More reasons to embrace the imperfections of organic:

Imperfection is Organic

There's nothing like apple picking in New England. For years, my family has enjoyed this fall tradition.

We've visited farms with train rides, hay rides, corn mazes, gourmet donuts and ice cream, petting zoos, pony rides, barbeques and playgrounds. These theme-park orchards provided great entertainment, but they could never provide us with one thing: organic apples.

They say that it is impossible to grow organic apples, pears and stone fruit on the east coast. They say these crops will quickly be devoured by molds, fungi and pests.  I've spoken to many vendors at my local farmer's market, and they all sing the same refrain: we do our best, we use as little spray as possible, if we didn't spray you couldn't eat these.... But that's not entirely true.

For the past two years my family has visited Old Frog Pond Farm, a 25-acre pick-your-own orchard owned by a local artist. Our first year there, it was sleepy and quiet. The trees were short and looked sparse. The apples were tiny, lopsided, disfigured and covered with black and brown splotches.

"Are these safe to eat?" I asked the young man who worked there. He smiled and informed me that these blemishes were a natural part of the apple, perfectly safe for human consumption. "Organic," he said, "is not perfect."

Still, we were a bit fearful, so we took them home and baked pies and cooked applesauce instead of eating them raw.

Over the course of the year, his words remained with me: "Organic is not perfect." It got me thinking about my perceptions of the world and myself. When I shop I seek out perfect products. I exercise in hopes of a more perfect body. I write aspiring to the perfect manuscript. I child rear with earnest desire to be the perfect mother ... wife ... citizen.  I keep searching for the aha! moment when I realize that it has all come together perfectly.

In a world of shiny, glossy, beautiful people, products and produce, it's hard to accept anything less.

This year, we decided to go back to Old Frog Pond Farm. My kids discovered hidden sculptures, designed by the owner, nestled between the trees and along the edges of the field. The orchard seemed busier, the trees seemed fuller, the choices seemed greater, and the apples seemed less blemished. When my kids asked for samples, I didn't bat an eyelash at the black mottled skins.

The apples were not beautiful by traditional standards. Not even close! But they were grown without toxic chemicals and they were delicious.

I've finally begun to understand that imperfection really is natural, organic and healthy. It's the mottled moments that make us human and the lopsided apples that give us something to write about.

No Vaccine ... No School

Here's a copy of the op-ed I submitted to my local paper last week after our public school threatened to suspend my daughter for two weeks because we did not want to vaccinate against chicken pox. This may offend some of you, and it might resonate with others. Either way, I think it is a conversation that needs to be had as more and more parents are opting out of the AAP vaccine schedule.


Vaccine Study is a Sign of a Growing Trend

A study published in the November issue of Pediatrics states that 1 in 10 parents are not following the recommended vaccine schedule for their children. Of this subgroup, 30% claimed they began following the recommended guidelines, but subsequently deviated. I am like that 30%.

Vaccines save lives and as a new mother I was content playing my part in public health protection. But my older daughter began suffering from food intolerances and allergies and my younger daughter was plagued with ear infections. The idea of injecting foreign viruses into children struggling with health issues didn't sit well with me.

I did some vaccine research, but there seemed to be only two polarized messages: Vaccine experts adamantly defending the safety of their products, and extreme radical groups calling for an end to all vaccines.

In 2007, Dr. Robert W. Sears published The Vaccine Book, a mainstream source offering information about individual shots and their risks. Essentially pro-vaccine, he offered an alternative schedule for concerned parents.

I decided to slow down our process, giving one shot at a time, when my kids were healthy.

One vaccine I could not rationalize was chicken pox. I don’t understand why we vaccinate young children for a disease that is mostly benign in childhood and risk immunity waning during adulthood when the disease is more dangerous.

Studies also show there is a correlation between the chicken pox vaccine and an increase in adult shingles, suggesting that lifelong exposure to the virus keeps shingles at bay.

I decided not to vaccinate my younger daughter for chicken pox and to postpone the booster for my older one. I would vaccinate when they were teenagers if they hadn’t acquired immunity.

But matters came to a head last week when there was a case of chicken pox in my daughter's kindergarten class.

The school nurse called, panicked, on Friday morning while we were celebrating the Jewish New Year. The unwell child was diagnosed on Wednesday, and I had 72 hours from exposure to either vaccinate my daughter or keep her home for two weeks. Because it was Friday, I had just one afternoon to figure it all out.

