Links Worth Reading

Is it looking like spring where you are? The weather here in my part of Georgia is absolutely beautiful... makes me giddy!

In my reading over the last few days, I found a few articles that I think you may find interesting.

First, you have heard me talk of soaking grains to neutralize the phytic acid... sounds technical... and what's the health benefit, anyway? Well, here is a very helpful explaination. Click here to read.

Second, many of you have mentioned that you would like to start making sourdough bread. Here is a great primer, including some sourdough waffles. I haven't tried them yet, but I think this post is very informative (though long!). Click here to read.

Last, Genetically Modified Foods are a great concern of mine. I have talked about the book Seeds of Deception before. Now, here is a very thought-provoking perspective on the subject. Note that I do not necessarily agree with all the ideas in this article or on this webpage, but this article made me think. Click here to read.

Coming up on Health Begins With Mom this week:

• Be a Supplement Skeptic
• Making Refried Beans

Happy Spring!

PhotoCredit

Are You Looking For Something To Read?

I have Fall Break on the brain. Seriously, we're done with lessons for the day, I've been getting fall clothes out of big rubbermaid basins, the sun is shining for the first time in what seems like weeks, I've made a fun meal plan and I'm gearing up for our trip to the mountains!

I still have to finish laundry, pack and pre-prepare a lot of food... but I definitely am not focusing on work... or the half a dozen email questions you've sent me. (I apologize, but I may not get to them all until we're back into our normal routine.)

Before I head off though, I wanted to tell you about a particular book I'll be reading over the break. That is, one that I won't be reading aloud. Reading to my kids is always so fun to me... and this time I'm especially looking forward to it because we have a slew of really inspiring children's fiction selections. But the one I'll be reading to myself is In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, by Michael Pollan.


After reading this book review at Passionate Homemaking, I found the book at my local library.

So far, I have only read the introduction and the first chapter, but I already enjoy Pollan's intellectual yet casual writing style. He comes right out and spills the whole book in the first lines. "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants." It seems odd at first read the recommendation that we eat food. But Pollan argues that most of what we see on supermarket shelves is not food. I totally agree.

Yes, this all sounds strikingly similar to Dr. Rex Russell's three Biblical principles from What the Bible Says About Healthy Living. (Eat what God Made. Eat it as close to how God made it as possible. Eat everything in moderation.) But Pollan takes an entirely different approach to draw nearly the same conclusion.

Instead of searching the scriptures to find Health Advice, Pollan researched the evolution of "nutrition" and how this new science has changed eating (and food) as we know it. I am eager to find out more...

Stop on over at Passionate Homemaking to read more about this book... and I'll let you know what I learn when I get back!

Enjoy your Autumn, whether you are blessed with time off or just take a moment to fill your senses with the changing of seasons.

New Blog Listing

What a full weekend! And what a Monday!!!! I'm about to get my produce box, so I haven't made my meal plan for the week yet... I hope to post that and get back to regular posting tomorrow. Until then, here is a fun tidbit for those of you who like to blog hop:

Health Begins With Mom has been listed in a blog link collection entitled "100 Best Blogs for Entrepreneurial-Minded Moms." The list is separated into subcategories from which it is easy to pick and choose what meets your interests. The categories are:

• Advice and Support from other Mom-Entrepreneurs
• Budget
• PR and Marketing
• Health
• Balance
• Parenting
• Quick Recipes
• Beauty, Fashion and Shopping
• Helpful Resources

I, for sure, will be checking out the Quick Recipes blogs... looking for healthy ideas or recipes I can tweak to meet our whole foods standards. And I'm sure I'll check out the other health blogs, plus a few more.

If you like to see what other moms are up to, be sure to visit the link!

Happy Monday,

Avoiding Nine Hidden Toxins

I'm posting another link to a great article today. Have you ever visited Dr. Mercola's website? While I don't agree with 100% of what he says, he does present a lot of really helpful, well-researched information... like today he posted an article on bacteria in our homes. His comments are really helpful. You might want to check out his thoughts on keeping our homes clean... but that wasn't the article I started to post about :D


I subscribe to Mercola's weekly newsletter, which you can do on the front page of his website. I don't always have time to read everything, but I always open it up and scan the topics. Every once in a while I find an article that would be really helpful for someone who is relatively new to healthy living. Today I read a great one! Click here for the full article.


