My friend Micky makes this totally rad quinoa dish as a potluck staple. The great thing about quinoa is it takes on every flavor, fills you up and stretches a loooong way. Micky adds fresh corn and avocado to the Epicurious recipe, which makes it even better. I just made it for dinner and felt very smug at my health conscious behavior. But then I had a cookie. Does it even count after all those vegetables and grains?
My friend Maureen makes quinoa for her boys (3 and 5) and adds pesto to aid in the gobbling up factor. My niece’s ultimate comfort food dish is quinoa and carrots. She’s six and when she’s really tired and hungry, that’s what she requests. For real.
Does anyone else have a quinoa fave?
The 2008 test results for cars and car seats have arrived over at Healthy Car.
Definitely worth checking it out if you are in the market for a new car seat, or car for that matter.
You could also stop by to read Z Recs piece on the new Britax Frontier car seat, a 25-to-80-pound car seat that converts from a five-point-harness seat to a belt-positioning booster. Looks pretty groovy and oh, so safe.
You know when you can’t sleep and you start wondering just how much toxic stuff is lurking in your house? Well, OK, it’s not how I spend a lot of my time, but I was just sitting here drinking a glass of water and started to wonder about the safety of our Brita water filter pitcher. The Soft Landing had an answer and it looks like Brita pitchers are fairly safe.
So this gift is a little over the top, I’ll admit. One of Sy’s pals has one of these Galt “Nursery Folding Trampolines” and it’s just too much fun. I figure Sy will be going stir-crazy from being so housebound the first few weeks of new babydom, why not get her something that helps her get her ya-yas out? We haven’t purchased it, but wouldn’t it be cool to come home to your own personal gymnasium after visiting the interloper at the hospital? Nothing shouts I’M A BIG GIRL like careening off of a trampoline at an alarming clip.
Sy and her pals tend to argue over turns a lot. Hours of entertainment. OK, well, maybe 15 minute stretches of entertainment AND exercise. Nobody’s broken anything yet, so they keep on jumping. Let’s be clear, the folks at Galt say one kid max (77 pound maximum), but I’ll be the first to admit Sy does her share of tandem jumping with a pal. When have I ever read the instructions before I let my kid play with a toy?
My friend Kate sent me this link to cosmeticsdatabase.com, a site maintained by the Environmental Working Group that rates the toxicity of makeup, hair care, nail care, baby care (including sunscreen) and whole lot more.
My favorite sunscreen by TruKid rated really well. Way to go TruKid! My favorite baby wipes ever, the unscented ones from Kirkland at Costco, rated a 5, moderate on their hazard scale. But then check out what they have to say about that 5!
Ingredients in this product are linked to:
I’m looking into a spare car seat that is not going to break the bank. Because there’s not enough to worry about as far as crash safety is concerned, go take a look at HealthyCar.org to see how toxic the flame retardant levels are in your current car seat. You can also see how your vehicle ranks.
Nice to know there’s ALWAYS something new to worry about, isn’t it?
Oh, and by the way -
HealthyCar.org wants to know which child car seats parents are most interested in having tested. Parents can go to the Test My Car Seat feature and vote by Monday, June 23. Test results of the most popular car seats will be released on Tuesday, July 22nd along with updated data on toxic chemicals in 2007- and 2008-model vehicles.
I saw this Boppy pregnancy wedge pillow at Mimi Maternity the other day and thought Oh! The perfect solution to my sleep troubles (as if).
I planned on reviewing it, but that aint gonna happen. I opened up the packaging and the pillow smelled SO GNARLY. I smelled the bag to see if that was the issue, but nope, it was the foam. The sour chemical smell was overwhelming. After reading so much about safe bedding and all that rot, I decided that airing it out and hoping for the best was not an option. I then went over to the new Boppy pillow I just got, hoping it would smell better. It was fine, luckily made from materials other than total toxi-foam.
YUCK, Boppy-People, YUCK!
I’m making the (thankfully small) list of gear that we still need for the next babe. Ohdeedoh’s conversation about bumpers reminded me that I want to try out a mesh bumper like this one from Breathable Baby.
Has anyone used one before?
There’s a conversation going on over at Ohdeedoh about bumper safety. I found the article about toxic chemicals in the mattresses and a possible link to SIDS interesting.
I read this report over on Z Recs.
“Amazon.com quietly launched a “BPA-Free Baby” shop on its site last month, with a promo box appearing in rotation on the landing page of its Baby section. Z Recommends has cross-checked listings from Amazon.com’s new shop against the Z Report on BPA, and confirmed with representatives at the relevant companies that four of the fourteen models of plastic bottles and sippy cups sold as “BPA-free” by Amazon.com in their new shop contain bisphenol-A.”
Way to boost consumer confidence in you, Amazon! Z Recs is pushing Amazon to take responsibility.
Click on over to Z Recs to read the full report. As usual, Jennifer and Jeremiah have done our BPA homework for us.
Wow. Toys R Us has decided to phase out all feeding products containing BPA by year’s end. Check out the article.
You can also read more on the FAQ section of the Toys R Us site, questions 21 through 26.
Excellent news!
Happy Monday!
Check this out - The Canadian government announced Friday that Canada will be the first country to ban plastic baby bottles made with bisphenol A after concluding the chemical is toxic. See full article here.
Jennifer and Jeremiah over at Z Recs sure do their research. Check out their well researched list of safer bath toys (toys which contain no PVC, pthalates or BPA).
I know I’ve mentioned their great list of BPA bottles and sippy cups before, but I have to plug it again. A few weeks ago when I was at my mom’s, I realized I had forgotten Sy’s sippy cups. I went to Target and got her these great Munchkin cups with lids that were sturdy and only $.99 a piece. I was pretty sure I remembered that Munchkin was a BPA-safe company on the Z Recs list. Got home a few days later, checked out their report and realized - wrong! It’s on the list of cups to avoid like the plague. Ah well, it was only $2.00 down the drain. I was glad to have their list as a resource.
When Sy was born, we made a conscious effort to keep our house-cleaning products as environmentally friendly as we could. I don’t want her eating off of a table I just cleaned with an industrial strength bleach product. As you know, I am a sucker for trying out new products, so I have a whole cabinet full of “organic,” “natural,” or “eco-friendly” products (I’ll keep the comments about how many land-filling plastic bottles I have to a minimum, thanks). There are a lot of less toxic cleaning products to choose from, just traipse through the aisles of your local Whole Foods or natural grocer. I do get a bit confused looking at all the labels on “natural” cleaning products, especially since the FDA has declined to regulate the word “natural,” there is no way to really know what that means in marketing speak.
The most recent product line I’ve tried out is BabyGanics. Babyganics is marketed towards families, so they have their products at Babies R Us, as well as online retailers like babycenter.com. Smart move on their part. It’s not like you see a lot of “organic” merchandise at Babies R Us. It sticks out like a sore thumb, but in a good way.
Check this out! One of my favorite blogs, Z Recs, has just launched a supremely cool text messaging service to help you shop for BPA-free products. So basically if you are at a store and you can’t remember which products are BPA-free, all you have to do is send them a text message query about a particular company (details on their site) and you’ll get a message back detailing which products offered by that company are BPA-free. Way to go, Jeremiah and Jennifer. That is just too cool.
