Alexandra Zissu

There is no melancholy quite like the ache of when summer turns to fall. So. Depressing. Thankfully, this is exactly when my CSA farmer hosts a yearly farm visit. I have been a member of Stoneledge Farm in South Cairo, New York for eight years now, but (no) thanks to work, countless weddings, births, and infants (in that order), I haven't been able to make an autumn pilgrimage in seven or eight years (parenthood makes memory foggy). My daughter has had so much fun picking up our weekly veggie and fruit deliveries at the local Y this year that I was determined to show her where, exactly, her food comes from. So I cleared the calendar. And we went. My fingers are still stained with dirt and raspberry juice as I type. I didn't want to miss the opportunity to write happy -- for the first time in a long time I'm feeling elated. 

It's not an easy time to be an organic mom (or anyone else for that matter). In this pre-election frenzy, I find myself worrying about the fate of the earth my daughter has inherited more than ever. If certain people get in office, what will her future look like? There's so much focus on motherhood and babies suddenly but will she even have the luxury of having her own baby? What will the world be like then? Usually I curb these fears by throwing myself further and further into the green movement, research, and trying to educate and indoctrinate as many people as I can.

Attempting to live green can be a Wild West experience. But my food has never felt questionable. For almost a decade now during growing season (mid-June to Thanksgiving), my weekly CSA deliveries of fresh, local, seasonal, sustainable, organic produce have truly been the highlight of my life. As odd as this sounds, I feel honored by the bounty, proud to be a part of a farm, delighted to have this access. Knowing where my food comes from and who grows it in this day and age has always felt like a miracle. Sacred and necessary. ...

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We recently returned from a longer than usual summer vacation. We spent a few weeks away from our New York City apartment, alternating between sets of grandparents. It was great for all of us to be outside most of the time, visiting relatives, being able to do things like pick and eat cherry tomatoes off the vine. The babe played and played, and I (thanks to ample family babysitting) got a lot of writing done. But at some point during the second week my daughter started saying she missed her home, her "little" bed, her toys. This shocked me. First, she's only two and a half so the idea that she would be homesick was surprising. Second, she was nestled so firmly in the bosom(s) of her family, with all sorts of new grandparent-gifted toys, not to mention cousins to play with, how could home even compare? But she insisted she missed New York. So I asked her what she missed the most. Her answer? Play dough.

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For the first time in a long time, this summer-to-fall shift is a back to school moment for real in my household -- my two and a half year old begins a (very minimal) preschool program (in October). We're going with her, as it's a cooperative school, and generally anticipating a tremendous amount of cuteness and hilarity. We're also anticipating an onslaught of stuff.

I am by nature and by profession anti-stuff -- how much junk does one kid need? I wasn't brought up this way and I used to be a big consumer. But the greener I get, the less stuff I can tolerate. Every person who asks me advice on how to stock a nursery pre-baby, for example, gets the same answer: all a baby actually needs is a boob, a diaper, and a swaddling blanket. How much does any of us really need? But there are certain times of the year, just as there are certain times in life (like the arrival of a newborn), that come with a stuff-alanche. For the beginning of the school year, I'm talking new clothes, new shoes, new book bags, new lunchboxes, pencils, pens, highlighters, white out, art supplies, pencil cases, stickers, notebooks, calculators, staplers, glue sticks, and so, so much more. I cannot begin to stress how much of this is totally, completely extraneous. What happened to the last school year's items? Did they suddenly lose their capacity to work over the course of a summer vacation? ...

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I’m not immune to the allure of celebrity. And I see how it sells green books. The ones with famous people attached to them absolutely have better Amazon ranks than those that don’t. Odd but undeniable.

So it’s only natural that I wish one of the bumps People, Us Weekly, and others are constantly writing about would suddenly start carrying around a dog-eared copy of The Complete Organic Pregnancy and telling the stalking paparazzi and all reporters they speak to just how important having an organic pregnancy is.

I see pictures of Jennifer Garner pushing a cart full of loaded cloth bags outside of a Whole Foods and wonder (longingly) if she’s the one to be our poster bump girl. I think she’s a much, much more likely candidate than Ashley Simpson. And I harbor a certain fantasy that perhaps (I hope) Jessica Alba read the book. I’ve SEEN several reports saying she has greened her recently born babe. InStyle wrote that she has an eco-nursery filled with organic cotton onesies and did eco-friendly renovations. It’s funny how taken the tabloids are with pregnancy. I get it -- I’m quite taken myself.

