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“Super Nutrition for Babies”: Book Giveaway & Meet the Authors

June 12, 2012 in Book Review, Contest, Debunking Myths, Giveaway, Interview

Now I realize I have been MIA for a few weeks, but that’s because life outside of my blog has been taking up too much time. I seriously miss blogging though, and since I know you’ve missed my posts (hah, I hope?), I am coming back with a bang: I want to introduce my loyal and new My Life in a Pyramid readers to an opportunity for two of you to win a copy of the awesome new ‘real food’ book, Super Nutrition for Babies: The Right Way to Feed Your Baby for Optimal Health. Though I have no babies of my own yet, I know that if (when?) the day comes to bring a new little human into the world, I would want to be as prepared as possible in knowing how to optimally feed him or her in order to evade a lot of the allergies, digestive issues, metabolic problems and other lifestyle-related chronic illnesses that are plaguing our young ones in this age.

If you start reading the ingredients on some of the baby food products out there — even the “organic” and “all-natural” ones — you’ll be shocked. Soy, an industrial food that is high in both estrogen and nutrient-blocking phytic-acid, and to top it all off, that is often genetically modified (unless certified organic), is found in a lot of baby foods and formula mixes. Even certified organic baby foods have been found to be contaminated with various toxins, the latest example being the arsenic-tainted brown rice syrup  in organic baby formula. Leaving the toxins issue aside, conventional wisdom over the past few decades has dictated that human babies be given grains as their first foods. Really? Grown humans can barely digest grains. All grains — even ‘whole grains’ that are minimally processed (not the case for all store-bought baby food) — do not have even a small fraction of the bio-available nutrients found liberally in organic vegetables, grass-fed meats, raw dairy and fresh fruits.

Which would you choose for your developing baby?

It makes zero sense to me that a baby’s first food consist mainly of a grain-based diet, which is devoid of the nutrients necessary for a child’s brain development and physical growth!  So, if you’re not going to give your baby cereal, Gerber’s mushy (nasty!) preserved vegetables and sugar-loaded fruit purees, or soy formula every morning, what are you going to feed your precious infant?

I have awesome news for you: a natural real foods diet for babies is possible. No, it won’t break the bank, and it won’t require several hours a day to prepare. It’s super intuitive and simple once you actually warm up to it and learn how to adapt it to your child’s palate and your lifestyle. It’s all outlined very neatly in the new book Super Nutrition for Babies by certified nutritional consultant  Kelly Genzlinger and board-certified pediatrician Katherine Erlich. Order your copy of Super Nutrition for Babies on Amazon, or, for a chance to win a copy, simply enter through the Rafflecopter at the end of this post. I’m giving away two copies of Super Nutrition for Babies to two lucky readers of My Life in a Pyramid!

 

To give you an idea of what to expect, I linked an interview with the authors of Super Nutrition for Babies below, and included two questions that I asked the authors personally. What they share is sure to pique your interest! Now I don’t have to think twice when looking for a unique (and helpful) baby shower gift  – Super Nutrition for Babies will likely become a modern staple for parents, grandparents, and caregivers who care about children’s health and nutrition.

Here’s an interview with the authors of Super Nutrition for Babies, featured on GNOWFGLINS. In addition to the interview, I asked two specific questions that have been on my mind. The authors graciously answered them below:

What are the most common misconceptions about ‘healthy first foods’ for babies?

A little sugar is ok.  This is false.  Sugar is akin to a drug, is an endocrine and immune disruptor — even in small amounts — and lends to the obesity epidemic we have in children.  Much more information regarding sugars can be found in the book.

Pasteurized dairy is good for you.  Dairy is a wholesome food type, but not after it has been highly processed and industrialized, as is pasteurized and homogenized milk.  Raw dairy is the milk/cheese/yogurt/kefir that nourishes amazingly well.

Babies need grains in order to be healthy.  Grains are actually a poor source of nutrition due to their anti-nutrients and because they ultimately break down into sugar in the body.  At the right time, and with the right preparation, grains and foods made from grains can be healthily incorporated into the diet.

