Fluoride Free

I really wanted to post this on Friday and call it "Fluoride Free Friday" but I haven't finished my other posts yet and everyday should be fluoride free anyway!

Anyhu, I am on this website called BabyCenter. Basically a bunch of groups of mama's and mama's to be talking about all sorts of topics or trading and selling their goods (like cloth diapers!) I hadn't been on there in a few days and when I came back I found this in my messages:

From: BabyCenter Partner
To: You
Subject: Go to nurserywater.com for coupons, offers and a chance to win prizes!
Date: 5/18/10 05:56AM
Sign up on nurserywater.com to receive coupons, valuable information, offers and enter for a chance to win prizes!

Seriously that site is just as bad as all the other awful corporate brands out there (actually isn't it run By Johnson & Johnson? Hmm yea...). I mean I do love some of the groups I am in there, so I just need to ignore everything else I guess. But I can't help feeling like being here is helping feed this disgusting government controlled society we live in.
Think about how many people are on that website (1000's!) and how many of them actually know about fluoride? I'm sure it is an extremely small percentage.


David Dees Illustration
OMG! Seriously take a look at this guys artwork! Amazing!

Now lets take a look into this.

The website says they have been around since 1948. So since 1948 people have been poisoning their babies because they were told it is good for them. Although tap water has fluoride too so no difference (except that your paying extra for this poison baby water ).

Does this make sense to any of you. Children's toothpaste has packaging and commercials that say fluoride free so it's safe if swallowed! But it's OK to drink it? Last time I checked drinking involves swallowing. Hello! Why is fluoride toothpaste not OK to swallow? Well because fluoride is a poison. But the American public seems to think “Oh it's just small amounts in water, it wont hurt you”. But maybe it's like a cigarette. One wont kill you but smoke enough over time and watch the magical effects (some sarcasm here I know)! On that note though, do you give your babies and children a drag of a cigarette because one wont hurt them? I didn't think so!

This product's website has a time line from pregnancy (wait are they telling pregnant mothers now to drink this stuff too? Well I don't see them mentioning it except for the drink 8 to ten glasses of water every couple of paragraphs... Hey if we are told it's so good for babies maybe we should be drinking it prego too!) to 4-5 years!

Of course the first thing I click on (Does my baby really need fluoride water?) brings up an article about fluoride and formula. Ahhh yes bad for baby #1 and bad for baby #2 put together equals a really healthy baby! :s Just an FYI, I am not completely anti-formula. I know there are mothers and babies out there that need it. But for the people who choose to formula feed for non medical or hardship reasons, I'm sorry, what are you thinking?


Then I scroll down some more and see the water bottles with an added danger #3, a TV character on the packaging. If your kids never noticed bottled water before they will be grabbing for the one with the TV character they know on it (that is if your kids watch those kind of things).

This is what the website says about the safety of this “Healthy” water:

Is drinking water with fluoride safe for my child?
Yes. The American Dental Association (ADA) continues to support water fluoridation at the optimal range of 0.7 to 1.2 parts per million (ppm), for the general public as determined by the United States Public Health Service (USPHS).

According to the ADA, baby formula can be mixed with water that is fluoride free or contains low levels of fluoride. Babies less than one year old need less fluoride than everyone else because they are so small. Nursery® Water has a fluoride level of 0.7 ppm or less. This means that when your child is drinking Nursery® Water, you can be confident that your child is getting a lower level of fluoride.

So all they say is that it is safe. There is no explanation what so ever about why it's in the water in the first place.

OK I take that back (did some more searching around the site) here is what they say the fluoride is for:

What is the Purpose of Adding Fluoride to Purified Drinking Water?
Our primary purpose in adding fluoride to purified drinking water is to help strengthen teeth. Nursery® Water is purified water steam distilled for purity, which assures you it is safe, pure, and clean. You can use Nursery® to mix formula and cereals, to dilute juices or as pure drinking water.

So first off how many newborns do you know that have teeth? Yea thought so. But this has clearly been marketed to newborns as well as teeth bearing babies and now all the way up to 5 yr olds! Lets get the fluoride into all the babies and children of this world!
Even as adults it clearly says not to swallow our toothpaste but lets keep drinking that water!

According to the handbook, Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, fluoride is more poisonous than lead and just slightly less poisonous than arsenic. Who started giving this to children!?

According to the Physicians Desk Reference, "in hypersensitive individuals, fluoride occasionally causes skin eruptions such as atopic dermatitis, eczema, or urticaria. Gastric distress, headache, and weakness have also been reported. These hypersensitive reactions usually disappear promptly after discontinuation of the fluoride."

I could go on and on listing all the things that could happen to your body because of fluoride.

And the funniest part of all this, the one thing they actually say it is good for (your teeth) it's not. In reality it causes dental fluorosis.



Look at those healthy teeth! :s



So why are they putting fluoride in our water and toothpaste then? Well I think this pretty much sums it up .