Wouldn’t it be great if the celebrity offspring on BabyRazzi.com were instead constantly covered on EcoRazzi.com? (haven’t yet surfed here? I warn you, it’s addictive.) And the outfits various supermarket checkout magazines are constantly highlighting on young Suri, Violet, and Shiloh? What if they were all organic cotton, fair trade, thrift store finds, or even hand-me-downs? That would make me so happy. And the bottle all of these same rags are constantly debating if Suri should still be carrying around at her age? What if it were glass? Not even BPA-free plastic but regular old totally inert and easy to recycle glass. That would really be something. ...

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Ah the last days of summer. So bittersweet. And I'm not talking about saying goodbye to the weather. I'm referring to spending a few weeks at the decidedly ungreen family beach house. I've been coming to this shore house since I first met the babe's father, over a decade ago. It's owned collectively by his father, aunt, and uncle, and rented out for most of the season. But the end of August is family time, and they - we - descend in droves. There are highlights, for sure. But over the years as I have grown greener, I find it harder and harder to relax and have fun as I witness the insane amount of towels that get washed daily, the piles of paper plates and napkins that get trashed nightly, and toss and turn on the heavily fragranced sheets. Constant upkeep includes new (offgassing!) wall to wall carpets, regular (VOC-heavy) paint jobs, and the worst conventional cleaning products on the market. Another sore spot: a passsle of heavily scratched Teflon pots and pans. Ack!

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I love the Internet. It really makes this whole organic mom thing a lot easier. We get a lot of questions through this blog that are more tips than questions, queries that give us greater understanding of what other trying-to-be organic moms are coming up against. Some of this information from the front lines is news to us. One such email came in recently. I have edited lightly:

Hi,

I am wondering if you are aware of a reformulation of Earth's Best Dairy Formula. I just bought three of the 25 oz cans (I used to buy the 13 oz) and I noticed the first ingredients listed are no longer Organic Lactose, Organic Nonfat Milk. The ingredients are as follows: Organic Reduced Minerals Whey, Organic Vegetable Oils (palm or palm olein, high oleic (safflower or sunflower), coconut, soy,) Organic Nonfat Milk, Organic Lactose, etc. Does this mean that the formula is now predominately whey and oils rather than milk? I am a bit disturbed by the reformulation without any noticeable change in packaging. Could this be some attempt for Hain Celestial to save money while producing an inferior product? I am a little concerned about the quality of this formula now.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Stephani E. in the San Francisco Bay Area

I suggested Stephani contact them herself, and said that I'd also get in touch with them and see what I could find out. In the meantime, regarding the nutrition concern, I said she could look into Baby's Only, which is marketed as a toddler formula (mainly because the company is trying to encourage breastfeeding for younger tots) but contains what any formula should contain. Showing an ingredient list to your pediatrician before offering a formula to your child is always a good idea.

Before I had a chance to call Earth's Best, Stephani had already written me again. She had spoken to a customer service rep who said she didn't know of any reformulation. When Stephani read her the label ingredients, the rep confirmed that there was a change made in June. Odd. ...

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After yet another mini tussle with my building's management over asking them to use green materials for work that genuinely needs to be done, I found myself surfing the website for The Riverhouse, a new LEED-certified gold building in New York's Battery Park City. Imagine living in an eco building!? It has twice filtered air, a wastewater treatment plant on site, solar-powered energy, and will even boast a highly organic outpost of City Bakery (a personal favorite) plus a New York Public Library branch. I love to swim but don't often - I'm not comfortable in highly chlorinated pools. Their "green" lap pool beckons me from its online rendering: dive right in. I'm gushing. I don't care. It's a fantasy.

It's so ecofabulous, Leo DiCaprio is said to have bought an apartment. But he's not what entices me. I have the site bookmarked because it's the ultimate family building: from the no to low-VOC finishes to the filtered water to the City Bakery snacks, living there would really take the guesswork out of being an organic mom. My life would be so much easier, I thought as I drooled over various floorplans, if I didn't have to lie in bed smelling the heinous fumes from the cleaning product being used to mop my hallway floors. After a while, asking management to switch the products to greener versions to no avail gets exhausting. There would be no such requests at The Riverhouse!