Babies need to avoid the sun.  Babies need vitamin D and the sun is the best way to get it.  While burns do increase cancer risk, vitamin D is protective against all cancers.  A tan achieved by exposure to progressively increasing doses of sun acts as a natural sunscreen by increasing melanin in the skin (melanin blocks cancer-causing UV rays.)

What are the top three tips you have for busy working parents who still want to feed their babies optimally?

1. Make homemade broth, which takes a little preparation time but the actual cooking time can be done in the slow cooker while parents are at work.  Use this broth to cook veggies, meats, and grains which will make the food more digestible and more nutritious.

2. Purchase the highest quality (pastured and/or organic) animal products that are the least processed (milk, butter, eggs, beef, chicken, pork).

3. On weekends, prep and make food for the week, freezing food in small serving sizes that can be defrosted quickly and easily.

Our subscribers might want to know more about the authors of this interesting and important book; please tell us about yourselves.

Kelly GenzlingerI am Kelly Genzlinger, a certified nutritional consultant and mother of three elementary-school aged children.  For many years, my children battled health issues that were significantly affecting their quality of life.  When I looked to modern medicine to “cure” them, we were sadly disappointed.  As someone with an analytical mind who was desperate to help my children, I went to work studying holistic nutrition, biochemical pathways, the endocrine system, anthropology, traditional foods, digestion, and how nutrients are used by the body.   With this knowledge, I helped restore my children to ideal health.  I wanted to share this life-changing information with other parents.   Ultimately, I achieved three professional certifications in holistic health and nutrition.  Super Nutrition for Babies is a culmination of all my research, professional, and personal experience – a decade in the making.   In addition to this book, I have also written Sugar … Stop the Addiction, have appeared on local cable television shows,  been a featured speaker at wellness events, developed and taught classes, and have worked in several complementary medicine centers – all in an effort to help others understand the healing and preventive powers of natural eating.

Katherine Erlich, M.D. My name is Katherine Erlich.  I am the mother of two and a board certified pediatrician.  For 11 years, I was a regular doctor, working in a big practice, seeing lots of kids each day.  I loved my job, but so many days I would see kids for whom I couldn’t help with the conventional medicine that I had learned in school.  This was really frustrating and heart breaking – to want to help more but to not know how.  It wasn’t until my son started having medical issues for which I couldn’t “fix” that I really pushed myself to learn more and finally leave my big office and start my own holistic practice. With my new knowledge of nutrition and supplements, I saw some quite amazing improvements.  Kids stopped catching so many colds, stopped being angry or depressed; their skin improved, and their behavior calmed down.  What a pleasure!  To see the impact that nutrition can have is really quite powerful. Wouldn’t it be ideal to support children from the very beginning so that they don’t have to go down the road of chronic illness?  This is really what I hope Super Nutrition for Babies will be – a way for parents to gain the knowledge and the power to give their children the best gift ever  - the chance to be the best they can be.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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The Quest for Natural Hair Care

April 2, 2011 in Environment, Personal Care, Product Review, Review

Today has been a really stuffy day. I’ve been in the lab with Sherif all day while he’s doing experiments. Not fun at all. This just confirms to me that I am not a science person at all (well, with the exception of making personal care products from scratch … actually not much science involved there either, haha). Anyway, this “lab getaway” has given me a chance to catch up on a few writing projects and start to organize the thousands of pictures that I have on my computer. Organizing files on the computer is not my forte either.

What the heck am I good at then? Oh, right, playing with food in the kitchen. And daydreaming … oh, I’m so good at daydreaming.

Anyway, I’ve started this post completely off-topic. So hair care … :)

About two years ago, I embarked on a journey to find the most natural brand of shampoo and conditioner available. I was actually pretty horrified after watching this video below (the Story of Cosmetics). Produced by the same people who put together the Story of Stuff, this video shows how safety regulations for cosmetics and personal care products are so lax so that many nasty chemicals and suspected carcinogens end up in a lot of the products that we use… Gross.

So I started buying my shampoo and conditioner from Whole Foods.