In the article, Mercola comments on a list of nine hidden toxins we would all do well to avoid. Then, he lists four additional hidden toxins he would have added to the list, with his supporting thoughts. Lest you be overwhelmed at the list... he gives this encouragement:


"Unfortunately, it’s becoming more and more difficult to avoid toxins.They’re in everything from personal care products to furniture and building materials....But there’s still plenty you can do, and one of the ways to significantly reduce your toxic load is to pay careful attention to what you eat. And, as an added bonus, when you eat right, you’re also optimizing your body’s natural detoxification system, which can help eliminate toxins your body encounters from other sources."


That's encouraging, isn't it? While we can't avoid all toxins everywhere, we can prime our body for naturally detoxifying from inevitable toxic exposure when we eat right. Sounds like a good reason to feed our families well.


If the list is daunting to you, start with selecting two or three of the listed foods to avoid. Start with a few and find a healthy replacement in your family's diet for those few. Then go back to the list and tackle a few more. Baby steps, right? It's worth it!

Gluten-Free Resources

A sweet friend of mine (IRL) has Celiac Disease. I don't say she suffers from it because she is dramatically healthy. She follows a Gluten-Free Diet, supplements with Gluten-Free vitamins, and lives remarkably well.

She has recently compiled her hints on how to thrive on a Gluten Free Diet in a FREE five-part mini course entitled "Beyond coping with the Gluten Free Diet! How to Celebrate Celiac Disease!" Click Here!

She covers the following topics:

• How to Save Money while eating Gluten Free Foods
• Simple Steps to Reducing Your Stress Levels when eating away from home
• The Most Overlooked Ingredients that can cause you BIG Problems
• And much, much more!

If you are just now switching to a gluten-free diet or if you have been on one for a while and need some refreshing encouragement and ideas, check out what she has to offer! Click Here!

Do Know Why You Have Headaches?

Well, I know that some of my headaches are due to constant noise. That's unavoidable in a busy household. But what about other reasons? It is so hard to nail down just what triggers our headaches! Just the hormone factor is enough to be overly-complicated...

Today I'd like to introduce you to a new resource called Headache U. It seems like such helpful tool in narrowing down the specific causes of your personal headaches. Then, once you know a more specific trigger, you can find more targeted relief.

"Headache U is the perfect website for headache sufferers to turn to! By logging onto Headache U, you can begin to “Chart Your Course to Relief.” This first-of-its-kind online and interactive personal headache care tool asks you questions about your own experiences and based on your answers, guides you to resources… tailored specifically to YOU! Because sufferers want to spend less time worrying about their next headache and more time enjoying the fun things in life, Headache U matches sufferers with resources based on personal headache patterns, providing the steps toward getting relief!"



I hope this is a helpful tool for you. What other natural remedies help your headaches? Comment to share your thoughts... you may just bless another reader! And, if you use Headache U and love it, come back and tell us!

Safe, Healthy Cosmetics

I want to address another question today. Summer, who redesigned my blog, asks "about [EWG's] online cosmetics database... how reliable it is, how the rating system works, what research it is based on etc."

For those of you who haven't heard of this database, I'll mention just a little about it first. This is from their site: "Skin Deep is a safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products brought to you by researchers at the Environmental Working Group. Skin Deep pairs ingredients in more than 41,000 products against 50 definitive toxicity and regulatory databases, making it the largest integrated data resource of its kind. Why did a small nonprofit take on such a big project? Because the FDA doesn't require companies to test their own products for safety."

It's really simple. You go to the database and search a product or a brand or an ingredient. Then you get a scored result for how hazardous the product, company or ingredient is. Here are the results for the new baby products we've been using. You'll see that on a scale of 0-10, they receive scores of 1 and 2. Then, if you click on an individual product, you'll see a list of all ingredients and an explanation of how safe each ingredient is. You'll also see the health hazards associated with each ingredient. It's pretty thorough. You'll also see a link to products that have lower scores... useful, huh?

Here is another example. It's the Loreal Springing Curls Mousse that I used for several years. Yikes. It gets a 10! Scary stuff! I wonder if I'm still carrying around some of those chemicals.

In my opinion, EWG and their resources always keep the highest of highest standards. If there is any question about an ingredient's safety, any question at all, it is considered potentially hazardous. So, depending on how much of a purist you are, you may settle for something that gets a low score rather than searching for a zero. But the zeros do exist and they can be found on the database as well.

Here are the specifics on how each product is scored. I consider EWG's database to be very reliable... meticulously driven by volumes of research. If you are at all concerned about your or your children's body burden, I encourage you to spend a little time on this site. It is packed with helpful articles that can guide you as you select products for your family.

