Get Connected: July Holistic Living Challenge!

As our society grows ever more connected to our devices, technology, and online social networks, are we becoming more disconnected with “real life”?

In an eye-opening TEDTalk, Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT and author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, discusses how our devices and online personas are redefining human connection and communication - potentially in a way we really don’t want. "From social networks to sociable robots, we're designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship," she says. As a result, "we slip into thinking that always being connected is going to make us feel less alone," but "actually it's the opposite that's true."

How often do find yourself presumably in a conversation with someone, while also texting or reading emails or checking Facebook? Do you find yourself spending more time on social networks than at “real life” social events? Are you looking at screens more than you’re looking at people or nature or the world?

Join us this month for our newest Holistic Living Challenge: Get Connected!

Take the challenge and share your experience for a chance to win great prizes from holistic companies that will further support you on your holistic living journey!

Here are the details:

Challenge: Get Connected!

Directions: Connect to your children. Connect with your friends. Connect to nature. Connect to community. Connect with real life!

Here are some ideas and resources:

●     Make your dinner table a device-free zone. If you’re eating together, you should be focusing on your food and one another.

●     Make a commitment to stop having distracted conversations. If you’re talking to someone - your mate, your child, anyone - they deserve the respect of your full attention. (If it’s a household problem, make everyone commit. Create a “Get Connected” jar and any time someone breaks the rule, they have to put a quarter in. At the end of the month, use the money for an activity that promotes family togetherness.)

●     Plan a “date” for each week of the month. One could be time with your kids. Another could be a night out with friends. And, maybe one could be volunteering at a local soup kitchen. Whatever you choose, make sure you do something that fosters conversation. (Going to a movie, doesn’t really cut it.)

●     Try some attachment parenting techniques babywearing or co-sleeping.

●     Connect with your local Holistic Moms Network chapter! Not a member? Sign-up today!

Share your experience for a chance to win great prizes! Enter for a chance to win!

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It’s Great Outdoors Month, So Get Outside!

June is not only the start of summer, it’s also Great Outdoors Month - a national celebration of the amazing landscapes and waterways of our expansive country!  

From the Presidential Proclamation:

For generations, America’s great outdoors have ignited our imaginations, bolstered our economy, and fueled our national spirit of adventure and independence. During Great Outdoors Month, we rededicate ourselves to experiencing and protecting

these unique landscapes and treasured sites.

From sea to shining sea, the U.S. is full of spectacular sites to explore and enjoy. Join us this month for our newest HolisticLiving Challenge: Enjoy the Great Outdoors!

Take the challenge and share your experience for a chance to win great prizes from holistic companies that will further support you on your holistic living journey!

Here are the details:

Challenge: Enjoy the Great Outdoors!

Directions: Make plans, big or small - whatever works for you and your family. The one thing we strongly encourage is that regardless of what types of activities or vacations you might plan, take a little time each and every day to get outside. Whether it’s a walk around the block or a picnic in your backyard - enjoy whatever bits of nature you can every day this month.

Here are more ideas and resources:

●     Use the National Wildlife Federation’s NatureFind tool to help you locate fun places with cool wildlife that will connect you with nature and reduce the stress in your life.

●     Try Geocaching! GEOCACHING is a free real-world outdoor treasure hunt. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using a smartphone or GPS and can then share their experiences online.

●     Plant a tree. Learn which trees are right for your area, how to plant them, and more from the Arbor Day Foundation.

●     Do some cloud watching or stargazing.

○     Learn about the types of clouds and where to spot them from The Cloud Appreciation Society (or just watch them and use your imagination to find fun shapes in the clouds!)

○     Check out the One-Minute Astronomer’s Guide to Stargazing for some basics about the night sky. And, on June 23, enjoy the biggest full moon of 2013 when the moon will arrive at its closest point to the Earth, making it a “supermoon!”

●     Have a nature scavenger hunt. Go Explore Nature has a great tutorial for customizing your own fun hunt.

●     Go camping. Find a location and learn tips from Go Camping America.

●     Connect with your local Holistic Moms Network chapter to learn what other moms are trying and get tips for your challenge. Not a member? Sign-up today!

●     Join the weekly #HolisticMoms Twitter Parties on Tuesdays at 10est/7pst to connect with other moms and learn what they’re doing!

Here are events happening across the nation that you can participate in:

●     June 1-9: National Fishing and Boating Week. During National Fishing and Boating Week find a fishing and boating spot near you so you can hit the water.  Learn to fish or improve your skills by checking out their how-to information. 

●     June 8: National Get Outdoors Day - a new annual event to encourage healthy, active outdoor fun. Participating partners will offer opportunities for American families to experience traditional and nontraditional types of outdoor activities.

●     June 22: Great American Backyard Campout. Join thousands of people across the nation who will gather in their backyards, neighborhoods, communities and parks to take part in a one-night FREE event that will provide an experience for all generations to connect with nature.

