My first daughter was blessed with amazing skin. I NEVER put lotion on her as a baby and her skin was always beautiful and soft. My second baby seemed to get hit with everything: bad baby acne, cradle cap, and some eczema on her legs. I was excited when I got the opportunity to try Cheryl Lee Products on her skin. Although it worked amazingly, I was hesitant to share on my blog because I don’t consider her case to be “extreme,” and I didn’t want to tell other moms to try it unless I knew for sure that it would help the most severe cases. So I asked 2 of my friends who both have sons with severe cases of eczema if they would try the creams and give me their honest feedback. They were both desperate to find something that wasn’t a prescription, that wouldn’t sting, and would actually work to heal their son’s skin.
Since I’m pretty sure I have to put this disclosure on anything medical related, here it is: I am not a doctor, nor do I offer medical advice. This post is written from the personal experience of others.
UPDATE: to read about my continued experiences with these products over a year later, see this post.
This is Kelly’s experience:
My son has had pretty severe eczema his entire life. We have always used prescription creams to keep it clear, but he dreaded the medicine because it burned and stung whenever we used it. Non Prescription creams have never been able to touch it. The last 2 years his condition has been very mild – the doctor said he had probably grown out of it. A few months ago it appeared again out of the blue and it was worse than ever. I was given TrueLipids® Eczema Experts™ Anti-Itch 1% Hydrocortisone Barrier Cream by Kristina. I was super skeptical, because I’ve never had a non prescription cream work, but I was so happy with the results. The biggest plus for my son was the fact that it didn’t sting or burn when he put it on! We were diligent and used it every day. After day 2 I could see a huge difference. After a week the eczema was gone, leaving only the usual scarring from his itching behind. We used it for another week just to be sure, than began using the TrueLipids® Relieve & Protect Ointment. It has stayed clear and he hasn’t had any recurrences.
This is Ami’s experience:
Camden is 8 ½ years old and is a very active little boy. Eczema has been a problem of his since he was a baby. I first noticed a problem when he was about a month old. I had just given him a bath and put some scented baby lotion on him. He instantly cried and it wasn’t a normal cry. I knew then that it was irritating him. It wasn’t until about a month later that dry patches started to appear. Camden’s pediatrician told me he had infantile eczema and that he would likely outgrow it. His eczema primarily affects his ankles, the backs of his knees, and the inside of his elbows. Occasionally, he will have it on his hand and between his fingers. I have noticed that his eczema gets worse when the seasons change and when he is around a lot of dirt or gets sweaty. Camden is very active so keeping his skin clean and dry is a challenge. His skin itches all the time and I catch him itching the problem areas a lot. When he has flare ups, his skin gets very dry and red. It usually gets so bad that he will scratch the area until he bleeds and gets an infection. Since he has had this for most of his life, his ankles now have scars on them.
I have tried anything I could think of for treating Camden’s eczema. The doctors have prescribed me numerous oral and topical steroids. They have told me to give him Benadryl at night to help him to not itch while he sleeps. He has been given antibiotics to clear up the infections he has gotten by itching as a result of the open sores. I hated giving him so many different medicines. I have tried essential oils. We have always used Vaseline to try to keep his eczema under control. None of these have ever worked long-term. With any medicine I was given in the past from doctors, I felt like his eczema would look better for a little bit, but never truly healed. I knew it would be only time before it was back. He has a hard time with anything scented on his skin. Sunscreen, bug spray or certain laundry detergents really bothered him. He still suffers from eczema and is old enough now that it really frustrates him. He feels different from his siblings and wants to have “normal” skin just like them. When he has had outbreaks in the past, kids at school have asked him what is wrong with his skin. I was very excited to try the Cheryl Lee sensitive skin care system. I have heard about it in the past and hoped it was something that would work for Camden. This is by far the best product I have used for him. We used the Eczema Experts morning and night. I tried to use the ceramide + cream and the skin protectant at other times during the day. After the first week, I saw significant improvement. The eczema on his arms and behind his knees cleared up. His ankles looked a lot better too. It’s hard to see from the pictures though. Before trying any of this, his skin was very rough. The skin on his ankles were especially rough and thick. After the first week, his skin was very smooth. I hadn’t remembered his skin feeling that smooth in a very long time. His ankles have been damaged by years of eczema and it was the fastest improvement I have seen. I know that his eczema is an ongoing problem. Summer