I tried most of the brands sold there including Burt’s Bees, Dr. Hauksha, Aubrey Organics, Avalon Organics, Giovanni, and Jason Natural. I also tried Miessence, which is not sold at Whole Foods. These are just the ones off the top of my head – I’m sure there are more that I’ve tried. None of these brands did it for me. They either didn’t clean well, didn’t moisturize enough, left the ends dry, or didn’t smell fresh. With the exception of Miessence, their ingredient list was actually pretty suspect as well. Some of them have long chemical names and carefully worded descriptions to camouflage the fact that they are not really any better than the “conventional” brands.

Oh – I should also add that the “fancy” salon brands are actually really artificial as well … so don’t let that ritzy packaging and captivating (i.e. misleading) advertising fool you. For example, this image below of Pureology shampoo (note the sensationalistic name) gives the impression that the ingredients are all derived from botanical sources. This is not so. This shampoo ranks very high on the toxicity scale and has a number of hazardous chemicals. But you would never know this simply looking at the packaging or even reading its flowery description – you have to do your research…

I gave up in my search for the brands, and decided to see if there is a way to get away from using a store-bought shampoo and conditioner altogether. I came across many blogs that discuss the benefits of going “no-poo” (i.e. removing shampooing entirely from your showering regimen). I was inspired. I decided to try it. I threw away the remaining shampoo and conditioner I had, and started using baking soda and water to clean my hair and apple cider vinegar to rinse the ends. For three days or so, it was great. Then, it was miserable. I wanted to wear a bag over my head.

Out of desperation, I searched online. I searched Good Guide and Natural Geographic Green Buying Guide but couldn’t find any new information. As I was grocery shopping at Whole Foods, I came across another brand – CTonics, that I hadn’t seen before. Brown bottles in recyclable packaging … definitely advertising to hippie-ish people like me. I took note of that and read the ingredients … they didn’t seem that bad! Because they were new products, they were on discount – two for one. I hesitated only for a second and then decided to buy.

For the next couple of months, I was really impressed with the results. CTonics products smelled great; cleaned well; rinsed off well; moisturized without weighing the hair down – I was smitten. Then, Whole Foods stopped carrying CTonics. Thankfully, I found them on Amazon, and even though they were $34 per bottle, I ordered anyway.

Some things you need to know about CTonics:

  1. The shampoo does not foam or lather. Since sodium laureth sulfate is not on the ingredient list, you will not get any soap suds when working it through your hair. This is a good thing. The cosmetics industry has duped people into believing that lathering with soap suds = cleansing = good. This is faulty thinking.
  2. A little goes a long, long way. Depending on the length and thickness of your hair, you should be using anywhere between a nickel or quarter-sized amount of shampoo and no more than half a dime-sized amount of conditioner. More is not always better. It just takes longer to rinse out … and it’s a waste.
  3. You’re supposed to refrigerate it. It sounds weird, but according to the pamphlet that came with the shampoo and conditioner, refrigeration was encouraged in order to preserve the “live, bioactive formulations” in the products. Check out the CTonics FAQs for more info on this. I was doing this for a while until I kept forgetting to grab it and stick it into the fridge every time after I was done showering … Oh well.
  4. The shampoo is brown. This is only weird for a day or two until you get used to it. :-p
  5. You don’t need to wash your hair everyday… unless you work in construction. Every time you wash, you’re  stripping natural hair oils from your hair, causing your oil glands to freak out and produce more oil (hence, the greasy look after two days of not washing). The reality is that God didn’t design us with shampoo attached to our bodies; so naturally, our bodies are supposed to self-regulate (as long as impurities are being rinsed out with water). So, technically, this no-poo business is what’s natural … but if you’re going to use a brand of shampoo/conditioner, try CTonics till your hair gets used to this gentler process of handling.

As much as I have grown to love this brand, I am still unhappy to be:

a) paying $68 just to clean my hair, with most of it literally washing down the drain (the shampoo and conditioner last about two months).

b) exposing my hair to any chemicals whatsoever (not sure of the quantities here)

c) failing to achieve independence from manufactured personal care products

A fellow healthy living blogger, Katie from Nourishing Flourishing, recently wrote a great post about natural hair care and she answers a lot of questions about the no-poo process. For me, cutting out the shampoo and conditioner cold turkey did not work. So, for the next few months, I will be trying to wean myself off CTonics gradually – maybe by using it only twice a week and using baking soda and apple cider vinegar in between as Katie advises.