●     June 24-27: Great Outdoors America Week. Great Outdoors America Week is the preeminent event celebrating our collective connection to the great outdoors while advocating for its future. As one of the largest annual conservation and outdoor focused events in Washington DC, GO Week raises awareness around outdoors issues, brings together hundreds of diverse organizations and activists to meet with lawmakers and administrators to advocate for our outdoor way-of-life.

Share your experience for a chance to win great prizes! Enter for a chance to win!

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May is Time to Take Care of YOU!

They say in case of emergency, you should put your oxygen mask on first, and then your child’s.  But that bit of advice you hear every time you board a plane goes totally against our mama bear instincts. Still, it’s terribly important to take this simple advice to heart (whether you’re on a plane or not). You need to take care of you, so that you have the strength, patience, and energy to be the best mom (and woman) you can be.   (Read that again, just in case it didn't sink in!).  If you give yourself away all the time, you’ll end up with nothing left to give.

Not only that, but the more you run yourself down and let stress and exhaustion take over, the more your whole family suffers.  "If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!," as they say.

Join us this month for our newest Holistic Living Challenge: Take care of you!  In May we celebrate Mother’s Day and what better way to extend the importance of this day than by trying to incorporate a little self-care every day?

Take the challenge and share your experience for a chance to win great prizes from holistic companies that will further support you on your holistic living journey!

Here are the details:

Challenge: Take care of you!

Directions:  This is all about you, so do whatever feels right for you! Here are some ideas to get your gears going:

• Connect with your local Holistic Moms Network chapter to learn what other moms are trying and get tips for your challenge.  Not a member? Sign-up today and get $10 off (making your membership less than $3 a month!) AND a bonus subscription to Organic Gardening Magazine!

• Cross a couple of things off the to-do list.  Trust us, life will go on!

• Make time for yourself - you are important.  Block out 30 minutes a day or a larger chunk of time once a week for some “mom-me-time.”  If there’s no one to watch the kids for you, set a timer (for a reasonable amount of time based on their ages) and let them know they need to entertain themselves while you take a time-out.  (And, during those moments, do something relaxing or enjoyable. “Mom-me-time” is not time to catch up on laundry).

•  Let go - it’s okay to be less than perfect.

• Accept yourself.  "Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others.” ~Christopher Germer

• Empower your children.  Start working yourself out of your job when your children are young. Give them responsibilities and clear direction.  The time spent will be well worth it as they become more adept.

• Ask for help.  There is no weakness or shame in asking for help - it’s human. 

• Look in the mirror and tell yourself you’re wonderful.  It sounds corny, but it works.

• Close your eyes and take 10 deep breaths.  Even moments of mindfulness are beneficial.

• Make plans to meet with a friend in the coming week (without kids!).

• Take a walk.  Even if it’s just around the block.  It will give you perspective.

• Give yourself a 15-minute facial.  Wash your face.  Coat it with mashed-up avocado.  Let dry and rinse off.

• Join the weekly #HolisticMoms Twitter Parties on Tuesdays at 10est/7pst to connect with other moms, share, and just enjoy some good company!

• Share your experience for a chance to win great prizes!

Enter for a chance to win!

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Don’t Just Be the Change You Wish to See, Create the Change!

You’re probably familiar with Gandhi’s quote “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”  We agree wholeheartedly!  But, this month, we challenge you to go one step beyond - don’t just BE the change, help MAKE the change in others.

Join us this month for our newest Holistic Living Challenge: Help Others Go Green!  It’s Earth Month and what better way to celebrate than by helping others live greener?

Take the challenge and share your experience for a chance to win great prizes from holistic companies that will further support you on your holistic living journey!

Here are the details:

April 2013 Challenge: Help Others Go Green

Directions:

●     Choose what you’d like to do. Here are some ideas to get your green gears going:

○     Visit Change.org and choose a petition (or create your own) and spend the month promoting it and getting as many signatures as you can.

○     Help your child’s school go green using the Center for Health and Environmental Justice’s (CHEJ) free toolkit and program. The Green Flag Schools Program for Environmental Leadership provides a framework for schools to engage in environmental advocacy and empowers students to take charge. 

○     Lead a cleanup of a river, beach, or park in honor of Earth Month.

○     Start a recycling project at work.

○     Check with your local school or community center to ask about starting a community garden.

○     Work with a local school or faith community to organize a household hazardous waste collection drive. Almost everyone has old paint, pesticides or other toxic materials stored around the house. Contact your local government’s environmental department to learn how to dispose of those items properly.

(If your kids are older, get them involved! What would they like to try?)

●     Make a plan. Write up next steps, who you could reach out to for help, etc.

●     Record your experience. Was it easier or harder than you thought? What did you learn?

●     Share your experience for a chance to win great prizes!

Tips & Tools:

●     Join the weekly #HolisticMoms Twitter Parties on Tuesdays at 10 EST/7 PST

●     Join the Facebook chat (details to come!).

●     Connect with your local Holistic Moms Network chapter to learn what other moms are trying and get tips for your challenge.