This surfing isn't entirely recreational/masochistic. We are in the market for a bigger place, as most New Yorkers always are. But their prices, sadly, are out of our range. Still, I really wanted to see this Mecca in person. I figured it might be tortuously jealous-making so put it on the bottom of my endless to-do list.

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My organic babe is no longer the only child on her father's side of the family. She's now, at the ripe age of two and a half, the oldest cousin. Her new playmate arrived late last week and we spent the weekend visiting and cooing over him. She's quite smitten.

His parents, like most new parents, are becoming more and more interested in all things green. I have tried not to butt in too much, or be too obnoxious with unsolicited advice (there's nothing worse) but rather to remain available as a resource should they want to come to me. I admit that I have failed on a few occasions. Like the time I offered my services in response to a baby shower registry list they emailed around. They were quite lovely about it though, and their nursery now contains an organic crib mattress so it was a win-win situation for the baby. And it was great to be with them on site this weekend, talking about the specifics of organic versus natural chicken as we looked in their freezer, and chatting about how best to sterilize the glass canning jars they'll use to store pumped breastmilk.

I did mouth off uninvited once over the course of the weekend. I saw a big thing of Roundup in their foyer and spoke before I thought. I don't even know if it belonged to them (their building has two apartments). I thought better after I blurted out that they needed to find a better product. But no one seemed to mind. Click here for more information on why not to use Roundup:

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Every green blog/site/publication seems to have sunblock suggestions up now. Makes sense – it's summer. But the frustrating thing is that they're all over the map. Sure, there is some overlap. But it's hard for a parent to know what to use or whom to trust.

People who trust me have been emailing me of late to question my sunscreen recommendations. I have used and suggested others use Dr. Hauschka and Lavera for several years now. Including on this site. But the Environmental Working Group (whom I trust) put out a new sun care ranking system that deems both of these less safe than certain creams containing chemicals I don't and won't put on my family's skin. Dr. Hauschka is BDIH-certified natural (this is a very strict German cosmetic standard) and is what I use daily, and on my daughter daily. But on the EWG ranking, it gets a whopping 7 hazard rating for the children and sensitive skin SPF 20 cream!? Lavera (also BDIH), which is harder to find near where I live (it’s often sold out), comes in at a 2 rating for the baby and children SPF 30, and the same whopping 7 rating for its two other sprays. Nevertheless, I do still use Lavera when I can find it.

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I just … began my search for the healthier prenatal choice. I've read up a lot on the perfect prenatal by new chapter organics. Do you have any opinions on this? I noticed it contains lavender, which I've read can cause some female hormones to appear in male babies? Any other opinions on products for me?
 


Thanks, Staci

A perfect prenatal is a tall order! Overall -- organic or not -- you want to make sure you’re getting the maximum daily recommended dose of folic acid (important for helping prevent neural tube defects and spina bifida). Some “natural” (that’s in quotes because the claim natural is unregulated) brands also contain additional herbs and nutrients considered beneficial for pregnancy. These claims aren't exactly regulated either, so it's a good idea to go over the ingredient list of any vitamin you're taking with your OB/GYN or midwife.

Here’s a list from The Complete Organic Pregnancy of the vitamins and minerals your pre-natal should contain and the appropriate levels for an expecting mother:

• 4,000 and 5,000 IU (international units) of vitamin A
  
• 800 and 1,000 mcg (1 mg) of folic acid
  
• 400 IU of vitamin D
  
• 200 to 300 mg of calcium
  
• 70 mg of vitamin C
  
• 1.5 mg of thiamine
  
• 1.6 mg of riboflavin

  
• 2.6 mg of pyridoxine
  
• 17 mg of niacinamide
  
• 2.2 mcg of vitamin B-12
  
• 10 mg of vitamin E
  
• 15 mg of zinc
  
• 30 mg of iron
  

Unfortunately I found (and many, many other moms have found) most of them made me nauseated when I took them, which was tough at a time when I was already nauseated. I wound up trying many different kinds, and also only took them right before bed so I was either less nauseated or I slept through it.

