Benefit Organic Foods For Pregnant Women And Toddler

Everything you put into your mouth passes to your unborn baby; so it's especially important to watch what you eat when you're pregnant. Keeping track of all the advice your receive regarding the foods you should and shouldn’t eat while pregnant can be overwhelming. However, one simple way to ensure better health for you and your unborn child is to switch to eating organic foods when pregnant.
Research shows that there are numerous advantages to eating organic both during pregnancy and after your baby is born. Organic foods are likely to be higher in vitamins and minerals than their non-organic equivalents. Author Michael Van Straten in “Organic Living” notes that fruit and vegetables grown in organic fields draw more nutrients from the soil, enhancing their nutritional profiles.  

Conventionally grown fruits and vegetables are treated with pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Research conducted at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health in New York shows that pesticides cross the placenta during pregnancy and can impair fetal growth.  Babies are particularly vulnerable to pesticides because their livers and immune systems are less efficient at removing contaminants.

During pregnancy, women have weaker immune systems and are more vulnerable to pesticides.  Pesticides, which are any substance intended to prevent or destroy pests, are used to protect food from bacteria, weeds, mold, insects and rodents. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, pesticides can be harmful to people, animals or the environment because they are designed to kill or harm living organisms. Because of this, pesticide residue on the foods you eat can have an effect on your health. Though the government regulates pesticide use, residues are still found in our food supply.
For this reason, an organic diet is far healthier. To reduce the likelihood of ingesting harmful toxins, an organic pregnancy diet is always best.

Organic Fruits and Vegetables vs. Conventional Produce

Conventional produce

Farmers of conventionally grown produce sometimes add GMOs to soybean, corn, cottonseed and canola to enhance growth. These GMOs might lead to toxic and allergenic reactions, such as soy allergy. By law, organic growers cannot introduce GMOs into their produce. The Food and Drug Administration warns that GMOs can create new diseases and nutritional problems

Organophosphates have also been shown to affect the nervous system. According to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, signs of an affected nervous system include excess salivation, stomach pain, vomiting, constipation and diarrhea. The most pesticides are found on celery, peaches, berries, apples, peppers, greens, grapes and potatoes. Eating these commercially grown foods more frequently might increase exposure.

According to Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, growing evidence shows that pesticides found in commercially grown food can be linked to some cases of breast cancer. The risk increases with combined with other factors, including lifestyle, diet and genes.

Pesticides have been found to reduce the numbers of white blood cells and disease-fighting lymphocytes, making their bodies unable to kill bacteria and viruses.

Organic produce

One of the advantages of eating organic when pregnant is that you are helping protect the children of agricultural workers around the world. Agricultural exposure to pesticides is linked to increased rates of miscarriage, birth defects and stillbirth, notes Laura Satchel, MD in an article on the Fisher-Price website. Pesticide exposure in farm workers is also linked to a variety of problems including neural problems and cancer. Increased demand helps support organic agriculture and promotes responsible farming.

A study performed at the University of Washington compared the urine of children who ate organic food with urine of children who ate conventional food. The results found that kids who ate an organic diet were exposed to six to nine times fewer toxic pesticides than their conventional-eating peers.

Organic fruits and vegetables are grown using all natural methods, so they are not tainted with man-made chemicals. When you opt for organic produce instead of conventional fruits and veggies during pregnancy, you reduce the risk of ingesting toxins that can get into your unborn baby's body.

How to Afford Organic Foods

Organic foods are more expensive than conventional foods. Here are some tips to help you find money in your budget to buy these foods.

• Shop at the local farmers market. When you do this, you cut out the middle man and there are no charges for manufacturing and shipping. Produce at a farmer's market is also sometimes less expensive than its chemical-laden counterparts at the grocery store!
• Instead of spending money on expensive processed granola bars and cereals, spend it on organic produce. You'll find that for the price of two or three boxes of granola bars, you can buy enough fruits and vegetables for two to three meals.
• Buy fruits and vegetables that are in season. When fruits and vegetables are in season, they are not as expensive as out-of-season produce.
• Grow some of your own produce and herbs. Herb seeds are inexpensive and easy to grow.