Enter for a chance to win!

Your Food Has a Story to Tell - Are You Listening?

You have probably heard that the average piece of food travels 1,500 miles from farm-to-table, but that statistic is really just the beginning of the story. Our food is not only traveling farther than ever before, it is also undergoing more manipulation and adulteration. 

Consider the following basic - and startling - facts:

 According to FarmAid, “Corporate concentration is pushing you and over 300 million eaters in America farther and farther away from the family farmers who grow our food. Despite the appearance of choice in the marketplace, food is being produced by fewer and fewer family farmers and controlled by just a handful of corporations. As of 2007, four companies owned 83.5% of beef production, while 93% of soybeans and 80% of corn grown in the United States fall under the control of just one company.”

As reported in a recent article in The Daily Beast: “Every year at least 310,000 Americans go to an early grave and many more are sickened because of largely preventable diet-related conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, strokes, and some cancers. The big problem with our food supply isn’t pathogens, it is processed food. We’re being killed not by E. coli, salmonella, or campylobacter, but by the nutritionally hollow contents of the bags, boxes, and fast-food clamshells that have managed to pass as nourishment in our society. Some 70 percent of the calories Americans consume now come from highly processed foods—loaded up with salt, sugar, fat, strange additives, and refined grains and bereft of naturally occurring nutrients and antioxidants.”

This shift in our food system not only makes it difficult to know where our food really comes from or what it really is, it is also compromising the quality of our food in innumerable ways and negatively impacting our environment and family farmers.

What’s the solution?  Many books have been dedicated to the topic and new rules and regulations are being proposed in cities and states across the country (and even at the federal level) on a regular basis. While we wait for systemic change, the simplest and most powerful thing any individual can do is to get to know your food - where it comes from, what’s in it, what’s been done to it, and everything else you can uncover about how it traveled from its source to your store, market, or table. The more questions you ask - and find the answers to - the more empowered you are to make the healthiest, most sustainable choices!

Your food has a story - maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad - are you willing to stop and listen? 

Join others “trying to get to know their food” by tackling the 2013 Holistic Living Challenge. Learn all the different easy ways you can bump up the health and happiness in your home and connect with people across the country who are on the same path! Take on the monthly challenges for a chance to win great prizes. Take the challenge today!

Enter to Win Great Prizes:

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Get to Know Your Food!

Do you know where your food comes from or what’s in it (whether intentionally or maybe as a contaminant)?  

According to FarmAid, “corporate concentration is pushing you and over 300 million eaters in America farther and farther away from the family farmers who grow our food. Despite the appearance of choice in the marketplace, food is being produced by fewer and fewer family farmers and controlled by just a handful of corporations. As of 2007, four companies owned 83.5% of beef production, while 93% of soybeans and 80% of corn grown in the United States fall under the control of just one company.”

This growing monopolization of our food not only makes it difficult to know where our food really comes from, it’s also compromising the quality of our food in innumerable ways and negatively impacting our environment and family farmers. One of the best ways to reclaim our food and our health is by really getting to know what we’re eating and where it comes from.

Join us this month for our newest Holistic Living Challenge: Get to Know Your Food! It’s National Nutrition Month, so we encourage you to go beyond eating healthier and try to really understand what’s in your food, where it comes from, and more.

Take the challenge and share your experience for a chance to win great prizes from holistic companies that will further support you on your holistic living journey!

Here are the details:

Challenge: Get to Know Your Food. Is it from a factory farm or a family farm? Is your produce in season? How far did your food travel from farm to table? Does your food contain artificial growth hormones, antibiotics or GMOs? The more you know, the easier it is to make the best food choices for your family’s health and the health of the environment.

Directions:

• Choose what you’d like to do. Here are some ideas to get your creative gears going:
• Try the 100-Mile Diet for a day or week.
• Visit your local Farmer’s Market and talk to some of the farmers.
• Visit a local farm.
• Grab a food from your pantry and investigate where it was made (and where all the individual ingredients come from).
• Do a full kitchen audit to identify where GMOs might be lurking or how many synthetic additives are present or ?
• Go GMO-free for a week or the whole month.

(If your kids are older, get them involved! What would they like to try?)

• Take it one day at a time (and celebrate every success).
• Record your experience. Was it easier or harder than you thought? What did you learn? Will it change how you eat moving forward?
• Share your experience for a chance to win great prizes!

Tips & Tools:

• Join the weekly #HolisticMoms Twitter Parties on Tuesdays at 10est/7pst
• Join the Facebook chat (details to come!)

• Connect with your local Holistic Moms Network chapter to learn what other moms are trying and get tips for your challenge.
• Invite friends over and watch something like Food Inc, Forks Over Knives, or even go see the new film from the creators of Food Inc. A Place at the Table!
• Follow recommendations from FarmAid.org to get connected to your food and local farmers.

Enter for a chance to win fabulous prizes!

