For instance, when I am making myself an espresso, and I smell the espresso brewing, I feel aches in the back of my neck and throat. I get this same feeling right before I am about to eat sweets. And it’s a similar physical feeling I get after I’ve eaten said sweets or drank said espresso, and 20 minutes later, when am on the down swing from the rush.

Is there a scientific explanation for this? Because I attribute this other worldy response to the “yeasties” — the overgrowth of yeast in my gut that I imagine drive me to drink coffee and occasionally gorge on sweets. And, sometimes the yeasties team up with the pack of hormones, who gather like wolves inside me while I am ovulating and drive me to indulge in food that I know doesn’t make me feel good long term.

They all somehow know the food is nearby — and drive me to notice.

They’re not very sympathetic either. Once they get what they want, they are not shy about messing with my insides. Just like I notice the pre-response of eating certain foods, I now also notice the icky things that come out of me after;  when I eat too much wheat or dairy, for instance.  Icky things that have to do with orifices and mucous and stink — things we normally associate with monsters.

If we cringe when we see monsters on the big screen, why don’t we cringe when we recognize monster-like behavior inside us? The mood shifts? The temper flares? The mucous? The stink? A lot of which, if we only took the time to notice, relates to the food we eat?

When I have a migraine, I am completely present.

My mind is nowhere but on the experience of the migraine.

The flashing zigzaggy lights I see before the crushing headache.

The loss of clear vision.

The understanding of exactly what is going on in this very moment.

And the understanding of what needs to be done…right now.

I am not thinking about the laundry. Or about my kid’s homework. I am not thinking about my finances or that obnoxious girl at work.

I am not obsessing over that stupid comment I made to my boss or the thing my husband said to me at dinner or the fight I had with my mother.

I am just with the migraine.

Do you ever notice how present you are to pain?

And then do you notice how not present you are to pleasure?

I do. Now.

I’ve been struggling again with migraines since I moved to Israel 11 months ago. Before I moved here, I had managed to be migraine-free for about three years (which I attributed to being completely dairy free).

Why are my migraines are back? Is it the dairy? I’m only eating a little. Is it the full-time office job? The people are nice there. Is it the sleepless nights (thanks to three little kids)? Or is it the fact that I just made a major international move to a conflict-torn country whose national language is not English?

I don’t have the answer. Not for lack of trying.

I thought I knew my migraine triggers: lack of sleep, stress, particular foods, bright flashing lights.

But I wonder now if my migraines aren’t also my body’s way of triggering something in me.

The need to be more present. The need to stop. The need to slow down. The need to be with me.

If I could somehow manage to be more present, would the other migraine triggers simply just fall away and disappear?

Would my body finally say “Thank you for noticing” and give up the migraines?

Don’t answer too quickly. The fact that you answered so quickly leads me to believe you more than anyone needs to sit and think about it a little longer.

Think: When was the last time you noticed yourself eating?

When was the last time you stopped to slowly and consciously notice your food: the taste, the satisfaction of chewing it and swallowing, the relief that comes with quieting your belly and soothing your soul?

Even those of us (for example, ME) that pay attention to what we eat often have a difficult time paying attention to how we eat. Last night, I made myself a gorgeous dinner. Quinoa, with an assortment of sautéed vegetables (grated carrots, zucchini, garlic and onion), a little red sauce. I was so excited to eat this dinner.

My family had already eaten and were in the middle of bedtime routine. I was to eat alone. As I finished preparing my dish, I looked around for something to read. Perhaps the computer? The Kindle? The latest edition of the beginner’s Hebrew newspaper I get delivered each week? Then I heard the voice.

The voice belonged to my good friend Shira who is a yoga teacher and offers workshops in Mindful Eating. Hearing her voice in my head gave me pause. Hmm…I thought. Do I really need to read over this meal?

As I paused, I could hear a louder voice in my head. My own. Saying to Shira a few months ago, “I think it’s a great idea, this mindful eating stuff, and I know people will benefit from such a class, but I don’t really think I need it.”

The basis for this comment was the fact that I am pretty mindful of what I eat. But indeed I am not mindful of how I eat. The thing is, being mindful of how we eat is just as important as what we’re eating. For the same reason that people who exercise also need to meditate. Being mindful when we are in the act of eating = slowing down; paying attention; allowing the stuff that’s buried inside you come to the surface. It’s time to think, but more important to feel and experience.