is an extremely busy time for our family and I wasn’t as consistent as I wanted to be after the second week. I have seen with Camden’s eczema that if I don’t stay consistent, it usually comes back pretty quick. We had a couple of really busy weeks with baseball and it was hard for me to keep up on the creams. Camden was on three different baseball teams throughout the summer so the meant a lot of sweat and dirt. This would have been a disaster with any other cream I have tried in the past. I noticed that even if I missed a couple of days with the Cheryl Lee MD sensitive skin care system, I could put the eczema cream on at night and his eczema looked significantly better in the morning. His eczema never flared up to the degree it has in the past either. It seems much more manageable now. I feel like the one mistake I really made was by not putting the skin protectant ointment cream on Camden before he played baseball. I think this would have protected his skin from the dirt and sweat he encountered during baseball. Baseball is finished and I feel like a life is getting back to more of a routine. My plan for the future is to put the eczema cream on his ankles a couple of times a day until it’s cleared up a little better and then maintain his trouble spots with the ceramide + cream during the day and the skin protectant ointment at night. At this point, I only have to put the skin protectant ointment on his knees or elbows every few days and it’s mostly to prevent anything from coming back. I really feel like the longer I use any of the Cheryl Lee products, the less I will have to use them. I really feel like I will be able to maintain Camden’s eczema with the Cheryl Lee products. I have recommended the Cheryl Lee MD products to friends and will continue to use them myself. My only complaint would be the cost. It’s something that I will have to really budget for. I think it could be hard for a lot of families to afford to try unless they really knew it was going to work. I’m thankful I have finally found something that’s helping Camden’s eczema. He’s not a self-conscious about his skin anymore.
***NOTE: FALL IS THE TIME to try this stuff if you haven’t. They always do 25% off for Eczema awareness month. Use coupon code FALL 2016***
Although both of my friends used the creams for Eczema, they help with lots of different skin conditions. Check out their website for more info! The products are:
Truly Hypoallergenic
Truly Non-Toxic
Truly Therapeutic
If you want to try any of the products, click on the banner below (it automatically updates with any blogger special/discount currently going on)!
It was post-holidays and my kids were starting to wake up at weird hours. My then almost 2-year-old had been sleeping through the night for a couple months, but had started to wake 2 – 3 times a night again. My 7-year-old was claiming she couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight (and was awake that late when I went in her room one night). Then my 3-year-old started wandering around at 4 AM and claiming he couldn’t sleep anymore. I knew I needed to do something, so we could all have a peaceful night’s sleep again.
I’ve been supplementing with magnesium lotion personally for a few years now. I’ve never been consistent with the kids, though. If they complained of growing pains, then I would put it on them, or if they were sick, but generally I didn’t.
Magnesium promotes restful sleep, so I decided to try it out. Within 2 nights, all were sleeping through the night peacefully again. Awesome!
We’ve been keeping up with it since (most of the time) and they have continued to sleep peacefully. Also, they get sick less often and when they do they’re over it much faster. It took weeks last fall for my 2-year-old to get over a cough after having a cold. Recently it only took a couple days. Yeah!
The only problem left was that the kids were getting riled up at bedtime, and having trouble settling down to fall asleep initially. I decided it was time for some special “Good Night” lotion to solve that problem.
The goal was to help the kids feel peaceful so they could fall asleep faster and easier, in addition to getting a good night’s sleep once they were out. The magnesium would promote the solid night of sleep. I chose lavender for the “fall asleep faster and easier” part.
Lavender is known to promote rest and relaxation. It’s also very safe for children and babies. Plus, many like the scent. Lavender and magnesium combine to make a powerful good night lotion for, well…a good night, for all!
I included only plant-based oils that are edible, so this lotion is so safe, kids could eat it! Although I wouldn’t recommend that. �� This is much safer than the so-called good night lotions that come in stores (which made my poor daughter’s skin turn bright red almost instantly as a baby — one of the reasons we began to explore more natural options in the first place). It comes together very quickly and easily, too.
Ingredients:
2 tbsp. avocado oil (or other liquid oil — olive, apricot, jojoba, etc.) (where to buy)
2 tbsp. double-strength magnesium oil (mix 1 tbsp. warm water with 2 tbsp. magnesium chloride flakes) (where to buy)
Step 4: Use an immersion blender to blend it all together until thick and opaque (or pour it into a standard blender and mix it up).
Step 5: Scoop/scrape it into a 4-oz. jar or tin.
