Seabags Recycled Wine Bags

'Tis the season to give and get lots of wine. I have seen foam bags, mylar bags, neoprene bags, and of course a lot of plastic bags.

So I was tickled to find Seabags, recycled wine bags made of old sails, made in Maine. They are witty, durable and are a great size--the host or hostess could easily decide to use them as something else. Each one is different, and special. They come in a variety of styles, so check them out here: http://www.seabags.com/wine-tote/wine-bag-redclaw.html

Hurricane preparedness kit

Hunkering down for the Frankenstorm/climate change storm that may shut down NYC for days:

Frankenstorm preparedness kit: red hot chips, a new low-carb gluten free beer from New Planet, homemade hooch, coffee, gluten free cookies, pumpkin bread, extra pumpkin to make more bread, Woody Allen movie w/Korean subtitles, Buddha. Check!

$10 off at iHerb

I used Iherb.com for a lot of my supplements because you only need $20 for free shipping, $40 for free expedited 2-day shipping, especially awesome because I live in NYC with not a lot of time to shop. The merchandise seems perfectly okay, although sometime groceries (e.g. baking soda) so get damaged in shipping, but I think they are working on it. The prices are very good, you get a discount the more you spend...

...and with this coupon code PIX328 you can get $10 off $40 and $5 off anything else. Enjoy! iHerb.com

Cauliflower...leaves...are delicious!

When I buy cauliflower and broccoli at the farmers market, they come attached with beautiful broad leaves. I used to juice them (blech) or just compost them. I didn't realize that roasting them with some garlic makes them delicious.

Check out this easy easy recipe, and if you're shopping, ASK for the leaves if they don't give them to you. A delicious, free treat:

Roasted Cauliflower leaves recipe

Popular Antibiotics May Carry Serious Side Effects

Antibiotics disrupt your natural gut flora, which includes "good" bacteria, so for fertility reasons, you should always be careful if prescribed antibiotics. Some studies show that even a single course of antibiotics can kill of entire colonies of good bacteria.

Further, science/the media is finally catching up to the overuse and unnecessary use of antibiotics, some of which can have severe harmful side effects. ALWAYS ask your doctor if antibiotics are absolutely necessary (and there are always the milder herbal remedies out there, depending on your particular condition). From the New York Times:

In an interview, Mahyar Etminan, a pharmacological epidemiologist at the University of British Columbia, said the drugs were overused “by lazy doctors who are trying to kill a fly with an automatic weapon.”

Dr. Etminan directed a study published in April in The Journal of the American Medical Association showing that the risk of suffering a potentially blinding retinal detachment was nearly fivefold higher among current users of fluoroquinolones, compared with nonusers. In another study submitted for publication, he documented a significantly increased risk of acute kidney failure among users of these drugs.

Read more here

S'well insulated stainless bottles are SWELL

There are sooooo many "eco" water bottles out there, but they are not all created equal. Some have plasticky liners that can have endocrine-disrupting (i.e., bad for fertility) chemicals like BPA  (like Sigg--now they claim they reformulated their liners, but it's still plastic). A few bottles (especially the kind you get for free) look nice, but check to see if they might be aluminum. No one needs more aluminum in their system.

Stainless, of course, is best. It's non reactive, which means it keeps water tasting like water--but non reactive also means it's not leaching stuff into your water. Forget Nalgene bottles if you want to be healthy and fertile.

Then the problem is: do I have to carry a squat, unattractive bottle? And how abut an insulated bottle?

If you want to get all that AND no bad plastic liner, look for S'well bottles. They have a great, sleek shape, our tester confirmed that they keep cold drinks nice and cold--the website says for + 24 hours, our tester just did it for a few hours. Theoretically you can also keep hot drinks hot in there, although I'm not sure if you'd want to glug it out of the bottle.

They come in great colors as well as plain stainless, and the company's website says it helps foster water sustainability:

Your purchase of a S'well Bottle supports WaterAid, a 501 (c)(3) organization that provides sustainable safe water, hygiene and sanitation to the world's poorest communities. You're also taking a stand against the billions of plastic bottles clogging landfills the world over.

Check it out for yourself here: http://swellbottle.com/ 

Muffins, Mitt Romney, and my Dad - NYTIMES

I think my father would have been pretty pleased to be in the New York Times! What Muffins Say About Mitt Romney

Can you "Have it All" with a Disabled Child? Or, the Secrets to HAPPINESS - The Atlantic

My essay in The Atlantic-- please share widely, and extra karma points to you! http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/07/what-my-sons-disabilities-taught-me-about-having-it-all/260479/

REVIEW: Vermont Soap NATURALLY foaming soap

 We LOVE Vermont Soap--not only is it natural and mild but it makes its own bubbles. NOT with awful foaming agents, but with a clever pump and drives in air. The tea tree mint uses the natural antiseptic properties of tea tree to clean, mint keeps it fresh.