I’m not suggesting that we all give up socializing with our loved ones at meals. There’s a lot to benefit from conversation and interaction. But I am suggesting the next time you have the opportunity to eat alone, try being with yourself. Try engaging yourself in the act of eating and noticing. In the 20 minutes it took for me to eat my quinoa dish slowly and mindfully, I had a lot of revelations. I also noticed things about myself and the world around me I would not have noticed with my face in front of my Kindle. I especially noticed how much I complain about not having enough “alone” time and then once I get “alone” time, all I want to do is be with others. (Other people and other people’s thoughts and commentaries, via their Facebook status updates or their blogs.)

I invite you to invite yourself over for a meal ( where the guest is you and you alone.) See what happens. What do you notice? What do you see? Taste? Smell? Feel?

Is the experience scary? Is it a relief? Is it agonizing? Is it a pleasure?

And, why so?

So many in the food movement will claim that we have become so disconnected with our food. I agree. But I would like to add that we have also become so disconnected with ourselves that we have forgotten how to be with food.

It’s been a year or two since I’ve had to think about diaper accoutrements. But today I asked my coworker for something to clean my computer keyboard with and she handed me a baby wipe.

I took it…reluctantly.

After wiping down my keyboard with the baby wipe, it was no longer sticky but it smelled like an eighty-year old women who forgot that she already sprayed herself five times with perfume. Not a smell I want to be spending my day with.

And, not something you want to be wiping your babies bottom…or hands with.

Before I had my first child, a friend of mine told me she made homemade baby wipes for her baby using paper towel and water. She said her daughter never had baby rash – never a one! Being the psychotic mom I was with my first (and by psychotic, I mean obsessed with doing things “right”), I made my own baby wipes, too, and taught my husband how to use them and make them.  And, just like my friend’s baby, my son stayed rash free for months!

The truth of the matter is poop stinks. But baby poop, especially breastfed baby poop, is NOTHING. My refrigerator smells worse than your breastfed baby’s poop! You do not need to be wiping her fresh bottom down with chemicals that are trying unsuccessfully to smell like the summer garden of St. Petersburg! Even if your baby is formula fed – trust me, those poops are nothing compared to what they’ll smell like once she’s eating meat. Even still, you really don’t need to wash your baby’s bottom with anything more than water, and a little natural baby soap. (We liked California Baby brand’s unscented baby soap for sensitive skin, but castile soap is great too, and a lot cheaper.)

Janelle Sorensen of Healthy Child, Healthy World recently posted this great article with tips for homemade baby products, including baby wipes.  If you are a new mom, or a mom with a new baby, please keep in mind that what you put on your baby matters as much as what you put in her.

And if you are a psychotic new mom-to-be like I was, just remember: If you’re reading this and thinking about it, you’re one step ahead already.

Why ”Emma” and “Sam” then, which were both easily in the top 25 by the time I had my own children? (None of whom are named Emma or Sam.) 

I’m a trendspotter. 

I liked those names in 1997: a good five years before Rachel Green named her baby Emma.

I tend to be aware of things before they become a trend. When they’re still a little unknown and even unaccepted.

Please understand: I’m not a trendSETTER. In general, no one gives a shit what I say, think, or do, except for a handful of you loyal readers. But, every now and again, I tell my friends and family about a new product or behavior, and before you know it, you’re reading about it in USA Today.

I sense this happening with American society’s concern about food coloring.

While unfortunately the FDA did not in March retract “its long-held position that the dyes pose no risk to children or anyone else;” more mainstream media outlets are reporting on the matter and more parents are reading and sharing these links on their social media networks.

I have my relatives forwarding me links from NPR writing, “You told us about this five years ago!” My husband looks at me with a proud smile when he sees the top story on CNN health is about new studies linking ADHD and food dyes.

I don’t want a pat on the back or a medal. I do, however, want to be able to walk through a grocery store in under an hour because I no longer have to read and monitor the long list of behavior-disturbing and asthma-inducing chemicals in my family’s food. I do want to be sure that the produce I buy is naturally colorful, not from Citrus Red 2, which is a carcinogen. I want to know that when my kids go to their friends house for a playdate, they’re not going to return climbing the walls because they ate Yellow #5- laced Kraft Mac and Cheese.