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Exciting Prize Details:

• Prize bundle #1: Applegate -  T-shirt (please request shirt size), Food Rule Book, Chico Bag, Free Coupon, Buttons, Stickers (estimated value $70)
• Prize bundle #2: Frontier Co-op - Frontier Bulk (organic Calendula & non-alkalized Cocoa Powder), Frontier bottled Salt Free (SF) blends (SF Lemon Pepper Org, SF Garlic & Herb Org, SF All-Purpose Org, SF Onion & Herb Org), and Simply Organic (Greek dip mixes, Cinnamon and garlic powder mini spices, Black pepper in our new tin) (estimated value $120)
• Prize bundle #3: Organic Valley - Healthy Eating Kit (Tote bag, educational literature and 4 of free product coupons) (estimated value $50)
• Prize bundle #4: Yummy Spoonfuls - case of fresh organic baby food variety pack (estimated value $45)
• Prize bundle #5: Fyrefly Organic Teas - 50 gram bag of Organic Uplifting Tea and a Holistic Moms Cookbook (estimated value $30)
• Prize bundle #6: Holistic Moms Network - One annual membership (for you to use or gift!) (estimated value $45)

Learn DIY Home Remedies on 2/25 with Dr. Aviva Romm!

Are winter bugs making the rounds at your house?  Simply interested in learning more about taking control of your health using DIY remedies?  Join us on Facebook on Monday, February 25th for a chat with renowned herbalist, physician, midwife, and author Dr. Aviva Romm!  We’ll be discussing recipes and remedies you can make at home for:

• Women’s general health;
• Pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum; and,
• Infant and child health.

We’ll be sharing tips and experience as a community all day and Dr. Romm will join us live from 7-8pm EST.

Visit the Holistic Moms Network Facebook wall on Monday the 25th to learn, share, and connect!

(Note: This is part of our 2013 Holistic Living Challenge. Join us on the journey to living healthier, happier, and more in tune with nature!)

About Dr. Aviva Romm

Dr. Aviva Romm is a Yale-trained physician specializing in integrative medicine for women and children, a midwife, an herbalist, an award-winning author, and the creator/owner of WomanWise, on-line courses dedicated to vitality and optimal health for women and children. She is a mother, a teacher and speaker, an artist, and a woman who lives from the heart. She has spent nearly 30 years as a health care practitioner and advocate for women and children.

Dr. Romm is an internationally respected expert in botanical and integrative medicine for women and children and one of the founders of the Yale School of Medicine Integrative Medicine Program. Aviva is on fire about creating a better world for all of us, and she does this as a compassionate integrative physician with a social and environmental conscience.

The recent past President of the American Herbalists Guild, a founder of the Yale Integrative Medicine program, and the author of 7 books on natural medicine for women and children including Botanical Medicine for Women’s Health, The Natural Pregnancy Book, Naturally Healthy Babies and Children, Natural Health After Birth,Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent’s Guide, ADHD Alternatives (with her husband Tracy Romm Ed.D.), and The Pocket Guide to Midwifery Care, Aviva has been a pioneer in natural birth and botanical medicine for gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics in the United States and her books are read around the world.

Practicing what she calls “transformational medicine,” she is a leader in the health care revolution to transform the current medical system that over-medicalizes life, from birth to death, into a model that respects the intrinsic healing capacities of the body and nature.

7 Super Easy DIY Cleaner Recipes

At HMN, we're diving into this month's Holistic Living Challenge with gusto!  Here's a great way to take on our challenge to learn something new to live more naturally: make your own non-toxic cleaners!  If you haven’t tried making your own cleaners yet, there’s no time like the present to get started. They’re safer, cheaper, more eco-friendly, and really much easier than you might think.

Here are 7 DIY cleaner recipes to try today!

Tub and Tile Cleaner from Apartment Therapy: In a jar or spray bottle, combine 1 2/3 cup baking soda with 1/2 cup vegetable oil-based liquid soap. Add 1/2 cup water and 2 tablespoons vinegar. Shake before using. Apply with a cloth or sponge and rinse well.

Hardwood Floor Cleaner from The Daily Green: Whip up a solution of 1/4 cup white vinegar and 30 ounces of warm water. Put in a recycled spray bottle, then spray on a cotton rag or towel until lightly damp. Then mop your floors, scrubbing away any grime.

All-purpose Cleaning Spray from Frugal Living on About.com: Create your own all-purpose cleaner by filling a spray bottle with equal parts white vinegar and water. Then, shake up the mixture, and you're ready for your next cleaning spree.

Disinfectant from The Daily Green: Instead of bleach, make your own disinfectant by mixing 2 cups of water, 3 tablespoons of liquid soap and 20 to 30 drops of tea tree oil. It's easy!

Oven Cleaner from Mother Nature Network: If your pie boils over in the hot oven, cover the spill with salt immediately. It will dry to a crusty and easy-to-remove powder when the oven cools down.