That’s it! Allow it to cool completely before using. Spread a small amount on thin-skinned areas, like back of legs or bellies before bed. Promotes restful sleep all night long! Our first night using it, the kids fell asleep faster and all slept for nearly 11 hours before waking. Not bad! Good night lotion works!
How do you promote restful sleep for your family? Have you ever tried a good night lotion?
Ready to get started living a healthier life? This complete, 50-page guide will walk you through the steps, product swaps, recipes, and more that you need to get started today!
Original article and pictures take www.modernalternativemama.com site
A simple golden cauliflower puree with golden beets, Indian spices, and coconut milk. A healing and nourishing side dish recipe for gluten-free, vegan, and paleo eaters alike.
March’s Theme –It’s Income Tax Season, so our brains could use some easy arithmetic; as in seven-ingredient-or-less recipes. Show us the healthy, no-brainer dish you fix for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Think beyond smoothies or drinks, please. (And for those of you living in countries where it’s not Tax Season – we’re pretty sure you and your readers would still love doing the math for seven-ingredient-recipes!) (Recipe ReDux)
Who says a “2 ingredient” recipe has to be bland and boring? Not me, that’s for sure! Simple can be beautiful when done correctly and creatively! A few simple spices and color can make any “simple” recipe extraordinary! Plus, when you add in major health benefits, and a duel purpose, you have a recipe that keeps on giving!
Just glorious cauliflower (with its never-ending uses), golden beets (my favorite variety), Indian spices (like anti-inflammatory turmeric and garam masala), and creamy coconut milk. Roasted and then blended up, this puree can take the place of your classic mashed potatoes, be a thick soup by adding a tad more coconut milk, or even a perfect dip! Just stretch those few ingredients to their full potential and you’ll be saving money (and time) left and right!
As we all begin to spring into Spring, we may find ourselves coming out of hibernation a bit to fast and we may end up with a bit of an early Spring cold. Ah, but the solution is to channel the bright Spring colors and add them into our diet as much as possible. This way we’ll keep ourselves right where we need to be to stay on track and truly spring into SPRING (while also using up the last of the winter produce bounty!)
Golden Cauliflower Puree
Simple, nourishing, creamy, and delicious! Veggies can be delicious, all-purpose, full of taste, and there won’t be on sad face at the dinner table! But I do think all the fun is in the color! I like purple food, green food, red food, yellow food too! I love it all! So eat your colors (I mean natural colors) and get ready for a glorious sunny Spring!
So tell me:
+ What’s your best simple few ingredient Spring recipe?
+ What’s your overall favorite food color group? That’s not fair; I can’t even answer my own question!
———————————————-
Stay connected:
Original article and pictures take strengthandsunshine.com site
Our health is intimately connected to “dirt”. Soil Scientist William A. Albrect (1888 – 1974) believed that the chemistry of each of our bodies provides a picture of the soil in which the food we eat is grown. The importance of maintaining healthy soils so that our food is nutrient dense is of supreme importance.
But, there is another, not so obvious way in which soil can affect us. Soil is teeming with life – earthworms and centipedes, fungi and bacteria, and so much more. One type of bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae (M. vaccae), is particularly fascinating.
DISCLOSURE: In order for me to pay my blogging expenses, I may receive monetary compensation for my endorsement and/or link to products mentioned on this blog. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
M. vacae is especially abundant in soils rich in moist, organic matter. When we work in the soil, we breath it in. And we ingest it when we eat freshly harvested produce. M. vaccae then does something marvelous. It triggers the release of serotonin in our brains. Our mood improves; depression is allayed. Our immune system is strengthened; learning is boosted. All of these are areas where serotonin plays a role.
In addition to depression, low levels of serotonin have been associated with anxiety, aggression, bipolar disorder, irritable bowel, fibromyalgia, and more. Boosting our serotonin by exposing ourselves and our family to soil bacteria goes a long way in building health.
Children should be playing outdoors and getting dirty. Dr. Mary Ruebush, immunologist and author of Why Dirt is Good says “If your child isn’t coming in dirty every day, they’re not doing their job.” She considers playing in the dirt an important step in building their immune systems.
Gardening is one obvious way that we can get our M. vaccae fix. And gardening has so many other health benefits. It’s good exercise, provides fresh produce, helps establish healthy eating habits, and exposes us to Vitamin D from sunshine. It’s not the only way to get dirty, of course. You can also:
Remove the sod from an area of your yard and keep dirt friendly toys like trucks, buckets, spoons, pots and pans available for play.