Taking A Look At Genetically Modified Foods

Did you know that on May 19th, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) urged doctors to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM foods? Further, they called for doctors to provide educational materials concerning GM foods and the corresponding health risks. Read all about it here.

Did you know that GM foods are banned in Europe? Yet in the 1990s, when scientists from the FDA warned about the potential problems of GM foods and insisted on more rigorous testing, our government decided to promote biotechnology instead.

Did you know that not a single human clinical trial on the effects of GM foods has been published? Yet the resounding evidence from animal testing shows that GM foods can cause infertility, immune dysfunction, allergies, accelerated aging, changes in major organs and gastrointestinal difficulties... just to list a few.

You've heard me stress the importance of non-GMO foods before. I am for real serious about keeping my family away from these hazardous foods. I know that there seems to be so many health steps to take. I do know that this all can be overwhelming, especially if you are just starting to learn about health. But, this is one of the most important health issues today.

Here are three simple things you can do.

1. Educate yourself: I have a very informative, synopsis-type article that I would be glad to email you. If you have ten minutes to read this information, send an email to ae at healthbeginswithmom.com. (You have to use @ instead of the word "at".) Just put "GMO" in the subject line and I will reply with the article. Or, even better, read this book: Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating.

2. Download the Non-GMO Shopping Guide here. This is a bit of good news. There are a handful foods that are the biggest culprits. If you only buy "non-GMO" or "organic" corn, soybeans, canola and cottonseed you will be making big strides. But keep in mind, that means all corn and soybean products... like corn syrup or soybean oil... which we shouldn't be eating anyway. Steering clear of canola and cottonseed oils, which are highly processed, would be a great health benefit whether they are non-GMO or not.

3. Don't stress. Do your best to bring home non-GMO foods by purchasing organic foods as much as possible. Our children depend on our example in healthy living. If they see us fretting, they will give up on health and say it is just not worth it. But, if they see determination mingled with excitement from their mom, they will decide this is all a great big adventure... which it is. Smile at them and enjoy the ride : )

Top Five Household Toxins

If you knew what the top five household toxins were, would you get them out of your home? Would it seem like too much of an overhaul to change five big life habits?

If you could just change two or three, you would be making a difference! Our children's detox systems are going into hyperspeed. If we can reduce some of their toxin exposure, especially in the home where they eat and sleep, we will be doing something VERY valuable.

If this is your first time to think about how our children are effected by household toxins, please read my previous posts on the topic. Today I am going to suggest an informative video from EWG.

I have blogged about the Environmental Working Group before. You can read that post here. They often have very useful guides for parents who are concerned about how toxins effect their children's health. Right now they have a very useful guide to buying sunscreen. Check it out here.

And, right now they have a very insightful video for parents about the top five household toxins. Watch it here. It is actually posted on a news website, but it is a EWG scientist in the interview.

Please don't let getting rid of household toxins overwhelm you. It is impossible to prevent our children from exposure to all toxins. We simply do what we can to reduce their Body Burden. And, it just so happens that home is the best and easiest place to start!

While you're at the EWG website, take a look around. They have so much great information. Also, click here to sign up for EWG's monthly Healthy Home tip for parents via email.

A Book You Might Find Worth the Buy

Those of us who are concerned about our children's health, are also concerned about their safety. But, is it necessary to spend $700 dollars for the top-of-the-line car seat? Or do we really need to buy organic toys?

I think you may find this book to be a helpful resource. Sandra Gordon and Consumer Reports are releasing on June 1st a book entitled Best Baby Products: the A to Z guide to everything you need for your baby. In it, you'll find the best buys... for your wallet and for your children's safety. Check it out!

A Few Blog Recommendations

Do you wonder what the big deal about High Fructose Corn Syrup is? I recently saw an ad by a corn conglomerate saying all the supposed health dangers of HFCS were simply hype. Would you like to hear the evidence?


Cathy, a stay-at-home mom with a PhD in chemical engineering, writes a very informative blog called A Life Less Sweet. In it she chronicles her life without High Fructose Corn Syrup. Occasionally Cathy will post her thoughts about other modern food ingredients. And she posts recipes too! Take some time to delve into her blog... I think you'll like it.


A second healthy blog I would like to recommend is Shannon's Nourishing Days. Shannon has lately been posting her thoughts and menus for eating mostly grain-free. She has posted some really great ideas that I think you'll benefit from, so check her blog out too!