Toilet Cleaner/Deodorizer from Better Homes and Gardens: Sprinkle toilet bowl with 1/4 cup baking soda. Drizzle with 1/4 cup vinegar, then scour with a toilet brush.

Glass Cleaner Recipe from HGTV: Try this recipe to harness the cleaning power of rubbing alcohol. Mix in a spray bottle: 1 cup rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol, 1 cup water, 1 tablespoon white vinegar. Spray and clean!

If you want to go the extra mile, teach others to make their own cleaners by hosting a Green Cleaning Party created by Women’s Voices for the Earth!

What are your favorite green cleaning recipes?  Share them in the comments!

Try the 2013 Holistic Living Challenge to learn all the different easy ways you can bump up the health and happiness in your home and connect with moms across the country who are on the same path!  Take on our monthly challenges for a chance to win great prizes. Learn more today!

Learning to Live More Naturally: Simple Steps

Becoming a Holistic Mom (or Dad), doesn't happen overnight.  Most of us do not de-tox our entire lives in one fell swoop.  Rather, it's small, everyday changes that we make that add up to big lifestyle transformations.  In hindsight, the changes are huge but each time we learn something new and incorporate it into our more natural, healthful lifestyle, it's one little step in the larger picture.

For this month's Holistic Living Challenge we challenge you to learn something new to live more naturally!  No matter where you are on your holistic living journey, there are opportunities to incorporate a new practice into your lifestyle whether it's learning how to make non-toxic cleaners at home, planting an organic garden, or starting a compost pile.  So for February we encourage you to make a conscious effort to tackle something new and share your experience for a chance to win great prizes from holistic companies that will further support you on your journey!

Here are the details:

Challenge:  Learn something new to live more naturally.  Mix-up your own non-toxic cleaner.  Try cloth diapering.  Make a DIY home remedy.  Try to avoid plastic for the month.  Grow a windowsill herb garden. The choices are endless and totally up to you.  You can tackle something big or ease into something small. Learn one thing a day, one thing a week, or one thing for the month.  Cater the challenge to your life - just make sure you try to choose something really new to you to benefit most from the challenge.

How to Get Started:

• Make a plan. What would you like to try?  Will you try multiple things?  Map it out and set some goals for yourself. (If your kids are older, get them involved! What would they like to try?)
• Research your idea to see if you need any special supplies and stock up on whatever you’ll need for the month.
• Take it one day at a time (and celebrate every success).
• Record your experience.  Was it easier or harder than you thought?  Were you pleased with the outcome? Share your experience for a chance to win great prizes!

Tips & Tools:

• Join the weekly #HolisticMoms Twitter Parties on Tuesdays at 10 EST/7 PST to learn more and get inspired! 
• Join our Facebook chat (details to come!)
• Connect with your local Holistic Moms Network chapter to learn what other moms are trying and get tips for your challenge.
• Read about little changes that matter on the HMN blog.

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Congratulations to our January Prize Winners:  Michele B. (Mountain Valley Spring Water), Anne J. (Fyrefly Organic Herbal Teas), Brittany L. (Holistic Moms Many Paths Cookbook), and Sherry S. (Holistic Moms Membership)!

Detox Facebook Chat! Join Us!

Join the Facebook Detox Chat on Wednesday, January 23rd!

This year we kicked off our 2013 Holistic Living Challenge. For the month of January we are encouraging our community to try an easy detox to help reboot our bodies for the new year.  It’s the first step in our 2013 Holistic Living Challenge and if you’re interested in trying it - or already are - join us on Wednesday, January 23rd to chat about your goals, tips, and experiences or get some inspiration and support to get started!

Our guest expert will be Alexandra Jamieson, Certified Holistic Health Counselor, creator of Delicious Vitality, and author of The Great American Detox Diet.  Her approach to holistic health undid the damage Morgan Spurlock’s 30-Day McDonald’s binge did to his body in the Oscar-nominated documentary Super Size Me, and she has appeared on Oprah, CNN, and MSNBC to share her insights.

 Here’s how our Facebook Chat will work: We’ll be posting a series of questions on our wall throughout the day and into the evening. You can visit our Facebook page all day long to ask your questions, read other people’s tips, and join the conversation with our guest expert!  One randomly selected participant will win a free, 5-week session of Alex’s Rapid Refresh & Reboot Program (valued at $375!) which includes:

• 5 weekly coaching sessions 
• 5 weekly action plans Recipes and menu plans 
• Access to the private Reboot Facebook group 
• Audio recordings and written transcripts of each call 
• Daily inspirational emails 
• 2 Bonuses: Access to Alex's Week in a Weekend program 1-on-1 coaching call with Alex 

This AMAZING program starts February 26th and you will have a chance to win a spot!  It’s easy, it’s inspiring, and it’s fun! Plus, it might just get you started on a healthy journey for 2013!  We'll post a link to enter on this page the day of the chat!

Join us!

For more information about Alex's new Reboot Program, click here!