The main difference between an organic and a conventional vitamin is ...

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Oh the countless emails I get asking about silver. It seems mother-in-laws like to break out their darling sons' cups/spoons/teething rings and pop them into the next generation’s mouths. Come to think of it, all grandparents like to do this – my own mother unearthed similar heirlooms for my daughter. The silver isn’t the issue, it’s the noxious silver polish used to clean the antiques off before proffering them that the moms are writing about. They’re right to ask.

Here are two silver queries I’ve gotten recently:

I had a question I was hoping you could answer. Is there a safe way to polish silver? Those nasty chemicals seem bad enough for polishing jewelry (I wear gloves when I do it) but horrifying when you think about polishing silverware you eat with or teething rattles and such. My answer has been to just leave those things tarnished, but I was wondering if there was another way?

Thanks,

Susan

and

My mother-in-law uses silver baby cups that belonged to my husband since I told her she can't use plastic -- and as we speak I am watching her polish a cup that we will be using later today -- thoughts?

Best,

Aliza

Thankfully there’s a seriously simple, eons less toxic, and readily available solution ...

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I was giving an eco-parenting talk last week when a pregnant-with-her-second-child mom asked me if it were true that all chicken is bathed in chlorine as part of its slaughterhouse processing. I was grossed out, appalled, and stumped. I wasn’t, however, surprised. Conventional meat is about as grim and questionable as it gets. The slaughterhouses must have some serious gunk in need of disinfecting, especially as it is done in (potentially cross contaminating) bulk. I haven’t personally used chlorine bleach in years and years and clearly would not want the food I feed my family to be dunked in it.

When I got home, I immediately started researching her query. I personally get chicken from three places: my local farmers market, a pastured meat and poultry CSA I belong to, and a butcher shop near my parents’ place in upstate New York called Fleisher's. I have never smelled anything even remotely chlorine-y about any of these birds. But apparently a lot of people have smelled the chemical on theirs.

My first mode of action was to email my CSA contact to find out what they do to “clean” poultry, and to see if they could help get me up to date on what USDA organic regulations are when it comes to chlorine (I highly doubted they permit such a caustic chemical). Then I started reading everything I could about chlorinated chickens. I had given the mom who asked my email address and she forwarded me some links. One article she sent from Britain’s Daily Mail lamenting a possible lift of a ban against US chicken pointed out that it “would have to be labeled as 'treated with antimicrobial substances' or 'decontaminated by chemicals'.” Would that we had such labels here! ...

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I’m taking a break from blogging about potty training (!) to answer reader questions. 
 
Hi,
 
Know anything about nylon rugs? I am trying to buy a rug for my son’s room and not spend too much, seems there are many nylon ones. Are they safe? I thought you'd probably know...
 
thanks,
 
Gillian
 
 
I do know! But before I tell you I’d like to start by saying that my approach to anything I’m bringing into my home is to first decide if I really need it. Whatever you bring into the home has the potential to also drag in unwanted chemicals, so this is a first step I force myself to take whenever I get a shopping urge. This is a legitimate question when it comes to rugs.

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I rarely get the opportunity to answer Organic Mom questions for family members, but my daughter’s cousin is soon-to-be born so I have had the pleasure lately. It’s tough to try to list what is most important to least important if you know that someone is only going to heed a few suggestions at best. But I have been trying.

I tend to hit the buy-an-organic-crib-mattress-that-isn’t-wrapped-in-vinyl message pretty hard whenever someone asks what to do when setting up a nursery. And I mention that cribs should be hardwood, not particleboard, so it won’t have high levels of toxic formaldehyde. When I was setting up my daughter’s sleeping space, we absolutely bought a good mattress (from daxstores.com) and borrowed a crib from my Complete Organic Pregnancy co-author/friend Deirdre. The crib had belonged to her niece and I don’t think it was entirely hardwood but it had been around for a considerable period of time, and so I felt it was amply offgassed. We were very committed (before the baby was even born) to having a family bed so I knew she wouldn’t be spending as much time in the crib as most babies. As it turned out she never spent any time in it, but that’s a whole other post. The crib moved on nine months later when Deirdre’s first daughter was born, and we still have the mattress. Her stuffed animals sleep on it, on the floor next to her twin.