THOUGHTS ON RAW MILK + DE SMET DAIRY FARM TOUR

A few years ago, I picked up Real Food by Nina Planck. To say that it has changed the way that we eat is an understatement. As I read through each section of the book, I could feel myself getting more anxious with every page. I was overwhelmed at the thought of the complete food overhaul that would need to happen in our home if we were to eat the way she described. Raw milk - where could I find that? It was (and still is) illegal in most states. Organic produce - we can't afford to shop like that! Grass fed, organic, local beef - no one raises beef like that anymore! I finally decided to just take it one step at a time. Raw milk wasn't available in this area until recently, so we opted for pasteurized organic whole milk. I sought out the cheapest place to get organic produce and will continue to sing the praises of Trader Joe's even though nothing they carry is locally sourced. Though I would prefer to buy locally, this was my middle ground for the benefit of my budget and sanity. On our first go around here in Albuquerque, we bought three chickens and let them run freely through our backyard so we could afford organic, free range eggs. I started to seek out more vegetarian meals, so that when we did eat meat, we could afford the good stuff. I started with one step and once that was second nature, we moved onto something else. At least 80% of what we eat is now organic and we actually spend the same, sometimes less on groceries than we did before we started this food overhaul, but I still consider it a work in progress.

One of the biggest things Planck focuses on in Real Food is raw milk. She is a huge proponent of raw milk, but I wasn't completely sold on it just from reading her opinion and research. The history of why milk is pasteurized is an interesting one that makes me confident raw milk shouldn't be illegal, but I was still a bit skeptical. I knew that if I could find a farm that met my expectations as far as cleanliness and how their cows are treated, I would be willing to make the switch. Enter De Smet Dairy. I finally got around to taking a tour of the farm and I'm sold. They're third generation dairy farmers located in Bosque Farms, New Mexico. Their cows are grass fed and allowed to roam freely on pasture, whereas most conventional dairies keep the cows confined indoors and feed them grain. They only milk them once a day, so that the babies get to stay with their mamas for an extended period of time. They're free of all hormones, antibiotics, and GMOs. Basically, the cows get to live a good cow life, which means they make better milk.

When looking for raw milk, the main thing I wanted was organic, so I asked why they weren't certified. De Smet Dairy is not certified organic at this time, but they once were (last year). They had to drop their certification because they expanded their herd and an organic certification requires all animals to have been raised under organic conditions for a year, plus the certification is extremely expensive for a small farm to afford. Though I believe that the benefits of raw milk far outweigh the risks, I'm not here to try to convince you of that. I will encourage you to do your own research and tell you that there's a chance of food borne illness from basically any food you buy at the grocery store. Listeria is found in pasteurized cheeses. E. Coli is found in bagged spinach. Salmonella is found on chicken that comes out of industrial plants even though they essentially bleach it before packaging it. Conventional foods and traditional foods both have risks involved in eating them. Personally, I would rather eat traditional foods from animals who also ate their traditional diets than factory raised animals whose products are sterilized before you can come in contact with them.

Evie was ecstatic the entire time we were at the farm. She is such an observer - she wanted to see everything and every step and know what every machine was used for. When she saw the cows being milked she said, 'I want some! Can I have some milk, pease?' I told her we would buy some when we were all done seeing the farm and when we pulled a jug out of the cooler she exclaimed, 'DIS MILK FROM THOSE COWS OUT THERE?! We're gonna drink it?!' Every time I pour her a glass, she can't stop talking about where it came from. She was equally excited about feeding the beef cows apples and climbing on all the old tractors. Overall, I was really happy with what I saw. The biggest challenge for us in eating local real food is the logistics in picking things up from each separate place. De Smet has partnered with a local farm, Skarsgard, that offers CSA memberships, so we plan on signing up for one in the new year and making the switch to raw milk.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on raw milk and the changes you're trying to make in your families diets in the comments below!

Youtube Yoga

I'm going to start this post with the preface that I am no expert (or yogi - see I don't even have the lingo down) when it comes to yoga and it kind of annoys me when people try to talk about things they aren't very knowledgable about, but bear with me. I took a six week prenatal yoga class during my second trimester with Ev and really enjoyed it (and if you're pregnant and debating on taking one, do it - I didn't start feeling pregnant or having aches and pains until after I stopped doing yoga). I've never found a lot of enjoyment in exercise, but as my life becomes more hectic, I find myself looking for ways to bring a bit of peace and relaxation into my days. Running has even become a bit relaxing for me, and anyone that has known me for an extended period of time knows what kind of revelation this is. (Seriously, I used to think I had asthma because of how out of breathe I would get after running like 15 feet.)