I asked questions like: What if the child was contagious on Monday or Tuesday? What’s the point of the vaccine then? Was it one of her friends? Was she actually exposed? The nurse wouldn’t tell me anything.

Chicken pox is inconvenient, but it is not a public health threat. It’s not even that easy to catch. A sick child must actually cough or sneeze on another to spread bodily fluids.

After talking to our daughter’s teacher, we ascertained she’d had no contact with the sick child. Our daughter was not a public health risk. There was little chance of her getting sick or of exposing others in a town that boasts 98% vaccination rates.

Still, I felt I had no choice but to vaccinate. As a kindergartner just beginning to adjust to her new school, I was reluctant to pull her out for two weeks.

After we vaccinated, I learned that the only child in the grade at risk from this potential ‘outbreak’ had been our daughter. I feel duped.

If Monday’s study is any indication of things to come, there will be more and more parents like me. Well-intentioned, thoughtful parents who aren’t extremists, but who want to take control of their children’s well-being in a system that is neither answering questions or concerns adequately nor addressing individual’s preferences with logic and reason.

For Your Consideration: Preserve Peppers

I love red peppers. I could eat them fresh or cooked every day. But peppers are part of the dirty dozen - the twelve fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide levels according to the Environmental Working Group; so I only buy organic or from farmers I know.

Once the farmer's markets end, I'm in trouble. Grocery store organic peppers are expensive, and they are imported from all over the world raising energy consumption and purity issues (depending on the country of origin). A small organic pepper from Holland may cost $6.00 and is a painful purchase.

Last year I decided to see if I could stretch my farmer's market purchases. I bought all my favorite vegetables in bulk: Green beans, broccoli, spinach, peppers, zucchini and even pumpkin. I knew that I wasn't interested in the canning process, which felt both cumbersome and labor intensive. Instead I experimented with blanching and freezing. I had mixed results.

Broccoli: My frozen broccoli was disgusting. I didn't blanch it first, so I just chopped and froze it. After a month, the broccoli smelled and tasted horrible in addition to being smooshy.

Green Beans: I blanched and froze green and yellow beans. These tasted fine, but the consistency was too soft for us. Ultimately I chopped the frozen beans and added them to other foods. It wasn't really worth the effort, though.

Spinach: Spinach is a little labor intensive because you need to thoroughly wash off all the sand before you do anything. Also, a lot goes a little way. Still, this was one of my more successful attempts. After blanching the leaves, I scooped them onto a cookie sheet using a measuring cup and froze the mounds. The spinach tasted great and was easy to prepare.

Zucchini: We love zucchini bread in our home! Are you surprised? I try to bake a batch every other week so the girls can take it to school for snack. It's hard to track down organic zucchini in the winter, but naturally grown zucchini is now in abundance at the farmer's market. I buy about ten and shred them all in the food processor. I scoop the shreds into measuring cups and freeze these mounds on a cookie sheets. Then I store the mounds, and they are premeasured for baking.

Pumpkin: Pumpkin is probably the most labor intensive of all, but we love baked pumpkin products, and it's almost impossible to find bpa-free cans. I bought sugar pumpkins, which are used for baking, but I needed my husband's help to cut them in half. I scooped out the seeds, roasted the halves, scraped out the edible center, pureed the flesh with a little water, and froze it in measured cups. My favorite farmer has assured me that I can replace pumpkin with certain winter squashes for baking. I may give it a shot because much labor yielded small results.

Peppers: Of all the vegetables, these are hands down the easiest to preserve. Just rinse, slice, freeze on cookie sheets and then move to freezer bags. Frozen peppers don't quite crisp up in a stir-fry or saute, but we used them in all sorts of foods and we thoroughly enjoyed them.

Buying in bulk at the farmer's market in season turned out to be a great way to save money on organic grocery produce. I don't love using all those freezer bags, but they are the most space efficient, and I wash and reuse them until they crack. I've also found myself freezing fresh domestic organic strawberries and peaches, both of which are on the dirty dozen and become virtually impossible to find come November.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Happy shopping, chopping, and freezing!

Seeking a Safe Backpack

Backpack shopping has tuckered me out. If I were like many folks, I'd take my kid to Target, Walmart or the Gap and say, "You need a new backpack. Pick what you love. Knock yourself out." Then, I'd pay for my products, and we'd all go home happy.