Holistic Living Challenge: 10 Tips to Detox Your Diet & Reboot Your Body

Raise your hand if you fell prey to a little over-indulgence this holiday season (I’m raising two!).  No matter how much you did or didn’t over do it, starting off the year with a quick detox is a great way to reboot your body and reset your system.  It can even help you find any underlying diet triggers for chronic health conditions (if you do a full-blown “elimination diet”).  In fact, a food elimination diet may help to treat things like chronic fatigue syndrome, psoriasis, arthritis, asthma, eczema, IBS, chronic migraines, GERD, anxiety, constipation/diarrhea, sinus problems, and infertility.

As Hippocrates said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”  So let's start there.  Rather than a full-blown set of resolutions, we're going to work on detoxing ourselves on whatever we are ready to remove.  Even if you’re not ready to do a full elimination diet, you can easily promote your family’s health and wellness by taking simple steps to detox your diet.  Here are 10 to get you started:

1. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”  This little gem of advice is probably one of the most popular to come from Michael Pollan’s Food Rules (which is an excellent book filled with 63 other helpful tips for detoxing your diet).

2. Eat whole foods. Processed, convenience foods (even those marketed as natural and organic) are stripped of essential nutrients and loaded with other questionable ingredients.

3. Eat organic. Conventionally grown and raised foods can be contaminated with all kinds of pesticide residues, synthetic hormones, and more. Reduce your consumption of these toxic offenders by opting for organic when you can (especially what you eat the most of).

4. Eat less meat and dairy (especially if you're not eating organic).  Residues of persistent chemicals (which means your body doesn’t metabolize or excrete them) such as DDT, PCBs, dioxin, and many pesticides concentrate in animal fat (and then, your fat).

5. Avoid added sugars. The average American consumes around 22.2 teaspoons of added sugar every day. According to guidelines from the American Heart Association, the recommended sugar intake is far lower - for adult women it’s 5 teaspoons (20 grams) of sugar per day, for adult men, it’s 9 teaspoons (36 grams) daily, and for children, it's 3 teaspoons (12 grams) a day.

6. Ease up on sauces and condiments. They may be tasty, but these extra additions are also where a lot of the aforementioned sugars, as well as salt, fat, and artificial additives are hiding in your diet. Fresh herbs and spices or a little lemon juice are healthy alternatives for adding extra flavor to any dish (and many have detoxifying effects, too!)

7. Choose foods that help detox your system.  There are quite a few foods that help your body to detox, naturally.  Dr. John Dempster recommends things like flaxseed, lemon, garlic, artichokes, and apples.

8. Avoid acrylamide.  Acrylamide is a toxic chemical that ends up in certain foods as a by-product of cooking.  According to Dr. Alan Greene, “[c]ertain natural sugars and certain natural protein building blocks become fused together to form acrylamide when temperatures top 250°F (typical toasters top 300°F).” Here are the top foods to be aware of (and great ones to take on as part of your detox!): french fries and potato chips, crackers, toasted breakfast cereals, cookies, and bread.  Dr. Greene says “[a]ll other things being equal, frying produces the most acrylamide.  Roasting is better.  Baking better still.  And...steaming or boiling can produce none at all.

9. Cut back on caffeine and alcohol.  Both are dehydrating and tend to be paired with other things such as dairy, sugar, or juices.

10. Stay well hydrated by drinking lots of clean, pure water.  If your kids aren’t fans of a good old-fashioned glass of water, add a wedge of lemon or orange or even a muddled berry to give the drink a hint of flavor.

Here’s to a healthier New Year!  Join us this year as we kick off our year-long Holistic Living Challenge - a new action you can take each month to live healthier and greener, with special events, prizes, and more!

Share this challenge and your experiences using the widget below for a chance to win!  What did you learn?  Your story can help inspire others to live healthier! Please share your tips and trials.

Want to be healthier and happier? Try the 2013 Holistic Living Challenge to learn all the different easy ways you can bump up the health and happiness in your home and connect with moms across the country who are on the same path!  Take on our monthly challenges for a chance to win great prizes. Learn more today!

There is No Turning Back

First came Sandy.  Then Newtown, CT.  In the span of a few short weeks, fear and grief became the predominant sentiments governing our everyday lives.  Unimaginable natural and then man-made violence shook our world to its core.  There is no more denial.  Climate change is here.  Gun violence is out of control.  How did we get here?

Like waking into a very deep and dark nightmare, it seems many of us are opening our eyes to things we have long ignored.  Living a wasteful, toxic lifestyle suddenly came back with the force of a storm we could never have imagined.  Years of increasingly lax gun control legislation and rising rates of mental illness and pharmaceutical treatments brought us to a cliff we had never imagine looking down.  And, in an instant, we fell.

There is no going back.  There is no silver lining.  There is destruction and fear.  We are terrified with each and every passing day.  Malls, movie theaters, restaurants, and schools are no longer safe.  Our homes, our lives, our property can no longer be protected from the dangers around us.  And we - each and every one of us - bear responsibility.