Take nature walks. Collect stones and leaves, and pick wildflowers. Don’t worry about dirty hands.
Have a scavenger hunt in the woods, or even in your backyard. List items to find that must be picked up off of the ground.
When my son was little, one of his favorite activities was “digging a hole to China.”
Explore the edges of a pond or creek.
Go camping, especially tent camping, where you are pounding stakes into the soil, sitting on logs and running around the woods.
If all else fails, just get outdoors.
What great ways has your family found to play in the dirt?
Original article and pictures take learningandyearning.com site
GMO Salmon is already on dinner plates, and you don’t even know it!
This just in! A new salmon species that requires less feed, can grow to adult size in only 18 months and leaves less of an environmental footprint than say…..I dunno, a natural, wild salmon has been created! I swear I am not making this up! How was frankenfish created? AquaBounty Technologies, out…
Original article and pictures take eatplaylovemore.com site
I love cooking and baking. It’s a way to relax for me.
Coming up with fun and tasty creations for my family to sample is one of life’s greatest pleasures for me. However, with me eating gluten free, it’s been a struggle to keep up with what my family wants and what I can eat. Most often, I have relegated to making two different meals especially at breakfast. These gluten free and dairy free apricot oat bars have been a lifesaver for me. I can make them to suit my dietary needs right now, and my family doesn’t notice a single bit of difference in the taste.
It’s a 1:1 ratio of other flours, so you don’t have to “tweak” the recipe to much to suit your gluten free needs. Just use it in place of regular flour in your recipes for a delicious gluten free treat! I also used their Turbinado sugar in this recipe, for an organic sweetener. It’s got bigger grains that help hold up to big flavors while using less sugar overall.
Add 1 cup of oats, 1/2 cup turbinado sugar and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. Melt 1/2 cup of coconut oil and pour into the bowl. Mix ingredients together until crumbly, but moist. Preheat oven to 350°.
Press 2/3 of the mix into an 8×8 ungreased baking pan.
Carefully spoon 8 ounces of apricot jam over the bottom crust. You can use any flavor jam for this recipe and have it turn out fantastic, too. Sprinkle the remaining flour/oat mixture over the top. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the crust is browned and middle is bubbly. Allow to cool completely and cut into squares. Enjoy! These will keep for about 2 days on the counter, 4 in the fridge, if you can get them to last that long!
These are terrific for breakfast, snack or for taking on the road!
Original article and pictures take thehomesteadinghippy.com site
Gluten Free Coconut Cranberry Orange Muffins La Roche-Posay
Gluten free doesn’t have to mean flavor free, right? I used to think that was the case, actually. Until I had to make the decision for my health to cut all gluten out of my diet.
I am totally “geeking” on these muffins right now, as they are tangy-sweet, with a touch of coconutty flavor that makes my mouth sing! Here’s my recipe”
2 large eggs
1 cup orange juice
2/3 cup honey
1/2 cup coconut oil, liquid
1 cup fresh cranberries, OR 1/2 cup dried cranberries, finely chopped
Mix the wet ingredients together, then dump gently into the dry.
Mix until just wet. The batter will be lumpy! Pour about 1/4 cup into each spot of a well greased muffin pan, or line the pan with muffin papers. Bake at 400 for about 17-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes clean. Once cool, drizzle a bit of coconut butter on top for an added coconutty boost! **Here’s your little tip for the day…when you remove the muffins from the oven, turn them in the pan on their side. That will let the steam and heat escape from the bottom of the pan and your muffins won’t end up soggy**
Need some help getting back into the kitchen and cooking from scratch? Try this delicious collection of easy to make recipes to get you started!
Original article and pictures take thehomesteadinghippy.com site
In this giveaway, we’re teaming up with the folks at My Green Mattress to give away the awesome gift of sleep–or at least something that will really, really help!
Safe, Nontoxic Sleep
When it comes to safe, non-toxic sleep, My Green Mattress has created the solution. It all started when the company’s founder, Tim Masters set out to create a mattress for his daughter, Emily, who, as a baby suffered from eczema and allergies. In their quest for health, they discovered that all natural products were the best solution to Emily’s ailments, and it was at that point that Tim combined his newfound natural health knowledge with his expertise in the mattress business to create the unique, and non-toxic line of mattresses that My Green Mattress has to offer.