Ah… curly hair is a blessing, isn’t it (note the sarcasm…) ;)

I’ll let you know how the “no-poo” approach works out for me! In the meantime, share with me your hair experiences (or woes) and let me know what you think of the no-poo experiment. Would you try it?

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A Review of Some 2010 End-of-Year Trends

December 18, 2010 in Culture, Product Review, Review

Do you see a trend in the images above? (no pun intended)

I personally love reading trends. I like being in the loop… in the know… whatever you want to call it. But sometimes, towards the end of the year, these type of articles start to become a little overwhelming. Everyone is in the mood to review the year that has past, in hopes of figuring out which things worked, and which haven’t. But how do you know if the trend article itself is accurate? How can you trust a review – what things do you look for?

I’ll tell you what I look for:

  1. A credible source.
  2. Factual evidence.
  3. Real-life examples. (i.e. tested by unbiased people from the general public).
  4. Lack of exaggeration.
  5. A commitment to the holistic approach when it comes to food and fitness (i.e. avoidance of processed methods as much as possible).

Now I’d like to share my favorite trends in food and fitness pooled from several different sources:

1. P90x

I’ve talked to enough of my friends who have tried this to know that it’s legit. The infomercials look a little sketchy – especially because some of the before-and-after footage looks so dramatic. According to this Yahoo trend article, “The hype machine of the infomercial doesn’t change the fact that P90X is a really solid, well-rounded, old-school weight and cardio program that will deliver great results to anyone who has the dedication to push themselves through the workouts and, most importantly, reel in their diet.”  It’s all about the commitment though… I know people who haven’t seen almost any results, simply because they’ve done maybe three days of the workout.

2. Real Food, All the Time

According to the Food Network 2010 Food Trends, # 1 trend is ‘Keeping it Real’: “It is about pure, simple, clean and sustainable. It is—dare we say—a shift from convenience foods to scratch cooking, now that we have more time than money and more food knowledge and concerns.” If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’d know by now that I believe that eating real food made with ingredients that are as unprocessed as possible is of utmost importance. In fact, I personally wouldn’t call it a ‘trend’ simply because I see it more as a way of life. This is not to diminish the fact that I’m relieved to finally see that many people are becoming more attuned to their bodies and realizing that they really are what they eat!

3. American Food Develops a Global Flavor

Expanding the palate and flavors of ‘American food’ to include spices and fusion dishes from different cultures is a very exciting trend. It’s time we became more creative with ‘American food’ – the burger-and-fries combo is getting old and the menus at many ‘contemporary American’ restaurants can benefit from a little variety. The Food Network seems just as excited about this trend as I am: “It’s not just about restaurants, of course. The true American ethnic is a merging of flavors at home. We’re taking those old recipes, and we’re applying our own cooking knowledge and available spices to make them ‘original’ all over again. We’re pairing things differently, too—a little from this country, a little from that, and we have a new flavor and texture combination that is distinctly American. It’s a great time to be a spice.”
4. Fusion Yoga

Several years ago, yoga was practiced by only a few people in big cities. It seems that in the past couple of years and especially in 2010, it has grown like wildfire… everyone practices yoga for fitness and ease of mind. A big trend in 2010, according to Well & Good NYC, is fusion yoga – or yoga that incorporates other dances like the Brazilian Capoeira or break-dancing. This type of yoga may not be as ‘calming’ as regular yoga with poses sustained for a long time, but it sure is a work out. I’ve tried Vinyasa once and I’m not even sure if it incorporated any other dances or movements, but it sure was vigorous!

5. Mainstreaming Sustainability

More people are realizing that organic, locally-produced foods should be the rule rather than the exception and the trend is catching on. People are finally beginning to prioritize buying quality ingredients over eating out regularly. They are beginning to see value in finding food that is bought locally: “Eating local will be recognized as a sustainable way to eat. Eating seasonal and fresh is sustainable. Biodegradable packaging is sustainable. Grass fed beef—something we predict you’ll see more of in 2010—is all about sustainability as well as flavor. We are assimilating sustainability and making it work for us instead of fighting it” (Food Network).

So there you have it – my favorite food and fitness trends from 2010! What are yours?
*This post was sponsored by Love Reading.*

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