Reducing your BPA Risk

What is BPA?  Bisphenol A, a toxic, dangerous chemical that is found in so many places.  I recently had a trip to a highly recommended endocrinologist whose sister is a neurologist and as a result of studying what effects our brains, lives VERY holistically and organically avoiding as many chemicals as possible.  While there, she had 2 big pleas for the health of my family (unrelated to why I was personally visiting her).

1.  Remove as much BPA in our diets as possible.


2.  Remove as much food dye in our diets as possible.

We started removing food dyes when the boys were itty bitty because we noted extreme behavioral changes when they ingested food dyes (and chocolate among other things).  The boys spent their entire childhoods NOT eating candy, pop tarts, cereal with food dyes, etc.  So on Halloween and Valentine's Day, they got movies or video games instead of candy.  As I saw child after child eating pop tarts in the car on the way to school, I wondered if THOSE parents had behavioral issues that they just assumed was ADD/ADHD, defiant personality, etc.  Some reactions are immediate - some took 36-48 hours to show up...making it nearly impossible to connect a trigger unless keeping a detailed food diary.

If you have never kept a food diary with your children...here is what our looks like:

• 7am - Woke up happy and alert
• 7:30am - ate gluten-free homemade pancakes with apple juice syrup 
• 8am - Off to school, happy and alert
• Lunch sent - Carrot sticks, raisins, tuna, crackers, Fruit Leather, water to drink (no school "milk" - avoiding most dairy)
• 3:30pm - after school snack of some sort - happy and alert
• 5pm - Getting very cranky, snappy.... have a discussion about what he ate at school that I didn't know about...ALWAYS something on our avoid list....cupcakes or cookies with dye or chocolate, etc.  Few parents brought healthy snacks.
• 6pm - Dinner - chicken, mashed potatoes with almond milk and real butter, corn on the cob, bread stick
• 7pm - eyes very red and swollen, disagreeable, extra tired
• 8:30 pm - bedtime, teary....

Through these food diaries, we learned our oldest son reacted also to rice, corn, dairy (milk and cheese, although could tolerate butter).  In fact, at birth, breastfeeding was so difficult (he reacted to EVERYTHING I ate) that I very sadly stopped breastfeeding (was very young, very stressed and didn't realize that was the best option)....son then reacted to milk and soy formula...so he ended up on Nutramigen, a hypoallergenic formula.  At age one, doc said "Put him on milk now" and we did.  While he no longer had the physical reactions of rashes and vomiting, he became VIOLENT.  His personality went from sweet and amazing to MEAN, VIOLENT and scary.  At age one.

Thankfully, Phil Donahue (hello.....23 years ago now....) had Dr. Doris Rapp on one day discussing her new book, "Is This Your Child?  Discovering and Treating Unrecognized Allergies".  I RAN to the book store and purchased this book.  I cried for days reading this book...because this WAS my child.  Within 3 days of removing ALL dairy, he was back to being his sweet, amazing self.




Youngest son reacted to eggs 48+ hours after ingestion with massive headaches approaching migraine status.  Also he would melt down within minutes of being exposed to perfume or cologne, even hand lotion would set him off...we live most scent-free to this day around him and he is 19 now.  If I know I will be getting in a car with him, I will wash anything off that MIGHT have a scent....

One of the most dramatic "mood altering" scents we discovered was Future Floor Wax.....our oldest son would go from sweet to hysterical in MINUTES after I cleaned the floors.....VERY interesting.....

BPA, on the other hand, is very difficult to avoid.  Reading the following article, as study was done with 5 families who avoided canned fords and drinks and ate fresh organic foods for 3 days in lieu of eating out saw their BPA levels drop a dramatic 60%!!!  


Want To Drastically Reduce Your BPA Risk?  Eat Fresh Food


When they returned to their usual diet, their levels went back up.  What should we avoid?  