Anyway, since Alex's work schedule is demanding (yoga studio with childcare - somebody should get on that because I can't seem to find one) and we're always trying to save money, I had kind of given up on the idea of taking classes. A few months ago, I was stretched thin and not handling the woes of adulthood very well during the day, so I decided I needed more time to myself and started getting up earlier each morning. The first morning I had no idea what to do with free time and thought to myself, 'I wish I had a yoga DVD.' I turned to google and realized there was no need to buy a yoga DVD - there are tons of 'classes' on Youtube. Since then I've watched a lot of different videos and a lot of times I end up stopping in the middle of one because it's just bad. I thought I would highlight the ones I've enjoyed, so that any busy Mamas like me out there who are interested in making yoga a part of their weekly routine can do so without having to search through the less than satisfactory ones.

As I said, I'm no expert, so I'll only be highlighting beginner level videos (until I learn enough to no longer be a beginner someday, I guess). I really enjoy this one with Ashley Sky Litecky, especially in the morning. It sort of eases you into your day and wakes you up gently. It's not a challenging or extremely long session and you probably won't even break a sweat (my kind of exercise), but you will get up feeling relaxed, aligned, and inspired. Namaste.

What kind of routines do you follow to bring a bit more peace and relaxation into your days?

Waste Free Living

About a year ago, I stumbled across this video of a family that is committed to living waste free, which means almost nothing they buy or consume ends up in a landfill. It's all either composted or recycled and if it can't be composted or recycled - they don't buy it. When this story came out, it was met with a lot of resistance from people, most of them pulling the 'poor, deprived children' card (because they don't get processed junk food and juice boxes? My mother didn't buy those because they weren't economical, and I turned out just fine). While we have no desire to be a family of hippies trying to collapse the American economy nor are we under the impression that recycling yogurt cups will save the world, I commend them. It would be hard, but if they can do it, I think that's awesome! The family's cumulative trash for an entire year all fits into one person's hands. Compare that to the more than four pounds of waste that the average individual produces each day, and you're bound to come to a realization that we could all stand to evaluate what is going into our trash cans, our landfills, and ultimately our bodies. If the benefits that this family has gained aren't enough to propel you to make some changes (they reduced their spending by 15% in a year [for a family with a $40,000 income, that's a savings of $6,000], and hello, clutter-free home), then the video below should help you along. There can only be two reasons why someone wouldn't want to reduce their waste - they aren't educated about the effects or they're lazy - and I mean no offense by saying that, I'm a bit lazy myself sometimes. The video below should help with the former - it's rather long, but pretty interesting and worth watching.

So what is my family going to do to reduce waste? Here we go:

- We're using cloth diapers with all of our children. I won't go into too much detail, since I could write an entire post about this subject, but long story short - 18 billion diapers go into the landfill each year (which adds up to 82,000 tons of plastic and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp or 250,000 trees) and the average cost of disposable diapers is $1,600 for two years (depending on the brand you buy), whereas you can buy 24 cloth diapers for about $400 and even factoring in the cost of water to wash them, it would still be cheaper. We actually diaper Evie the old fashioned way with prefolds and covers and it cost us a little under $300, but knowing what I know now, I could have easily kept it under $200. (We keep 6 covers and 12 prefolds and wash every day or so.) The savings go up even more when you consider cloth wipes and reusing your diapers and wipes on future babies.

- We're committed to keeping toys to a minimum in our house. We try to buy quality (usually wooden) toys that don't overstimulate and will last through all of our kids. This reduces the amount of plastic (Barbie's, Happy Meal toys, etc.) going into the landfill each year. Plus, I'm not supporting major corporations who are only interested in the almighty dollar. I'm voting with my money, and saving money by filtering the kind and amount of toys we buy. I plan on doing a post on all of our favorites soon.
- We bring reusable bags to the grocery store. I'll be honest here, a lot of times I forget them in the car. When I do, I ask for paper and we use them to store our recyclables in, throw the whole thing into the bin, and the bag gets recycled too. I've been eyeing these baskets that just drop into your shopping cart, then you throw them into your trunk and you don't have to worry about bags. I also ran across this idea and I really want to sit down and try it out on some old t-shirts.
- We make our own cleaning supplies and use a pack of cheap washcloths instead of paper towels. If you want recipes for homemade household items, check out my Pinterest board. We started gradually transitioning into homemade household things a little over a year ago and I haven't had to buy laundry detergent or dishwashing detergent since then. I plan on trying homemade toothpaste and deodorant soon.
- We stopped buying bottled water. This also saves us tons of money. Our fridge filters our water, but when we didn't have that, we used a Brita filter on our kitchen sink (and the filters are recyclable). I bought a few reusable water bottles to use when we're on the go, and we just use our everyday glasses when we're at home.
- We recycle and compost everything possible. Without recycling and composting, the amount of trash we create would be significantly more. These are no brainers as far as simple things to do to cut down on waste. Plus, you can use your compost in a garden.
- We shop at our local Farmer's Market. I really love knowing exactly where our food is coming from and how it was grown. I've started getting really serious about the way we eat and we have gradually moved to an almost exclusively organic diet with very little meat. Plus, none of the food is packaged, so you don't take home any trash.

