Blog Posts by HealthyChild.org

Meat and poultry can be part of a healthy well-balanced diet. They are good sources of protein, iron, calcium, vitamin D and other nutrients, but these foods also can contain toxic pollutants at varying levels, including dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), flame retardants, and arsenic. If your diet is largely based on meats, it's time to learn to moderate. There is such thing as too much of a good thing!

Here are some facts about meat and poultry:

* Meat and dairy products contain animal fat and, therefore, can contain higher levels of certain toxic chemicals that accumulate in fat, like dioxins, brominated flame retardants and PCBs. Besides being "fat - friendly," these chemicals persist in the environment and in living tissues.

* Daily meat consumption could put you at increased risk for a variety of cancers, according to U.S. government health researchers. The more red meat and processed meat you eat, the greater your risk may be.

* According to the Institute for

Join the MillIon Baby Crawl, a fantastic new campaign from our friends at Seventh Generation that lets our babies spread the word to Washington that our toxic chemical policy needs reform!

Since 1976, the US EPA has required safety testing on only 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals on the market. We need a stronger chemical policy to protect our children and keep our families healthy! The Million Baby Crawl is a fantastic way for parents and concerned citizens to get involved in a virtual campaign and on-the-ground rallies around the country. Have a look at this great video to learn more:

So get started! Log onto MillionBabyCrawl.com and create a "crawler" with a customized profile - your crawler can even represent your own baby! Then share your crawler with your friends and network to spread the word about the movement.

Creating your crawler enters you into the exciting Million Baby Crawl Sweepstakes for five lucky winners to travel to Washington, D.C. in

This post was contributed by Dr. Alan Greene.

I love biting into a steaming ear of roasted corn on the cob, picked fresh that day in an organic cornfield. This is completely different from slogging down a super-size soda sweetened with high fructose corn syrup that has been chemically derived from genetically modified corn and different from gorging on a dozen donuts made with corn syrup, modified cornstarch and a dozen unhealthy ingredients. Is corn healthy? It depends on how we grow it, how we process it, and how we eat it. How much do we eat? What other ingredients are in our corn-containing foods? What other nutrients are in our diet? Are we allergic to corn? Has the corn been fermented into whisky?

Corn (and popcorn) can be a wonderful, delicious, healthful addition to our diets, or it can be an over-consumed, unhealthy ingredient in junk foods that are blights on our society. It can even be turned into non-foods such as plastics, papers, or fuels. In the right amounts and in

Share your favorite recipes for a chance to win an Eat Healthy Gift Basket!

Send us your top pick from your personal collection of delicious recipes or post your favorite Eat Healthy recipe for a chance to win an Eat Healthy Gift Basket.

Share your favorite recipes for a chance to win an Eat Healthy Gift Basket!

Send us your top pick from your personal collection of delicious recipes or post your favorite Eat Healthy recipe for a chance to win an Eat Healthy Gift Basket - a reusable Whole Foods Market "I used to be a plastic bottle" recycled grocery tote loaded with goodies, including:

• One copie of The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook by Myra Goodman
• One copie of Dr. Alan Greene's new book, Feeding Baby Green,
• An 18oz. Klean Kanteen stainless steel bottle,
• Astainless steel PlanetBox lunchbox,
• A thinkbaby Feeding Kit,
• Nutrition bars for the whole family from Clif Bars,
• Snacks from Plum Organics,
• Our perfectly portable Healthy Child

Healthy Child Healthy World doesn't typically address the vaccination debate, but we know it's important to our audience of parents. And, it's become especially important with the pandemic spread of the H1N1 virus. Parents are scared and we want to help. We don't have a recommendation for whether you should vaccinate or not, but we do believe you should have easy access to expert insights that can help you make an informed decision. Here are four perspectives you should take into consideration.

Dr. Robert Sears:

Dr. Sears' position on the issue is emblematic of the entire discussion. He states that in general, he doesn't "have a recommendation one way or another." He acknowledges H1N1 to be a serious illness that is potentially life-threatening, noting that "seasonal flu in the U.S. causes about 20 infant and 100 total pediatric deaths each year. The swine flu has so far caused 112 pediatric deaths." In light of the 36,000 Americans who die of the flu every year, he believes

Today, over 4 billion people use cell phones worldwide. Some are inseparable from their Blackberry, keeping it constantly at hand. Teenagers send thousands of rapid fire text messages a month. And the sight of a cell phone glued to someone's ear is commonplace. But what if cell phones do us more harm than good?

It is widely known in the scientific community that high doses of radiofrequency radiation emitted by cell phones can infiltrate the body, heat tissues, initiate behavioral problems and harm sensitive tissues like the eyeball and testicle. Despite that, when cell phones first hit the market, federal regulators did not demand that manufactures take necessary precautions to ensure their new products were not harmful.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has just released a report on several scientific studies linking cell phone use to serious health effects; the most well studied and supported being an elevated risk of brain cancer, especially in young children.

As

In the first human study examining links between BPA and behavior it was found that toddler girls whose mothers were exposed to higher levels of BPA in early pregnancy were more aggressive and boys were more anxious and withdrawn.

The researchers are unsure if the behavioral issues will persist, but studies in mice indicate they will. Impacts only manifested if the exposure levels happened during the first 16 weeks of pregnancy, reinforcing our growing understanding of the extreme vulnerability of a fetus during this initial window of development.

According to the report in Science News, "This is the first study to link human behavioral impacts with BPA, a common ingredient in hard polycarbonate plastics and the resins used in food-can linings. Emerging data from an unrelated research group points to another especially rich newfound source of BPA to which people unwittingly may be exposed: thermally printed cash-register receipts."

Cash register receipts?

Yes, and it's