We can draw into ourselves.  Focus on appreciation and gratitude for what we have and for what has not touched us personally.  Or we can realize that we are one and that what has already happened has changed our lives forever.  We can stand up and take action.  We need involvement and we need community.  We need to personally take action.  We need to contact our government officials and take a stand.  We need to actively engage in our local communities.  We need to get involved in protecting our future.  We NEED to change our lifestyles, to make sacrifices, to give of ourselves.  Simply sharing a post on Facebook or Tweeting something into the universe will not change it.  Only real, live action will.

Will these tragedies move you to live differently?  Will you engage or retract?  Will you drive deeper into a disconnected or virtual world or will you engage?  The more we busy ourselves with distractions, the bigger our problems grow.  We are all responsible.  And we all need to act.  Together.

Why Kids Should Eat Organic: The Science

"Organics No Better."   "Save Your Cash: Organic Food is Not Healthier."

You've seen the headlines. You've heard the stories.  The media is notorious for asserting that the claims about organics are not valid because they are not backed up by science.  So it's time to listen up: a study by University of California, Davis scientists being published in the journal Environmental Health is here to tell you differently.  Let's cut to the chase:

"Based on the dietary data we collected for different age groups, potential exposure to environmental toxins through the food consumption route is a real and significant concern particularly for children in their preschool and primary years, with a high proportion of this age group estimated to exceed benchmark levels for a number of contaminants with known effect on health."

Let's sit down and read that again.  "Real and significant concern" and "exceed benchmark levels for a number of contaminants" should jump out at you.  So, let us look at the study:  Researchers examined exposure to multiple food contaminants among groups of children ages 2-4 and 5-7 years old and older adults.  They looked at 11 toxic compounds: acrylamide, arsenic, lead, mercury, chlorpyrifos, permethrin, endosulfan, dieldrin, chlordane, DDE, and dioxin.  The toxic compounds were assessed for cancer benchmark levels to determine exposure levels among children.  And here's where things get scary:  "cancer benchmark levels were exceeded by all children (100%) for arsenic, dieldrin, DDE, and dioxins.  Non-benchmarks were exceeded by >95% of preschool-age children for acrylamide and by 10% of preschool-age children for mercury."  

How on earth are our children becoming so toxic?  Study researchers argue that "food may be the primary route of exposure to contaminants from multiple chemical classes such as metals (mercury, lead, arsenic), persistent organic pollutants (POPs) (dioxin, DDT, dieldrin, chlordane), and pesticides (chlorpyrifos, permethrin, endosulfan)."  Our chemical-laden food supply means that there is no mysterious agent poisoning our children, it is on their plates, in their lunchboxes, at OUR dinner tables.  And the exposure to these environmental toxins have been linked to "cancer, asthma, lead poisoning, neurobehavioral disorders, learning and developmental disabilities, and birth defects."

What foods are the greatest offenders?  The study cites conventionally produced "tomatoes, peaches, apples, peppers, grapes, lettuce, broccoli, strawberries, spinach, dairy, pears, green beans, and celery."  The study's researchers also recommend "consuming organically produced dairy and selected fruits and vegetables to reduce pesticide intake, consuming less animal foods (meat, dairy, and fish) to reduce intake of persistent organic pollutants and metals, and consuming lower quantities of chips, cereals, crackers, and other processed carbohydrate foods to reduce acrylamide intake."

Those are some strong words and some sage advice from scientists, including a professor of Public Health and a professor of Epidemiology.  No science to support why our kids should eat organic?  The next time you hear that, be sure to ask the messenger to check their sources.

The Climate Crisis Happening Inside Our Bodies

The devastation of recent storms and global warming have finally resonated with many Americans that the planet is in bad shape.  Our over-consumption and lack of concern for pollutants and chemicals in the environment are starting to set off some red flags for large sectors of our population.

But an equally dangerous climate change of sorts is happening within our own bodies.  The chemicals in our environment from not only our air and water, but from our food, our cleaning products, our personal care items, our furniture, our homes, and everything around us, is polluting our bodies with dire consequences for the future.  From GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in our food to plastics and toxins in our homes, we are creating an internal environment that endangers not only us, but future generations.

A recent study published by Brown University researchers found that "more than half of women of childbearing age had median or higher levels of at least two of three pollutants that could harm [fetal] brain development."  Known pollutants such as mercury, lead, and PCBs are finding their way into our blood streams through our food and our households.  For women of childbearing years, the accumulation of toxins grows with age and the exposure for our children in the womb is on the rise.  "We carry a history of our environmental exposures throughout our lives," warns the study's lead author Dr. Marcella Thompson.

But at what critical point do we start to heed these warnings?  Hurricane Sandy wrought mass destruction here on the East Coast and opened many eyes to the overwhelming power of nature and the dangers of global warming.  We should already be noting, with alarm, the growing rates of autism, allergies, learning disorders, and chronic health issues among our children.  The statistics are alarming, but we continue to muddle through.  Those on the front lines, many of us moms, are the ones who are starting to stand up and fight to protect our children and to heal our future.  I continue to believe that it is moms who will make the real difference in our toxic world, I can only hope that our actions will hold the urgency that they truly require.