These are some things that we would really like to start implementing:
- Using cloth napkins. We really don't go through that many paper towels, but I'd like to make the switch to cloth napkins soon anyway in hopes of not having to buy them.
- Getting rid of all Ziploc bags - but they're so handy. We've been talking about buying some glass jars for food storage, but they're pretty expensive, especially when you're trying to use them for everything.
- Baking our own bread. We used to go through around two loaves of bread a week, so that's 96 plastic bread bags that we would throw away, but since we've changed our diets, we eat and buy a lot less bread. I would still really love to learn how to make an authentic sourdough bread though.
- Gardening/ordering a CSA box. Alex and I have talked about having a garden since before we were married, but every time we try something gets in the way - things die or frost or we know we're moving and don't want to put the effort into plowing and planting in a space that won't be ours next year. Once we get settled somewhere semi-permanent it's definitely something we want to do each year, but for now I would really love to look into a CSA box. (Albuquerque readers: check out Skarsgard Farms for CSA boxes and La Montanita Coop for the best local foods.)
If you're interested in seeing the products that our family uses to try to live a waste free lifestyle, head over to my Amazon store and click on the 'Waste Free Living' category on the right. Our family does get compensated with a small percentage when you purchase anything from this link. I also recently did a post on our favorite children's books and have a section devoted to those in the store as well.

I would love more ideas - how does your family reduce waste and/or save money?

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Boycotting

I've been keeping up with the whole Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo fiasco for the last few days and contemplating whether to write about this for the whole world wide web to see or to just continue rambling and venting to my husband about it. At the risk of sounding like a paranoid, over protective nut job, I've decided I'm just going to let it fly because in my opinion, this is unacceptable. This makes me angry.

I realize it is just baby shampoo - in the grand scheme of things there are more pressing issues at hand. There are issues being faced and choices being made in this country that will probably affect my child's future more than this shampoo continuing to be allowed on shelves. I realize plenty of other lotions and body washes contain these same carcinogenic chemicals. Our food is being sprayed with worse and no one is doing anything about it, but that's a post for another day. What bothers me is the amount of dishonesty in Johnson & Johnson's business practices. More than two years ago, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics released the report that two chemicals, quaternium-15 and 1,4 dioxane, present in Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo had been linked to cancer. When this report was released the company stopped using one of these ingredients, quaternium-15, but only in some countries. The United States, Canada, China, Australia, and Indonesia were among the countries that the company decided not to remove the chemical from their product in. Instead, they manufactured a "natural" line that contains the same ingredients as the original, minus the cancer causing chemical, and are selling it for twice the profit.

Quaternium-15 is a preservative that is basically formaldehyde with a fancy name. As for 1,4 dioxane, you most likely will not find this on the list of ingredients. It's generated through a process called exothylation, in which ethylene oxide, a known breast carcinogen, is added to other chemicals to make them less harsh. This process is what creates 1,4 dioxane - a chemical like sodium laurel sulfate, normally harsh on the skin, is converted to a less harsh chemical sodium laureth sulfate, which is deemed 'safe,' but ultimately ends up contaminating the product with dioxane. Because it is a chemical that is created during the manufacturing process, the FDA does not require it to be listed as an ingredient. The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission has stated that even trace amounts of dioxane is cause for concern - and we're bathing our children in it, assuming it's safe because it's labeled 'no more tears.'

In 2009, over 40 companies sent a letter to Johnson & Johnson telling them of their concerns with certain chemicals in their products. Since then, they've met several times to discuss the issue. The content of those discussions is confidential, of course, but it seems like if they had been making any progress at all it would not have taken two years for us, the consumers, to find out. When Johnson & Johnson caught wind of the report that was released a few days ago [The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics released it without J & J's permission, which I'm assuming was because the company refused to make changes to their formula and CSC thought the general public should know.], they released a rebuttal statement that they were 'in the process of phasing these chemicals out of their products in the U.S.,' but conveniently, did not indicate a date that they planned to complete this 'process.' I'd like to call a huge B.S. on this - they already have formulas that do not contain these dangerous chemicals being sold on the shelves on other countries like the U.K., Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, and Japan. That's a double standard that I'm sure their profits from their "natural" line in the U.S. have nothing to do with.

So I say all of this to bring up three points. One, we need better regulations on what is in any product, period, in the U.S., whether it's bath products or genetically modified processed food. We, as citizens and consumers, have the right to know what is in the products we are buying, washing our bodies with, and ingesting. There should be honesty and transparency when it comes to the ingredients in products assumed to be safe. Two, because agencies like the FDA are not actively reforming these regulations for the health of the consumer like they should be doing, we all need to be our own and our family's advocates. Do your research. And three, the strongest way that you can influence an issue like this that seems too big to conquer as a single person is with your money. When you buy a product, you are voting for that product. You are telling that company that you approve of their ethical practices and of their ingredients, and that you want them to continue manufacturing the product you bought.

So goodbye, Johnson & Johnson. You've just lost yourself a customer. We won't be seeing you around our house any longer.

Sources:
1. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.
2. Forbes.
3. WebMD.