Our autistic son always had trouble washing his hands either with bar soap or castile soap and now he loves it. I don't know why EVERYONE doesn't make nontoxic foamers, but get it here:
http://www.vermontsoap.com/foamer.shtml

Two thumbs up!

Does everyone eventually sell out or do they just start with ulterior motives?

One of the things that's been bumming me out lately is that one of the health blogs I used to follow religiously, especially for its clear-eyed view on the attack on natural remedies, recently completely turned me off with an Obama "birther" reference (yes, irrational). And autism blog I used to scan is now being used to shill one of the blogger's Kindle single romances (i.e., nothing to do with autism). Even Dr. Mercola is pushing his own products pretty hard on his site...

Of course, I run ads on GreenFertility, so I'm not 100% pure, either. But still...

Here is a wonderful reason to enjoy Indian food: a compound in turmeric, called curcumin, helps the body/brain flush out amyloid plaques.

The findings build on previous research linking curry consumption to reduced Alzheimer's risk, including one study that found that only 1 percent of elderly Indians developed the disease -- a quarter of the rate seen in the United States.

You can also buy curcumin in supplements. Check out this article from DEMENTIA WEEKLY: http://awe.sm/5hE3I

Almost all scientists agree that humans are causing climate change. Here's the scandal on what monied interests in the energy and other fields have done--possibly illegally--to stop the truth. Please pass this on! It's important for our planet that our governments wake up and start to do something: http://shar.es/gmzbm

Monsanto's Roundup Linked to Infertility-how to protect yourself

From the Activist Post:

A recent study conducted by a German university found very high concentrations of glyphosate, a carcinogenic chemical found in herbicides like Monsanto’s Roundup, in all urine samples tested.

The amount of glyphosate found in the urine was staggering, with each sample containing concentrations at 5- to 20-fold the limit established for drinking water.

This is just one more piece of evidence that herbicides are, at the very least, being sprayed out of control. 

Glyphosate in Monsanto’s Roundup Impacting Global Health

This news comes only one month after it was found that glyphosate, contained in Monsanto’s Roundup, is contaminating the groundwater in the areas in which it is used. What does this mean?


read more here


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First, obviously, don't use roundup.  Eat organic and encourage others to do so--only demand for pesticide-free products will make farmers stop using pesticides.


At home, we use not only a reverse-osmosis filter for our drinking water, we have a WHOLE-HOUSE filter so that our shower water, laundry water, and the water the comes out the garden hose are all clean, or as clean as possible.  It's also been documented that there are SSRIs and other pharmaceuticals in drinking water--why take a chance on your health and fertility?

Mercury in CFLs

There are many reasons not to use CFLs (compact fluorescent lights).  You've probably already heard that they have mercury in them, so if broken, they can contaminate your house, and they will most certainly contaminate landfills.  But it also appear that while INTACT, they might still be able to give off mercury vapors, which is not good for anyone.  From Activist Post:


Another everyday product you may want to avoid is compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Only months after it was found that energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs release carcinogenic chemicals into the air, a new study has found that these harmful chemicals are continually released from the bulbs over a period of weeks to months. Furthermore, the study also found that the levels of mercury released exceed those that are considered safe for humans.

read more: here

Flourescent light is also a source of "dirty" energy, it's rapid cycling makes you feel stressed.  As the parent of an autistic child, I can tell you that fluorescents make him crazy.  Read more: here

In our house we use LEDs, which have a nice clean light.  They are more expensive than incandescent or CFLs, but they last longer, too.  We also like the VU, nice, soft lighting, energy efficient, and long lasting.  This one is not an LED, but a ESL (Electron Stimulated Luminescence):

My Mother-in-Law and Marijuana

Sorry I've been away from the blog for a while; been knocked out by pneumonia, but happy to say I've dug my way out of it without antibiotics.  Olive Leaf Extract and Mullein tea have been great.

In December, in response to the Obama administration's cracking down on state-sanctioned medical marijuana, I wrote this op-ed for the New York Times about how my mother-in-law, with pancreatic cancer, was helped by cannabis but was too scared to use it, which was a terrible shame.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/medical-marijuana-and-the-memory-of-one-high-day.html