Stress Hangover?

You feel tired, achy, and burned out.  Your head pounds.  It feels like you had a few too many drinks.  But that's not it.  Perhaps you had a few too many night wakings with the kids.  Financial or personal stress.  Health struggles.  Or even a natural disaster.

This week, I have a stress hangover.  And, as a parent, I bet you know exactly what I'm talking about.  It's easy to get overwhelmed with stress when you have kids to juggle, a lack of sleep, and very little balance in your life.  Add to that a few other challenges and BAM! it hits you.

October was a busy month for Holistic Moms, with our Natural Living Conference, Holistic Living Month, HMNRaising Auction and so much more.  On the heels of all of the busy-ness, Frankenstorm Sandy decided to pay us a visit.  The storm tore down trees and power lines, took lives and homes, and devastated the Northeast.  We had no power, heat, internet, or phone for nine days and a fire in our home in the middle of it all.  But we got off easy.  Still, waiting on hours-long gas lines, searching supermarkets for food, and generally trying to stay warm maxed us all out.  And then the blizzard hit, dropping more than six inches of snow on top of it all.  And then the kids got sick with hacking coughs and colds.  And then, for a little added bonus, one of our dogs had a Lyme disease relapse, complete with paralysis and tremors.  Let's not even talk about work and our offices being closed for more than a week, please.

You know when people say that stress is bad for you?  They're not kidding!  I don't even need a night of partying and drinking to feel this bad.  So how to we find our way through when the stress starts to pile higher than we had ever imagined?  For me, it starts with being present.  Present in the moment that is.  I have spent many nights of late lying in bed awake, my mind racing with the stress of all that has happened and how to make it through.  But bringing my mind to the present, to the moment, and to all that we have to be grateful for here and now immediately creates a sense of calm.  Being present and in gratitude helps me to breathe and be still.  And that is the first step in restoring balance amid the chaos.

Stressful times call for nurturing.  Your desire to curl up in bed, drink a hot cup of tea, or create a quiet space, are natural instincts for coping.  Honor them.  Find a way to rest and sleep.  Nurture your body through with warming, healing foods.  Drink tea and soup, as they are easy on your digestive system.  Find solace in (healthy) comfort food without guilt.  Boost your immune system, as stress takes its toll.  Take time to give your body the support it needs.  A few of my personal favorites include probiotics, fish oils, and Vitamin D.  Seek out healing therapies such as chiropractic, acupuncture, and massage.  And find quiet moments.  Try to create still in your family to regain balance.  Curl up with your kids and connect.  When we ground ourselves and our families, we can pull through the challenges.

Don't dismiss those feelings of overwhelm or your own stress hangover.  Embrace the sign to slow down and  nurture yourself.  The holiday season is almost upon us.  If you stay present and nurture yourself, you might avoid the stress hangover altogether.  As for your standard hangovers, try bananas and lots of fluids.

Have a stress hangover cure?  Please share!

Sandy's Silver Living

Here in New Jersey Hurricane Sandy has been shockingly devastating.  Despite the harsh warnings of an impending "Frankenstorm", it's safe to say that few of us were really prepared for this.  From Manhattan to the Jersey Shore, neighborhoods have been torn apart.  Decimated.  Leveled.

Even miles from the shore, fallen trees and downed power lines have left millions of area residents without heat or electricity.  Gas is in short supply.  Looting is rampant.  Price gouging imminent.  It's hard to know who is safe, which way is up, where you can get help.

But Sandy has brought everyone out of their homes.  With no power and no internet, with roads unsafe to drive and gas in short supply, our neighbors are out and about.  They are walking down the street, viewing the damage and stopping by to say hello.  Neighbors are chatting and sharing their stories.  Towns are gathering together in warming and charging stations in local libraries and fire stations.  People are lending a hand to help a neighbor, volunteering to boost relief and recovery efforts, and reaching out in ways that seemed all but lost.  We share food and warmth, conversation and connection.

Sandy has helped us to rediscover community.

Whether standing on a coffee line one hundred people deep or charging our cell phones at a local station, people are connecting face-to-face.  We are being reminded that there is great power in our in real life community.  When social media goes down, our attention turns to the true source of community - real life.  We share together in our struggles and ask for help from one another.  And we realize that there is still power right on our streets.  Not electric power.  Not online networks.  But the power of people to do good, to help out, and to make us feel connected amid the chaos.  Power to move branches, put out fires, bring a hot meal, or hold a warm hand.

It's not the photos of the damage that move us, it is the images of humanity coming together.  It's seeing the rescue workers bringing people to safety.  It's watching the volunteers bring food and warmth to people in need.  It's what we do in communities across America.  And it can't be replaced by a Facebook post or a Tweet.