Before 1945, fluoride was considered an environmental pollutant. It was responsible for many lawsuits against industries, like the aluminum industry and the phosphate fertilizer industry, whose waste products contain large quantities of fluoride. This fluoride destroyed crops and animals, leading to lawsuits. The limited public view was that fluoride was an environmental pollutant that needed to be reduced or eliminated from the environment.
But as a result of clever public relations campaigns, fluoride was transformed from an environmental pollutant to an essential nutrient necessary for producing healthy teeth. Got to love this country we live in! Bah.



Am I going to link to everything I have ever read to prove this to you? Nope. Really do the digging yourself and make the decision to avoid this poison yourself. But here is something to watch if you feel so inclined.

Fluoride Deception Part 1



Fluoride Deception Part 2


FACEBOOK



It's so sad and sick that our own kind are willing to do this to us. For money, greed, science, whatever their motives are it's not for the good of the people...

From all I have read and seen the is definitely one thing you wont see in my house!

Things you can do to avoid this poison:
Invest in a good water filter for your home. Whether it be be a counter top version, under the sink or whole house. Just make sure the filter says it filters out fluoride!
If you can't afford this right now buy bottled water (yea I know, not good for the earth at all but sorry my children poison free is more important to me). Unfortunately until I get a good water filter I am stuck buying bottled water. Or if your local supermarket or health food store has one, the water machine's where you fill up your own jugs of water (I miss this from my old Co-Op in my hometown before I moved!).
Don't forget fluoride free toothpaste too! For my kids I use Weleda Children's Tooth Gel
I have used a few different toothpastes for myself but I am not set on one yet. Right now I am using Jason Nutrismile Toothpaste Orange, Cinnamon and Mint. Be careful as a lot of Jason products still contain fluoride.
I have been really wanting to try these though as I have heard many good things about them! Tooth Chips Soap at Rose Of Sharon Acres's
They also have an Etsy store HERE

Good luck on your fluoride free journey!

Sightly Saturday..

OK super late post but I felt like posting something as I have 4 blog posts in the works and haven't finished any of them yet. SO I just thought I would post a sight a see every morning that I love. My kitchen window.



I love these bottles so much.



And the fresh from the yard flowers add to it for sure.



And the green view out the window is wonderful too!




I am soooo thankful for my new home that I get to share with my wonderful family.

A blog about my blog?!

I can't believe someone is blogging about my blog already! When I found out I had a huge smile on my face. Because even though I do this for myself, I also do it in the hopes that I write things that like minded people are interested in reading. I mean that's what blogs are all about right? Right! We wouldn't be sharing info on the internet if we didn't want people to read it! :P

So I got a comment from a women whose blog I follow letting me know about this! Click the picture to give her blog a peek!.


I must say thank you to her for telling me and for following me back! It means a lot to a newbie like me. :) We share some common interests in life which is why I started following her in the first place!

But she told me I was mentioned on Blogs Worth Blogging About from http://myecofamily.blogspot.com/ who I am of course following now too as I see we also seem to have many things in common. Check out her blog and read her nice comment about mine HERE! Thanks for following me as well mama!


I really do love this new blog world I have entered into! I get to share what I want and I can read so much more from others!



Thought I would end this post with a picture of my sweet, chubby, smiling baby :)

Oh my Cookies!

I really do love to bake and cook even though I could definetely use some more practice! Just the other day I decided to try a new recipe. Kinship Cookies. They are supposedly very similar to cookies made by the early Pagans in Germany that were small cookies often shaped like animals. Possibly the roots of our modern day animal crackers.

This recipe calls for 2 teaspoons grated lemon rind and 2 tablespoons grated orange rind. Now this was no fun task! The only thing I had to finely grate peels was this silly little cheese grater my mother gave me years ago and I have never used! Well I am happy to have found it has a purpose.



Poor little naked fruits have lost their peels! :)



4 eggs as the only liquid in these cookies.



Your supposed to beat the eggs till fluffy. My son helped me with this (he loves to cook!). :)




Now for some sugar, 2 cups to be exact.



That's alot of freakin' sugar! Look past the white coated counter tops... I had made pizza dough before this and when you cook the kitchen isn't clean! At least not with me!

Add the sugar to the eggs...



Mmmmm sugared eggs.... :s

Now 2 cups of flour. Did I say 2? It was supposed to be 3.. Explanation below. The funny things that happen while cooking with your children while taking photo's and getting distracted!




A half of a teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of baking powder into the flour. Where'd the baking powder pic go? Beats me!



Mix the grated lemon and orange rind into the eggs and sugar.



In with the flour, baking powder and salt!



I love my little boys cooking hands. :)

Now you were supposed to mix this all together till smooth then place in the fridge for an hour (covered). Well I took out the "dough" which looked like goop! Something was wrong there was no way you could use cookie cutters with this stuff! And the recipe calls for using cookie cutters. I looked back at the recipe and realized I left out a cup of flour... I filled my 2 cup measuring cup but forgot to add in another cup. Grrr

So I added another cup mixed it up and hoped it would be salvageable. Stuck it the fridge for another 20 min or so and pulled it out again. Well guess what? Not goopy any more but still WAY to sticky for cookie cutters. Darn.

