Green Mothers’ Digest

To completely eradicate VOCs is a tough task, though it can be done.  At least a drastic reduction is feasible when you are really motivated.  Having children in the house can provide quite a powerful motivation.

Think of this: a child breathes 3 times as quickly as an adult - whatever contaminents are present in the air will be absorbed into the child’s lungs much more quickly than into an adult’s.

A child’s metabolic rate is also faster. 

A child’s immune system is still in development until the age of 12.

Toxins are attracted to certain “materials” like fat.  The brain, including the growing brain of a child, is very fatty, and contains a vast blood supply both of which are perfect vehicles for toxic chemicals.

Finally a study has come out that unequivocally links kids’ hyperactivity to preservatives in food and drink.  It was published in the journal “The Lancet:”

“The Lancet study is the first to nail down a link between artificial ingredients and hyperactivity, though the connection has long been suspected and was the basis for the Feingold Diet, which eliminates all artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners and preservatives and was popularized in the 1970s as a treatment for ADHD. Though such a diet alone is not a proven treatment for ADHD, some clinicians routinely advise parents of kids with ADHD to stick with a more natural diet.” I’m not maniacal about it, but I tell parents that your kid will do better if they are on a diet that is free of additives and junk food,” says psychiatrist Edward Hallowell, author a several books on ADHD. “I urge them to eat whole foods; they’ll be healthier anyway.”

Read the whole article here.

I actually have a copy of the Feingold diet.  Like all diet changes, it is challenging to cut out perservatives and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and so forth.  Especially HFCS — it is ubiquetous in prepared foods!  You’ll find it even in pickles!   

Incidentally - if you want to lose weight, you should avoid these 3 ingredients in the first 5 ingredients of anything you eat: refinded sugar, enriched, bleached or refined flour, and high-fructose corn syrup.  This according to the team of experts Miachel F. Roisden, and Mehmet C. Oz, both of them physicians, and authors of the YOU series of books, in this case “YOU on a Diet.”  (Highly recommended!)