This year’s HGTV “Green Home” contest is offering a sustainably-built home for sustainable living right here in my neighborhood. My friend, Gail Fenton, HGTV’s “Superfan”, gets the lucky job of filming the special details of the HGTV homes, and caught up with me to talk about how what it is like to live in this fabulous neighborhood.
Check out my Stapleton Green Home video here by scrolling to find “What’s Great About Stapleton “!
A nationwide survey of more than 1 million households indicates that spending for vegetables and fruits grown in household gardens now surpasses spending for lawns, trees, shrubs – and even flowers. The same survey unearthed the following trends among gardeners:
53% grow vegetables in their gardens
90% plan to eat the produce fresh
66% will share with friends
36% will can or preserve produce
4% will donate food to others
Another survey, this one by the National Gardening Association, looked at the main reasons people grow food in their gardens:
58% desire better tasting food
54% want to save money on food bills
51% want better quality food
48% want to grow food they know is safe
Are you planning to plant vegetables this summer? Alas, both my front and back yards have lost all sun as the trees have grown in my neighborhood, and for the last few summers I’ve been limited to growing herbs and tomatoes in pots. This summer will likely be the same story.
Today we have a guest post from Brian Jenkins at BrainTrack.com. He offers some good tips for getting kids to eat more fruit and veggies.
It’s difficult to get kids to eat healthy. With all the tasty junk food options out there, eating “gross” vegetables can seem like punishment! What can parents do? Let’s take a look at some useful tips to get your kids to eat healthy food:
• The staff at the prestigious Mayo Clinic offers the following advice: “Be patient with new foods… Your child may need repeated exposure to a new food before he or she takes the first bite. Encourage your child by talking about a food’s color, shape, aroma, and texture – not whether it tastes good.”
• Help kids become knowledgeable about new food items. Explain to them how it was grown, how the food was prepared, and what it does for their body. Explain how it helps them stay healthy.
• Offer healthy after school snacks. Provide individual cups of unsweetened apple sauce, sliced pieces of fresh fruit, or whole grain crackers.
• Elizabeth Pivonka, Ph.D, head of the Produce for Better Health Foundation, said, “Involving children in cooking is an important step in getting kids interested in fruits and vegetables and getting them more excited about eating them.” Let the kids tear the lettuce for salads and let them break apart the broccoli crowns. Kids will be inspired to eat healthy food if they help prepare it.
• Get your children involved in gardening. If they can see cucumbers, green beans, strawberries, and baby peas growing, and are able then pick them and bring them into the kitchen, they’ll be more interested in eating them.
• Many kids enjoy raw vegetables when served with a tasty dip such as low-fat ranch dressing or mild salsa.
• Add vegetables to a dish kids enjoy; spaghetti is a good example. Also, some kids are more likely to eat vegetables if they are components of a soup or hearty stew.
• Be persistent and keep offering kids healthy food items. It may take numerous offerings before they are willing to try something new.
• The staff at the Mayo Clinic suggests parents should let their kids help choose fruits and vegetables and other healthy food items at the grocery store. Let them grab these items off the shelves and put them in the cart. They’re likely to eat the foods they’ve selected.
Brian Jenkins writes about many topics, including career and college info for nutritionists, as a member of the BrainTrack.com writing staff.
New data shows children survive car crashes in better shape if they remain in rear-facing car seats until they are 2, and in booster seats until they reach 4’9″.
I believe the best cures work by preventing the problem in the first place, whether you’re talking about migraines, multiple sclerosis, or physical injuries from car crashes.
Hats off to Elizabeth Dole for raising the awareness of how simply wearing a seat belt could save your life in the first place. Can you remember: cars didn’t automatically come with seat belts! And no one wore them anyway! It seems like ancient history. Perhaps even Princess Diana could have survived had she been wearing a seat belt that fateful day.
Now our safety technology has progressed to include air bags, crumple-resistant frames, and car seats and boosters to keep kids safe. And more people survive car accidents in better shape because of these advances.
These new car seat recommendations, issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, reflect analysis of traffic injury data from the past 15 years.
For toddlers, the reasoning to keep them rear-facing longer has to do with the size of their heads in relation to their necks and the chance of spinal cord injury from the force of a crash.
For older kids, mis-aligned seat belts can cause major stomach and spine injuries. Putting a too-small kid into an adult seatbelt without a booster can be as bad as placing a too-small child in the front seat, where they can be burned and suffocated by the passenger-side airbag if it deploys in a crash.
Better to keep kids safe with such an easy solution as a car seat, and keep yourself safe by wearing a seat belt, than to spend a lifestime trying to recover from the devastation.
For most of my life I suffered from seasonal allergies. But not anymore, since I found this amazing homeopathic hay fever remedy.
Sneezing, runny nose, itchy eyes, fuzzy head making it feel like life is coming at you through a tunnel… As summer faded each year I would be burning through forests of tissue boxes until that first frost would thankfully bring it to an end.
Until the spring, when the flowering trees burst into bloom and it would start all over again.
The anti-histimine prescriptions would work to keep the symptoms at bay, but the side effects were unpleasant: drowsiness or jitters, dry mouth and nose, weird taste in the back of my mouth, etc. I really didn’t like the idea of being on anti-histimines most of my life, but they were necessary if I were to function at all during half of the year.
I tried some other natural remedies with some success, such as taking locally-collected bee pollen, and found them to be temporarily helpful and worthwhile, but needed to be taken frequently to maintain the effects. I foresee bee pollen becoming expensive, too (so sad that we’re losing our bees!).
That’s the way my life used to be. Then, a homeopath told me about a homeopathic remedy for seasonal allergies.
That first season I used the remedy once, and then again about a week later, and was symptom-free for the rest of the season. The second season, I found I needed just a single dose to make me forget I ever had seasonal allergies.
This year I didn’t even realize that allergy season had arrived until someone else mentioned they were suffering already. I was thrilled to offer up this Homeopathic Hay Fever Remedy and watch it start to work immediately to alleviate his symptoms.
But don’t let me gush too long about this remedy. To me, it feels miraculous not to be suffering from seasonal allergies anymore.
In case you don’t know, homeopathy is a healing modality based on using minute amounts of a like substance to help the body regain a healthy equilibrium.
When taking homeopathic remedies, don’t eat or drink for 15 minutes before or afterward. Succuss (slam) the remedy in one palm five times before using, and empty the dropper fully before filling for use. Drop 5-6 drops underneath your tongue. Repeat every 4 hours, if needed.
Homeopathic remedies will not interact with other medications and are safe to use when pregnant, nursing, or with infants and children.