I don’t need my sister-in-law to call me and tell me she’ll no longer have fruit punch at her kid’s birthday party. Or my son’s preschool teacher to let me know she removed the Fruit Loops from school projects. (Though both would be dye-free icing on the cake.)

But I would like to see that this is a trend that takes. And benefits us all.

In fact, when I see big, beautiful, perfectly shaped strawberries, and I don’t know where they’ve been grown, I typically stay away from them, particularly since of all fruits and veggies, strawberries are on the top of the Dirty Dozen to eat organic.

This isn’t to say that all irregular looking food is organic or safe. Take “ugly tomatoes” for example. They sure are ugly, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t grown with pesticides.

This morning, as I was preparing to make myself a sunny side up egg for breakfast, I opened up the carton of organic eggs I had just bought from Eden Teva natural foods market. This is what I found:

 Six brown eggs and six white ones. Yes, they do seem to be a bit ordered (they came exactly as you see them in the picture.) But no one decided at the farm or wherever these eggs are packaged that the eggs needed to be uniform. No one decided that organic eggs needed to look brown or look white. No one indicated on the outside of the packaging that these eggs may be discolored or may be mismatched. All the packaging really says (save for 12 Organic Eggs”) is “Laid by hens free to move, perch, rest and feed.”

Weren’t they worried that when I opened up the carton to make sure the eggs weren’t cracked (which I didn’t since I wasn’t the one to go food shopping this time), that I would put these mismatched eggs back on the shelf?

No, they weren’t. Because educated, organic food shoppers expect their food to look like food, not like advertisements.

I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that Israelis missed out on the pop culture icon that is The Grinch, the anti-Christmas, anti-fun Dr. Seuss character who ruins the holiday season for the people of Whoville. Whether or not there is an Israeli equivalent of the mean, green furry monster is unbeknownst to me, but I often feel as if I could fit the bill.
 
It’s not Christmas that I despise, though. Or any holiday celebrated here in Israel. My life would be a little less grinchy if it was a holiday I was in opposition to.
 
No. The offender in question is not a holiday, but a treasured Israeli institution.
The Makolet.
 
Here on the kibbutz in which I live, at the top of the hill, in a little trailer adjacent to the preschool is the quintessential Israeli convenience store. Open from early morning to late evening, with a short mid-afternoon break, the Makolet is a mini-mart which carries a variety of staples (milk, bread, cheese, sugar, instant coffee), as well as fresh fruit and vegetables, beverages, and newspapers. For those of you who have spent any time in New York City, the Makolet is basically the Jewish bodega.
 
If I was 21, the Makolet would be my second home, I’m sure. However, as a parent who is trying to raise healthy and health-conscious children, I find the Makolet to not only be an inconvenience, but an outright nuisance. My kids don’t see the Makolet as the place to pick up an avocado when we’re fresh out, or a tub of chummus. No, they see the Makolet as an all-day, every-day Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory!
 
Candy, “choco” (chocolate milk IN A BAG), gum, cake, cookies, lollipops: Half the products in the store are marketed to children; or worse yet, their parents who feed them this kind of junk every day after school.

 Are my fellow parents here are not really aware of the kind of junk they are putting in their kids’ mouths?  The sugar, and worse, the artificial sweeteners, additives, and preservatives? Chemicals that have been linked to behavioral disturbances, sleep issues, and ADHD. They must understand, at least, the connection between feeding their kids this junk and childhood obesity? Right? How do they justify the daily indulgences? Is this yet another difference between American parenting and Israeli? Or is it ignorance?
 
It took us only a few weeks of living here (and incessant begging from our children) before we created “Makolet Day;” one day during the week when each of my three kids is allowed to choose something to buy from the Makolet.  We encourage cheap little toys over candy, but ultimately the decision is theirs. This  system works well for my four-year-old and two-year-old, who aren’t running around the kibbutz with other children who have their own accounts at the Makolet and the apparent freedom to buy whatever they want whenever they want. But not so for my eight-year-old who, in between Makolet days, mooches off his friends, his de facto dealers.
 