Happy blog browsing! Amy Ellen

Simple Changes -- Salad Greens and Seasonings

I have begun compiling a "Simple Changes" topic over the last month. My idea here is to offer some simple things that you and your family can do to improve your health. It is easy to become overwhelmed when embarking on a new health journey. Take Baby Steps! Keep moving forward and you will find your self crossing even the bigger hurdles... only do move forward. These "Simple Changes" are geared to help you make progress. Commit to each one and you'll look back amazed at how far you have come by taking baby steps. (For my previous Simple Changes, click here.)


The simplest first: Swap the whitish iceberg lettuce for darker salad greens. The dark green lettuces have a significantly higher nutrient content, so look for romaine, green leaf, red leaf, mixed baby greens or baby spinach. Some families I know even add Swiss Chard to their dinner salads, but it lacks a sweetness that other lettuces have so it can't replace lettuce entirely. Tossing in a few chard leaves among lettuces is a great way to add vitamins, calcium, iron and tons of other minerals.




Next simple change: Substitute real spices for seasoning packages that contain MSG and other unwanted ingredients. For a complete list of seasoning substitutions, visit this site. The packet I would use most would be for Mexican dishes. For Taco Seasoning, I use:

• 2 tsp. chili powder
• 2 tsp. sea salt
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• a pinch of cayenne, unless you want it hot, in which case you can add 1/2 tsp.

I would love to hear your substitution tips! Please comment to share your healthy ideas with us... Thanks!

Rave Reviews

Have you ever gotten a gift that left you giddy? My sweet mother was here for the weekend, and she gave me an early birthday present. (My birthday isn't until June... she was thinking ahead!) She gave me a new cookbook... am I a nerd for getting giddy over a new cookbook?

This is all about possibilities. I almost can't see straight there are so many tasty possibilities ahead! You see, with most cookbooks I can only use about 20% of the recipes... and those few still have to be tweaked into "whole foods" recipes. It is rare for me to find a really useful cookbook... because, even when recipes include real foods, they are often rigorously time consuming or call for exotic and expensive ingredients.

Enter my present. My fabulous new cookbook. I mentioned it was coming out a while ago, and now that I have my hands on it... well, you get the picture. It's called What the Bible Says About Healthy Living Cookbook. I can't wait to try the Gyros recipe... wonderfully spicy meat without the preservatives. And the recipe looks very simple. There is also a peanut and coconut encrusted chicken recipe I'll be trying... and this is book going to enliven my baked fish!


Let me give you a little background information. I have blogged about the book What the Bible Says About Healthy Living before. This book was pivotal in shaping my earliest thoughts about health. Well, it took me from a complete ignoramus to knowing enough to significantly change my health. If you are looking for a book that lays foundational, easy-to-understand nutritional principles, make sure to read this book.


The cookbook is based on the principles laid out in the book. So, for those of you who already know the whys and hows of whole foods, you will thoroughly enjoy the simple, yet exciting AND nourishing, recipes in the cookbook. For those of you who are looking for a good primer on health, I suggest getting both the book and the cookbook... so that you can do something with what you learn, of course.

And, while I'm giving reviews, I would like to make a third recommendation. This is a cookbook and a textbook all rolled into one cover. If the first two books in this post are Health 101 and your Lab Class, Nourishing Traditions is Health 201. It is loaded with helpful, challenging nutritional knowledge. However, even though it is a cookbook with real ingredients, I have only been able to use about 30% of the recipes... due to the time factor and the exotic, expensive ingredient factor. That would be the only drawback... It is very much worth the read. And the recipes I use from this book are fabulously nutritious and tasty.


I will be cooking from What the Bible Says About Healthy Living Cookbook as much as possible over the next weeks. I'll let you know how the Black Bean and Sweet Potato Burritos turn out... and whether the children like them too.

Guide to Buying Organic

"The growing consensus among scientists is that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can cause lasting damage to human health, especially during fetal development and early childhood. Scientists now know enough about the long-term consequences of ingesting these powerful chemicals to advise that we minimize our consumption of pesticides." Environmental Working Group

I am a very strong proponent of buying organic. However, with a family of six on one income, I know buying organic isn't always possible. I have found EWG's Shopper's Guide to be very helpful in prioritizing my organic buying. They have included a Dirty Dozen (foods that are the highest in pesticides and most important to buy organic) and a Clean Fifteen (foods that are the least contaminated and therefore okay to buy conventional). Check it out...

Your Questions Answered... My Produce Box

I will be spending the rest of my day away from my computer at a Health Fair. I am looking forward to meeting people interested in being healthier! Before I leave, I want to answer a question I've heard from multiple readers. The questions boils down to: "I would love to have an economically viable source for organic vegetables! Where do you get your Produce Box?"