Use the Environmental Working Group's "Clean 15" list as a guide to help you choose fruits and vegetables that contain the lowest pesticide residue.

1. pineapple
2. kiwi
3. cabbage
4. onions
5. avocado
6. asparagus
7. sweet potato
8. eggplant
9. grapefruit
10. mangos
11. sweet corn
12. cantaloupe
13. sweet peas
14. watermelon
15. honeydew melon.

The good news is that the more organic food we all purchase, the more available these food items become and the more we can all save, not only in our wallets but also in health problems and ultimately medical bills!

Organic baby food

With adults in danger, it makes it imperative to make babies safe from this kind of chemical attack. Babies need to be fed only with organic baby snacks like Earth's Best products to protect them from diseases. Babies' bodies are delicate and vulnerable to disease as their physical systems are still in the early stages of development. The parents may buy baby food unsuspectingly from the supermarket, but that might not be natural baby food at all but baby food prepared with the same chemically treated ingredients.

Real dangers from eating chemically treated crops

The list of diseases that can spring up from eating fertilizer doused crops begins with cancer. The growing number of cancer cases all over the world is a strong pointer to this. Other diseases related to increased chemical toxicity in the body are obesity and Alzheimer's disease.

Turning back the clock

Now luckily due to growing awareness, every supermarket has organic sections where organic produce is displayed for purchase. Organic food refers to crops grown without fertilizers. Naturally these crops are more expensive as the organic farms strive to produce crops without artificially inflating their rate of growth. But if this extra money means a healthier body with an improved immune system then the money is an investment not expenditure. Perhaps this explains why people of olden days lived longer and healthier lives though the medical facilities were not so far advanced back then. They didn't need the medication!

Perhaps it's time to undo some of the negative effects of modernization and turn back to the good old methods of farming.

Skin Care Products So Pure, You Can Eat Them -- Yes, Really

We are avid ingredient readers, and we hope you are too. We know that anything you put on your skin can be absorbed into your tissues and even into your blood stream. A 2010 study by a Swiss research team confirmed this with some scary findings. The team tested the breast milk of nursing mothers and found that 85% of the samples contained dangerous chemicals commonly found in commercial cosmetics and sunscreens. Since none of these women were eating their makeup or sunblock there is only one way the compounds got into their bodies: through their skin.

What does this mean for the health of these mothers or, even more importantly, the babies drinking their milk? At this point, no one really knows. What is known is that many of these same chemicals are known to be carcinogenic (cancer causing), and can also disrupt our endocrine system by interfering with hormone activity.

One of our philosophies here at Sunfood is to not put anything on our skin that we wouldn't want in our bodies. That's why our favorite skin care products are pure and natural enough to eat.

So, if you're looking for creams and lotions to help repair or prevent skin damage, here are our top 3, single-ingredient, skin care choices. This isn't just skin cream, this is skin food.

Our Shea Butter, Cacao (Cocoa) Butter and Coconut Oil are all 100% pure and cold-processed. They contain no additives, artificial fragrances or colors. Each of these incredible products can be eaten or applied to the skin.

Shea Butter, 8 oz. (raw, wild crafted/sustainably harvested) Raw Food for the Skin - A superior moisturizer and skin conditioner.

Cacao Butter, 14 oz, Organic, Raw (Amber Jar) The world's first and only certified organic, 100% raw Cacao Butter. Luxurious on the skin, even better in your smoothie!

Coconut Oil/Butter, 24oz, Sunfood (raw, certified organic) This 100% raw, extra-virgin coconut oil has a sweet flavor and a luscious aroma. Cold-pressed from certifed organic coconuts growing in the Philippines, this coconut oil acts as an antiviral agent, energizes the body, and is an outstanding beauty food.