I’m not as bad as you might think. I’m not one of these moms who deprives her children of sweet treats. I, too, have a sweet tooth and a sugar addiction that I need to feed.  But the sweet treats in my house have always typically been home-baked chocolate chip cookies or cakes; not preservative-laden packaged cookies pulled from a shelf.
 
I’m no Martha Stewart. I’m just a mom trying to raise healthy kids.
 
This was not an easy task in the States either. My eight-year-old son went to school with children who packed Coca-Cola and Cheetos for their mid-morning snack. But conscious eating is proving to be much more challenging here in Israel.
 
In the States, as long as I kept my kids away from the counter at CVS or Target, I hardly ever had to deal with the whining and begging that’s inevitable when a child meets the candy counter. Here in Israel, we pass by the open Makolet every day, where my kids see their friends sucking on popsicles or soda.
 
In the States, there was at least a rule that restricted teachers from using any food for which the first listed ingredients were sugar. Here in Israel, on a recent tiyul, one of the items listed to pack was candy.
 
In the States, my kids would eye their friends’ snacks on the playground and I would begrudgingly let them mooch an apple or a pretzel if their friend’s mom offered. Here in Israel, my kids are swapping their organic raisins for their friends’ gummy worms.
 
All those years of educating my kids on healthy eating are getting flushed down the proverbial drain faster than you can say Kinder Egg.
 
Inside I am seething, but I remain silent. After all, I want to fit in, and nobody wants to be friends with The Grinch. Furthermore, I know the Makolet isn’t going anywhere any time soon. So, just as I’ve had to make my peace with the unleashed dogs, the mud-tracked floors, and the smell of cow poop in the afternoon, I will have to figure out a way to live in harmony with the Makolet.
 
Until I start a wellness revolution in Israel. Which, may end up being sooner rather than later.

By Sue Ingebretson

I have a friend whose email signature line says, “In my next life, I want to come back as my dog!”

That desire is not all that far from reality.

Sue Ingrebretson with her pup

Take a look at TV reports and magazine spreads. Who wouldn’t want to be treated like the pampered pooch of a movie star? I’d love to wear bling and be carried around in a designer purse. Funny thing, it’s not only celebrities who pamper their pooches. Some people, with little cash to spare, spend a relative fortune on designer puppy food, yet eat junk food themselves.

Worse yet, what do they feed their kids? I’ve known moms to freak out about the ingredients list for their dog’s food, yet ignore what’s in the foods they feed their own children. Egads! What’s really in a chicken nugget anyway? (You don’t want to know). And, would you/should you feed it to your dog?

There’s something terribly illogical going on, here. If McDonald’s had a Happy Meal for dogs, (let’s say a McDoggy Bag complete with a McMuffin-flavored chew toy), would you hurry to your local drive thru?

Instead of dogs, Dr. Mark Hyman uses million dollar horses as an example. He says that thoroughbred horses are very well cared for. Their owners spend fortunes on just the right foods, the right environment, and the right medical care for their investments, er, I mean horses. But what do we invest (nutritionally-speaking) in ourselves, and even more so, in our children?

I guess the first question we must ask is, are we worth the investment? Dr. Oz says we’re mortgaging the health of our future generations with the poor nutritional habits we develop today. Ouch.

Put your money where your mouth is!

It starts here. Label reading isn’t optional anymore. It’s a must. To begin, remove from your family’s diet any foods that list these ingredients (no exceptions): transfats (anything hydrogenated), high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, and MSG.

I’d also prefer that we remove refined/enriched grains, artificial dyes, flavorings, and the whole gamut of sugars (corn solids, maltodextrin, dextrose, sucrose, fructose, glucose, xylose, syrups, etc.) from our diets. Sugar literally tears down the health and vitality of the body cell by cell. The most common and concentrated source of sugar is from our beverages. If you’re serving your children sodas and juice, think again. Replace sodas with water and replace juice with the whole fruit. It’s as simple as that. Kids eat and drink what moms provide.

When you begin reading labels, you’ll eventually morph into a mom who chooses foods with no labels at all (in case you’re wondering, that means produce). The great thing is that the problems we’ve caused through our unhealthy eating habits are completely reversible. It just takes time and persistence.

