to extended nursing for ME:  I don’t have to worry as much about what he eats (one or two nursing sessions a day are my form of insurance against lazy mothering), I stay skinny, I reduce my chances of having breast cancer, and I get extra bonding time with my child.  Here are some other amazing facts about nursing:

• Even a small amount of formula, or other food, in baby’s digestive tract causes bacteria to set up camp.  These bacteria resemble the kind found in an adult stomach, not infant, and leave baby more vulnerable to infection.
• Oligosaccharides, or milk sugars, in human milk are indigestible to baby but they are great for the good bacteria in her intestines.  There are at least 130 known oligosaccharides in human milk and none in formula.  In addition to encouraging the development of good bacteria in her gut, they also head to the respiratory tract, where they fight pathogenic microbes.
• “The immunity breast milk provides is tailored, reflecting the unique ecology you and your baby share.  Within hours of encountering a pathogen, you produce antibodies which you pass to your baby through your milk.  That’s why it’s natural for mothers to nuzzle, rub, kiss, and even lick their babies.  You gather her germs with your mouth and skin, so that your breasts can make the antibodies she needs.”  I find this so amazing!!
• Breast milk has immunity agents that promote the normal growth of the thymus gland, which is part of the immune system.  Formula fed babies have abnormally small thymus glands, which may explain why they typically have more immune disorders than babies that were breast fed.
• Breast milk’s antibodies coat the lining of the nose, lungs, and intestines, so most germs that get inhaled or swallowed are killed.
• Breast fed babies also have extra protection against arthritis, asthma, eczema, immune system cancers such as lymphoma, Crohn’s disease, colitis, Hodgkin’s disease, breast cancer, obesity, diabetes, stroke and heart disease.
• Breast milk deposits calcium and phosphorus onto baby’s teeth while he nurses, protecting them from decay.
• When a nursing mother laughs, melatonin levels in her milk rise.  People with eczema tend to have less melatonin.
• Breast milk can contain persistant organic pollutants (POPs), like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).  A study in Michigan found that while PCBs in cord blood resulted in lower IQ scores in children, above-average levels of PCBs in breast milk did not.  Perhaps breast milk offers some protection against POPs?
• Trans fats in mom’s diet enter her milk, where they disrupst fat metabolism, disable prostaglandins, and cause atherogenesis, all of which contribute to obesity, diabetes and heart disease.  Studies have found that trans fats make up anywhere from 2 to 18% of human milk.  Don’t let trans fats replace good fats in your breast milk.  Avoid them while pregnant and nursing.
• The pesticides and trans fats you eat while pregnant get stored in your body fat.  The faster you loose this fat while nursing, the more pesticides and trans fats baby drinks.  The longer you nurse, the cleaner your milk becomes.  Subsequent children drink less contaminated milk than first borns.
• Your baby’s brain is only 25% of its full grown size when he is born.  Basically, delaying brain growth in utero is the only way baby can get out alive.  The human fetus holds brain growth to the size of your pelvis, and then depends on breast milk to grow like crazy in the first year of life.
• The more DHA (one of the most important omega-3 fats) in your breast milk, the better your baby’s intellectual, visual, and motor skills.  When mothers take cod liver oil during pregnancy and the first 3 months of baby’s life (aka the 4th trimester), breastfed babies score higher on intelligence tests at four years than the babies of mothers who consume corn oil.
• A nursing mother who eats fish has 10 times more DHA in her milk than one who doesn’t.
• Baby prefers to take DHA, 60-80% of it, from mother’s fat rather than from her diet, which can very wildly.  Mothers keep EPA and DHA fats in gluteofemoral depots, basically in your butt and thighs.  During nursing, this hard to burn fat is selectively mobilized (nice!)  Interestingly, the male preference for women with small waists and bigger hips is widespread and consistent (and even takes precedence over thinness).  In 2008, a study found that curvier women have smarter babies.  It has been hypothesized that men instinctually know this and that is why they want curvy women to bear their children.  In support of this theory, studies have found that curvy women are smarter, even after accounting for family income, race, and ethnicity.

Nina believes that we should be eating “real food,” stuff your great grandparents ate, and not any new age concoction made from corn and soy products.  She promotes a diet full of meat and dairy from pastured animals, fruits and veggies, and no imitation products (i.e. soy milk).  Readers of my blog know that I don’t completely agree with her, but the book is still a very good read.  Unlike Nina, I think that meat should be used more sparingly, as suggested by the author of Blue Zones.  However, I do agree with her stance on breastfeeding, the importance of omega-3’s, and feeding baby real food from your plate rather than pureed baby food from a jar.  Women pregnant for the first time will especially benefit from hearing her birth story and experience with nursing–she’s honest, funny, and gives really good advice to first time moms.