• All Canned Food (especially with acidic contents)
• All Canned Drinks
• Never microwave in plastic or plastic wrap
• Choose glass containers
• Eat out less
• Eat Fresh (or frozen)

Did you know that China joined the United Arab Emirates, Europe and Canada in banning BPA in children's products?   WHY hasn't the US joined this?  Scary time to have a baby right now...I would DEFINITELY be looking in to how to avoid BPA for your baby.....

What does BPA do to you?  Why should we avoid it?

• 1.  Confirmed link to Heart Disease.

• 2.  Link to the effecting the functional ability of the intestines, causing "Leaky Gut Syndrome" and other issues.

• 3.  Infertility and Reproductive Issues  - BPA mimics estrogen and can wreak havoc with important hormones.  We don't need our boys being exposed to EXTRA estrogen... and our girls need their regular hormones and not have them turned off by a xenoestrogen such as BPA.

• 4.  Erectile Dysfunction - of 200 Chinese men exposed to BPA in their workplace, they were found to have 4 times higher chance of erectile dysfunction and 7 times higher chance of ejaculation difficulties.

• 5.  Diabetes and Obesity

• 6. Behavioral Changes in Children

Our family is working to reduce or BPA exposure....and I look forward to the US joining other countries in protecting their citizens against KNOWN detriments to health.

Hidden Dangers of Air Fresheners

I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating for those who've never connected that this may be triggering asthma and allergies in their family.....air fresheners of almost any type contain chemicals that can cause major issues in our loved ones.  And according to new research, a lot more than allergies and asthma are at risk.  Hormonal abnormalities, birth defects and reproductive problems have been found a result of the chemicals used in even "all natural" products.

I married into a major allergic/asthmatic family and until then, had no clue what some people suffer from.  Didn't take long to start noticing what things caused problems.....that's my nature.  I am averse to just running for a medicine or a pill to "make things better"when there may be things we can avoid that solves the problem entirely.   (Allergies and asthma exist, but we can live ways that make things better, not worse.)  When we married, hubby was on handfuls of allergy and asthma meds, weekly allergy shots (from the age of 2) and suffering daily.  A few years in (after much convincing....) cleaning up his diet of dairy, wheat and a few other offending foods, along with removing scents in the home had him on very few to no meds on a daily basis.  He was shocked...having had no idea it was possible.  (He eventually has ELISA/Act blood testing and found onions, peppermint, Tylenol and spinach to be HUGE offenders......)

As it turns out, in our case that was true.  Along with cleaning up the diets of the asthma/allergy hubby and then subsequent allergic/asthmatic children, we found scents ranked VERY high on the list of offenders.   Oldest son had an epic meltdown after waking up from a nap and being surrounded by the scent of Future Floor Wax...had to run outside and it took a few hours for him to calm down.  He was under a year.....that happened quickly enough I put two and two together.

How many other kids are reactive to scents?

Around 8, our oldest child was put on allergy shots but became worse...We gave it weeks....finally I read the ingredients and saw Phenol in his refrigerated allergy serum.  Phenol....the stuff also found in Dow Bathroom Cleaner yet now being injected in my young child.

Ummm.....NO.  Some people are just more reactive than other people.  A simple food diary detailing every item ingested (and inhaled) and when will show results fairly quickly.  Things that occur in seconds are easy to figure out.  Things that are delayed can take weeks.  Youngest son could eat eggs on Monday and not react until Tuesday night....that took forever to connect.

Had I simply listened to doctors, my entire family would be on handfuls and handfuls of meds.....and we've proven that a simple change in diet and how we live can make dramatic improvements......something as "simple" as washing their clothes in scented detergent could send them in an asthma tailspin.....sleeping all night long on "scented" sheets?  Disastrous.

How many people stop and think of things like that?

As I said in an earlier post, just walking in a home where someone has sprayed Febreze in every room (in the guise of making it 'smell better') can trigger an asthma attack so quick, we turn and leave the second we smell it.

Read this report and see if any of it applies to your family or loved ones.

Protect Your Family from Hidden Factors in Air Fresheners

Have you found products that worsen asthma and allergies in your loved ones or yourself?