But alas, I cannot shop like that.

Backpacks, you see, are often made with lead, pthalates and PVCs - all of which are toxic to our bodies, but especially to little bodies. It's hard to find one that is free of all three components.

Safe Mama has a thorough list of companies who manufacture 'safe' backpacks. She has done a great deal of research, literally calling companies one at a time.

But as you'll see from Safe Mama's list some companies just don't seem sure about their own stuff. When I called one company on the list, the man I spoke to raved about his lead safety, but he could not confirm his products were PVC-free. When Safe Mama called, she was assured the bags were indeed free of all three elements.

Another issue I've found is that many of the 'healthier' backpacks are highly expensive, stylized and skew young in design. Beatrix NYC has a line of big kid backpacks decorated with large, cartoonish animals. They are hip and cute, but at $52.00 a bag, the last thing you want to hear in a year is, "It's too babyish" or "I don't like owls anymore."

The good news is that more and more companies are producing healthier products, and there are good options out there if you're willing to poke around a bit. Jansport and High Sierra, for example, make healthy packs that should also be durable. Personally, a first filter is what the bag is made from. Polyester and nylon are less concerning to me than vinyl.

Of course if you have a picky little peanut like me, who has pretty much said "No" to every backpack I've shown her, you'll have other health issues to deal with ... like your mental health. But that's an entirely different problem. Sigh.

Happy Shopping!

Susncreens Revisited

We've been slathering ourselves in screen for a couple of weeks now. Between summer camp and the beach, we feel like we've given all our products a fair shot. We also pulled out some remaining sunscreens from last year, curious to see how they held up to our newest additions.

First, a look at our new purchases. Eco Logical has become hands down our family's favorite beach sunscreen. We love the ease of application, the lack of white residue and the nice texture. We still wish more came in the tube, and we're already on our second container. It definitely goes fast. As the summer progressed, we became less enamored with Goddess Garden. It separated, making it almost impossible to rub in. Everyone had streaky white lines down their body, and we wondered if it was actually still offering universal protection.

Last Year's Leftover Sunscreens:

Lavera Sun Sensitive Neutral Baby & Children Sun Spray (SPF 20, 200 ml for $35.00): This was my kids' favorite product for years. Unlike other natural brands, it uses a pump spray, making it a breeze to apply. It is waterproof and works instantly making it ideal for beach and pool days. But last year Lavera changes their formula. They now use nano-particles, which they claim are coated and 'safe.' The SPF numbers reflect European standards rather than American ones, which is confusing. Customer service insists their 20 is equal to an American SPF 30, but I'm still uneasy. $35.00 is steep, but this bottle honestly lasts far longer than any of the tubes we've had making it worth the price. EWG ratings are unclear. Older formulations were a "4", meaning they were not as safe as some, but newer versions seem to be rated "2" making them safe. Our biggest issue is that for the first time (in three bottles) our sunscreen changed consistency over the winter making it impossible to use the pump and difficult to remove by hand. I fear we'll need to throw out 1/3 of a bottle unused. Still, Lavera is the best spray option in natural sunscreens.

Loving Naturals (5 oz for $14.00): This SPF 30 waterproof sunscreen has a thin consistency, but leaves a white coating on the body. My kids don't mind it, but it irks me that I can't even get it off my hands once it is applied. My biggest gripe, however, is that the sunscreen contains nut oil making me fearful about using it at camp or at a public pool. There are just so many kids with severe nut allergies these days. I probably won't order this product again for that reason alone.

California Baby Everyday Moisturizer SPF 18 (4.5 oz for $20.00): I bought this sunscreen last summer and barely used it. We spent most of our summer at the beach, and the sunscreen just didn't seem strong enough. I began using this lotion on my kids for longer errands or playground visits. I love it! I just pumped and rubbed it in quickly. It doesn't leave the skin slimy or white and it goes on easily. To be clear, I don't recommend this product for the beach as it isn't strong enough.

According to a new bill, french fries count as a vegetable.

I just read this article, and it made me furious. I thought I'd share it with you, so that you can be angry, too. I guess the big question is, what do we do about it? What would Jamie Oliver do about it?

The K Street Diet is bad for Americans: A new bill ensures kids are fed lots and lots of french fries at school. Because they are potatoes, they will count as vegetables.