Have patience. Be kind to yourself. And, remember … small steps provide BIG results.

Fuel your family with the foods they deserve and everyone wins – including Pup.

Sue Ingebretson is a writer and speaker dedicated to encourage healing in others. Find out more about her book, FibroWHYalgia, and her blog at www.RebuildingWellness.com.

By that, I mean just because I am constantly thinking and writing about food, people who don’t know me well automatically assume that I like to cook, enjoy food preparation, and think it’s groovy to come up with surprising new ways to prepare root vegetables.

This is not true. In fact, until I was practically forced to cook for my family when I realized that most of Trader Joes’ frozen meals were cross-contaminated with peanuts, I preferred to reach into the freezer for dinner, not the vegetable crisper.

I am not a foodie.

I do not enjoy watching anything on The Food Network, save for Ace of Cakes (I’m amused by the ingenuity and wit of Duff’s crew) and the occasional Jamie Oliver (because he’s so darn cute and a Wellness Bitch in his own right.)

I arrange food on plates with as much creativity and intention as a lunch lady. And I really, really hate the aftermath of preparing lovely meals — dishpan hands.

However, I have to admit since I started buying organic produce from a local farm, and my husband is closely watching whether or not this budget line item is worth it, I’ve become a lot more playful in the kitchen.

The first week I received the basket I discovered the many uses of cabbage. Shredded cabbage salad. Sauteed cabbage with onions, tomato, and garlic. And this dish I used to love to get from my local Ethiopian restaurant in South Orange, NJ.  I suddenly transformed into a little Jewish Julia Child, which I guess would make me a mini Joan Nathan, since she is already the Jewish Julia Child.

This week, I’m exploring fennel and peppers for a very simple reason: I need to make room in my refrigerator. There are so many peppers and fennel bulbs that I can’t reach the hummus.

When I lived in New Jersey, very close to a Whole Foods Market, I bought plenty of organic fruits and vegetables. But, despite the advice and urging from many of my foodie friends, I stuck with the stuff I knew, loved, and could be sure my children would eat. In the vegetable category, this left me with broccoli, spinach, kale, and potatoes.  None of which has made an appearance in my weekly organic delivery basket. Are my kids enjoying the cabbage and fennel, too?

No. And this is the very reason I didn’t join a co-op or CSA in the States. However, as my access to organic food here is significantly limited, and gas is extremely expensive, this is the most practical and affordable option for right now.

I seek comfort, though, in the knowledge that my children eat Israeli salad for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and that I brought the Jessica Seinfeld cookbook with me instead of selling it at my yard sale.

I wonder if she has a trick for hiding fennel?

Robyn’s post below is a great down-to-earth explanation for why any mom, but moreso moms of food allergic kids, should care enough to educate themselves on GMOs. As moms of food allergic children, we are at the forefront of conscious food choice. We have to be. It’s life or death for our families. As easy as it is for us to use our food allergies as excuses to eat food that might not otherwise be good for us (after all our kids have such restricted diets), we have to extend our careful choices to ensure our kids aren’t eating “poison.”

It’s my belief (as much as I struggle with it some days), that we moms of food allergic children are going to be the stewards of change in this nation when it comes to food safety. We have the most at stake. Like Robyn, I ask that all moms of food allergic children take on the task for reading more about GMOs and being a healthy voice in the dialogue about what our government should and can be doing to protect our children and children that have not yet been born.

By Robyn O’Brien
Founder, www.allergykidsfoundation.org

I’m not sure about you, but the last thing I want anyone telling me is what to eat. Heaven knows that we’ve been bombarded with enough. But I have to admit, despite all of the food-obsessing that we Americans are known for (you know: trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, etc.), there is something that most of us missed: and that’s these new little proteins that scientists began inserting into our food in the 1990s.

As you may already know, food is made up of proteins. Lots of them. And it’s those proteins that can wreak havoc on someone with food allergies. Because a person with food allergies has an immune system that sees these proteins as “foreign” and launches an inflammatory response to drive them out. That response can be a runny nose, watery eyes, or a cough or it can be something as life threatening as anaphylactic shock where a person stops breathing.