I was now supposed to be able to roll a 1/3-inch thick piece of dough out on a sugared surface and cut into shapes. Then place on greased cookie sheets, sprinkle anise seed on them (just realized I forgot those too! Ahhh!)then cover and refrigerate for 24 hours. I tried rolling out a piece of it on the floured counter for the heck of it, and had to scrape it off.

So I just stuck the whole darn bowl in the fridge and waited 24 hours. I thought maybe I'd have a chance to use the cookie cutters at the end... But of course the dough was way to sticky still so I just scooped it out in "balls" onto the cookie sheets and baked them like the recipe said (325 until lightly browned around the edges. Said about 20 min but 15 was better in my oven).

At the point when I found the goop in my fridge I had completely forgotten to finishing taking pics. I guess being a mom to a 1 month old and a 4yr old has given me "mom brain" for the time being!

The cookies ended up having a really nice flavor but I was really disappointed by the whole thing. I wonder if the batter would have come out better if I hadn't messed up. But I highly doubt it would have been any less sticky.

Not really sure why I ended up blogging about a not so great recipe turnout. But hey, at least I'm honest and not pretending to be Martha Stewart here! I do have to say even though they weren't perfect my family did gobble them up.

I decided to take a picture last second before they went to the party in someones tummy. :)

Green is good...

Green is amazing! And everything green is on my mind! About a month ago we closed on our first home and it has been pretty great so far. There is a lot of greenery which I had been missing terribly since my move to Ohio from Mass. Within a couple weeks the snow starting melting and everything started growing. It was making me so happy!

I started to notice all the things sprouting from the ground. Which made me even happier. I have always been super interested in edible wild plants. And as I was walking around outside I spotted this,



I am pretty sure it is wild onion but someone feel free to comment and tell me otherwise if you think not! Make sure you really know your edibles before eating wild plants though! Wild onion does have some very similar look alikes that you would not want to eat (if it doesn't smell like onion do not eat)! You can harvest the tops before flowers appear and the bulbs in spring and fall. I'm sure you can use these just the way you use regular onions.



Just thought I'd add a picture of the onions out of the dirt. It is pretty much impossible to pull them out of the ground. I had to dig them up with a shovel to get the whole plant roots and all.

I walked around some more and saw this,



Garlic Mustard! And it is everywhere! You can harvest the young leaves, blossoms and seed pods in spring and early summer. You can eat it as a raw salad or steam it. You can boil it then add a little salt and butter or use it with meat and veggies for garlic flavor too.

As the spring has gone on more and more things have popped up and are of course growing everywhere and everything is getting huge! Here is a pic of the Garlic Mustard today my son as comparison in height.



And he is a tall 4 year old too!



One of the other things I found was what I believe to be Wintercress. I did not take a pic of it though in its natural growing spot. You can harvest leaves in spring until flower stalks appear. Leaves blanch and lose bitterness if you tie them in a bundle with the plant still rooted and cover with a bucket. Pick flowers and buds until blooming is over (April or May). Use early and blanched leaves in salads.

Buds and flowers are excellent with cheese sauce. Cover clusters with boiling water for 1 min. Drain, cover with fresh boiling water, heat, and boil 3 min more. Drain, season,and cool for 5 min.

Well I decided I wanted to move some of the onions and Wintercress to a spot I know my hubby wont mow over. So me and my 4 yr old dug up a spot in the yard (was not fun as this ground was hard and full of roots) and transplanted the onions first. Now these guys are huge! That is one half of my full size shovel on the ground next to them.


Then we dug up the Wintercress and moved them to their new home too.




And here is my son watering them. I love his watering plant face. He likes to water the tops of the plants instead of wetting the dirt. I have tried to explain it to him but it's ok, he is my good little helpy helper (one of my nick names for him)!



This photo is the next day and unfortunately the onions dont look like they are doing too good (also didn't get to watering them until way to late in the day, keeping my fingers crossed they make it!)but I wanted to give another size comparison on how big the Wintercress is.



I also transplanted some Thistle known also as Blessed Thistle. Thistle is a protective plant and I thought the plants I transplanted could use some protection while hopefully growing stronger in their new spot. There is also Thistle all around our house (except I didn't see any in the back of the house). It seems to be only growing very close to the sides of the house which I am so happy about. Can never complain about a little added protection!



I just had to add a pic of one on the side of the house. It is the second biggest one growing.




And then last but not least tons of Dandelion! All parts of this plant, root, leaf and flower are edible! And I personally love it in my lawn. I don't care if everyone on earth thinks it is ugly in your yard, I don't! Look at the color....



My son picking them, he loves them too :). And he definitely likes them when they turn to "fluff".





What can I say I love my yard and all that grows in it! I can't wait till I can get my veggie garden going! That will be another post...