We are very blessed to be in the right place to purchase this biweekly produce box. It is full of a variety of organic fruits and vegetables at a price comparable to conventional produce at a grocery store -- far cheaper then organic at the market! This is one huge way we are able to keep our grocery budget down. It helps for two reasons. First and most obvious, we are able to obtain a great deal of produce much cheaper than if I were to pick the items up at the store. Second, we find that I purchase less at the grocery store since we "have to eat" so much produce. Good for our health. Good for our budget.

What about where you are? Our box comes from a Global Organics Co-op. They have numerous groups in the Southeast. Unfortunately, they don't have an online listing of local co-ops, but you can call 877.952.1198 for a drop near you.

If you are outside the Southeast, the first place to look is LocalHarvest.org. Unfortunately, most CSAs are not as cheap as the co-op I participate in, but it is worth doing some investigation to find a suitable source near you. Ask around at your local health food store. Also I have found that homeschoolers often organize these co-ops, so perhaps you could ask at the library for possible homeschool contacts. I know this seems like a very indirect way, but if you really want cheap, organic produce, it is worth the investigation. Oh, by the way, people have found me through my librarian!

Remember too that growing your own produce is a huge budget booster! We have had success with patio plants in the past, but are not in a location where we can grow a large garden. More on patio gardening in future posts!

Is Your Seafood Safe?

Not everybody loves seafood, but it can be a very beneficial dietary addition. The consumption of fish has been associated with a reduced risk of heart disease. Fish is rich in Omega 3 and other long chain fatty acids (the healthy fats), is an excellent source of fat-soluble vitamins A and D, and contains an abundance of macro and trace minerals. But fish can be potentially dangerous, especially for pregnant women and children.

If my memory serves me correctly, I was pregnant with Witzy when my husband found this useful Calculator from GotMercury.org. Since then, I've used it to "check" the types of fish we eat for their level of mercury contamination. It has been a really useful tool... not only because it has revealed which types of fish to stay away from, but also because it shows which fish are healthy choices.

Visit this handy page and bookmark it! Especially if you are pregnant or are nursing, take the time to check the most common fish you eat on this calculator. Oh, and another good thing... you can enter your child's weight to see danger levels for their size as well.

A Blog Listing to Check Out

This is fun news! My little blog has been included in the Top 100 Healthy Mom Blogs by RnCentral.com. You might want to check out this listing for other helpful blogs. I have scanned a few that seem beneficial. I hope this resource is helpful!

Fabulous News!

I have been waiting for this... Hope Egan's Cookbook based on the book What The Bible Says About Healthy Living is now available! If you are are new to cooking healthy foods... or if you have been doing it for a while and seem to be in a rut with the same recipes over and over... THIS is your cookbook! I'm really looking forward to trying out these recipes. I'll be sure to share with you which are simple and easy for busy moms to use.

Lead in Supplements

I posted earlier today about black ooze that often comes out of vitamins when they are baked. The black ooze is melted synthetic ingredients, fillers, toxins or plastics. Who wants a daily intake of those things?

But lead wouldn't turn black at 350 degrees. Lead is, in fact, a natural ingredient according to most definitions. Natural, but poisonous at certain levels. Keep in mind that lead accumulates in our bodies. So, while we may not be taking a poisonous amount each day, it can accumulate to toxic levels within our body in a short amount of time.

But who puts lead in vitamins? It can be left over from raw ingredient contamination. Or, it can be a byproduct of manufacturing processes. There has been rising concern over the lack of regulation in the supplement industry in the last decade. Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition did a study to survey Women's and Children's vitamins for lead contamination. The list of contaminated brands is 19 pages long! Check to see if the supplement you or your children take is on the list. I found my former prenatals that I purchased from a health food store on the list!

Part Two and a Half of Children and Cleaning Chemicals

I am working on Part Three for this series, but I thought of something that had to come first. Thanks for your patience! This is an eye-opening resource:

Ever wonder what ingredients could be in our cleaning products that are all that bad?
Ever wonder what health hazards those ingredients actually pose?
It's time to take a look! So take an inventory of what you have under your sinks and stashed out of your children's reach... and then visit the National Institute for Health's household product database.

Click one of the tabs to search for dangers listed by Product Name, Ingredient, Manufacturer or Health Effect. Explore this site... and get ready for Part Three!

By the way, Witzy has a cough. She woke up feeling crummy two days ago. I am taking several measures to boost her immune system and help it win the battle. I'll be blogging about this soon.