But let’s not focus on that right now. Let’s get back to those new little proteins that scientists started inserting into our food in 1994. Why would they do this? Is there really a need to inject foreign proteins into our food? And why now? Wasn’t it fine the way it was when we were kids?

Well, in order to enhance profitability for the food industry, scientists began using new technologies, including some sci-fi sounding things like “gene guns” to blast new ingredients into the genetic material of our food supply so that food production would be more profitable. And in most cases, they did it at the seed level. So corn, they blasted it. Soybeans? Yep, they blasted those, too. All because corn and soy are used to feed livestock. But as if that wasn’t enough, on top of that, they started blasting the cows themselves. Well, they didn’t exactly blast the cows, but rather started injecting them with some new proteins and hormones that helped the cows make more milk.

All sounds good, right? I mean, who wouldn’t want more food?

 The problem is that when they started doing this just over 15 years ago, no one knew what the long term effects of blasting our food with new technology and creating foreign proteins never-before-used-in-the-human-food-supply might be. So if those added growth hormones getting injected into our cows found their way into our milk and those added hormones just might cause early puberty, fertility issues or anything else, we simply didn’t have any long term studies to tell us that they weren’t dangerous.

And those proteins getting blasted into our soy and corn?  Are we allergic to the new foreign proteins created in the blasting process? Well, we simply didn’t’ know that either when they were introduced in the late 1990s because no allergenicity tests had been developed to assess the impact of these novel proteins and allergens. All we know is that they didn’t deliberately introduce any new proteins when they started blasting. But if any proteins were created in the blast (you know, kind of like genetic rubble), well, there hasn’t been any way to test for that.

In essence, just over fifteen years ago, we started running a live experiment….on us.

And it’s for those reasons that most developed countries (you know, like France, Spain, Australia, Japan and everyone that we compete with in the global marketplace) decided to take a wait and see approach to see what the long-term effects of these new proteins and “genetic rubble” might be. So beginning in 1994, these countries either refused to allow these proteins into their food supply, because they hadn’t yet been proven safe, or they insisted on labeling them so that consumers could make an informed choice when it came to exposing their families to this new technology and foreign proteins.

Except for here in the U.S. We took a different approach. We said, you know, this new technology is great for the agricultural business and hasn’t yet (note: yet) been proven to cause harm, so let’s allow these proteins into the food supply and wait and see what happens.

Well, if truth is any indicator, our kids don’t seem to be digesting these foreign proteins all too well. And while correlation is not causation, the stunning increases that we are seeing in the number of kids with food allergies (not to mention the big kids raising them) since the introduction of these foreign proteins into the food supply in 1994 should serve as a canary in the coalmine that maybe this new technology just might not be as safe as the scientists blasting these proteins into our food supply (and then patenting them for their novelty) had hoped it would be.

Feeling a bit duped? Don’t worry. You’re not alone. Most of us had no idea that these foreign proteins started creeping into our food supply back in the 1990s. How could we? They were never labeled. But now that you’re up to speed, tell a friend, tell your mom and let’s get down to the business of protecting our little ones the way kids around the world have been protected for the last fifteen years and get some labels on this “genetic rubble” and these “GMO”s while we still can.

FIVE TIPS about GMOs and why you should care:
  • Introduced in the 1990s, this new technology was developed to enhance profitability for the food industry.
  • The technology allows food scientists to inject chemicals and food proteins into the genetic material of our food.
  • Eaters in other countries were given a warning sign when these foods were introduced in 1994 and labels were put on their food that essentially said: “Not yet proven safe”.
  • In the US, this new technology and the proteins it creates were introduced in 1994 without labels under the premise: “Not yet proven dangerous” while being patented by the agricultural industry for their unique characteristics.
  • Unlabeled food proteins that contain chemicals and other foreign ingredients can trigger severe allergic reactions that include difficulty breathing, asthma, eczema, inflammmatory gut conditions and in some cases life-threatening anaphylactic shock.
Bottom line: Americans have the right to know what’s going into their food just like eaters in other countries.

Ready to do something about it? Learn more with the Non GMO Project http://www.nongmoproject.org about where these hidden proteins can be found in your kitchen and how you can avoid them.