One of the biggest toxic offenders in mattresses and other sleep paraphernalia is the use of flame retardants, which studies show is a contributing factor to a host of health issues, including lowered IQ and cognitive delays in groups of people with the highest exposure to flame retardants chemicals. Focusing on reducing one’s exposure to flame retardants in the beds we sleep on is an effective way to reduce one’s overall exposure to flame retardants, since we spend about 25 years of our entire life sleeping!
My Green Mattress is proud to be able to provide a mattress that is free from flame retardant chemicals. Instead, their wool quilted cover acts as a natural flame barrier, therefore allowing their mattresses to be in compliance with flame testing required by law. Wool is also antimicrobial, and a great temperature regulator as well.
Giveaway From My Green Mattress
In this giveaway from My Green Mattress, one lucky winner will walk away with their very own Pure Echo twin mattress. The company’s most economical mattress, it is handcrafted with all natural materials, like organic cotton and wool, over a pocketed coil innerspring. Check out what goes into each mattress:
Soft, GOTS certified organic cotton and natural wool quilted cover
768 individually wrapped 15.5 gauge coil spring system, with heavy 13.5 gauge perimeter for a firmer seating edge
Get the deep, healthy sleep you deserve at a price that won’t keep you up at night.
To enter the giveaway, enter in the rafflecopter below. Giveaway will be open from August 31 through September 28, 2016. Good luck!
Trying to get pregnant? Get our pre-conception plan -- including the diet tips and key supplements you need for a healthy pregnancy!
Like what you've read? Subscribe so you never miss a post! You can also follow us on Facebook or Pinterest. Thanks for reading!
Original article and pictures take modernalternativepregnancy.com site
Girls Hitting Puberty Earlier, 10x Faster Than Boys–and it’s NOT all About the Chicken!!!!
This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.
Why Girls Mature Faster These Days and What You Can Do About It! Early puberty is very real, but it's NOT all about the hormones in chicken! In fact, there are no added hormones in chicken - but our environment slams girls with estrogen from many sources.
Just because everyone is doing it doesn’t mean it’s right.
Generations of parents have known, understood, and parroted this fact to teenagers with raging hormones who didn’t want to hear the old adage one more time.
But for some reason, when it comes to hormones in 10-year-old girls, doctors aren’t getting it.
They decided that since everyone was doing it, it must be “normal” and simply redefined what’s acceptable (source) rather than digging into find out what’s wrong with a generation of young children. Even other researchers disagree (source).
If your daughter or granddaughter becomes one of the increasingly common 6-8-year-old girls growing pubic hair and breast buds (source), you might feel worried.
And you should be!
But your reaction should not be this:
Why Girls Mature Faster These Days and What You Can Do About It! Early puberty is very real, but it's NOT all about the hormones in chicken! In fact, there are no added hormones in chicken - but our environment slams girls with estrogen from many sources.
When I posted an article about earlier puberty in girls on Facebook, I was dismayed to see the high percentage of commenters with that knee-jerk reaction. They clearly did not click through to actually read the article (there should be a disease name for that, like “title-is-enough-for-me-osis” or “don’t-need-to-know-the-whole-story-ism”).
“It’s the meat! The dairy! The huge-breasted chickens! What are we doing to our food these days?!?”
Lo and behold, educated by their skill in reading titles of articles on the Internet, they knew exactly the problem.
Surprise, surprise: They’re wrong.
Katie here, just interrupting for a sec if I may with an exciting announcement about something I’m super passionate about…kids cooking dinner!
Your kids can learn to cook!
If your dream would be a night off dinner – or you know it’s vital that your kids have life skills like cooking – or they’re ASKING to help in the kitchen but you’re not sure where to start – these brand new videos can help!
It feels like you don’t have time for anything else – but teaching kids to cook truly creates time where there was none once they start pitching in on dinner prep. #kitchenmiracle
Chickens don’t even need growth hormones, steroids, or supplemental estrogen or testosterone of any kind.
It’s been illegal for decades.
Beef cattle are allowed to be treated with hormones (6 of them, 3 natural, 3 synthetic), but that can’t be the whole story. Dairy cattle are allowed to be treated with the infamous rBST or rBGH, but due to popular consumer demand, most farms no longer use it, as evidenced on the majority of milk jugs anyone can read in the store.
But even with that hormonal influence on our environment and our food supply via cattle farming, the problem of earlier puberty is not just about food, and in fact, only a small percentage of orally consumed hormones make it through the digestive system according to research done by Parodi (2012) and Hartmann et. al (1998).
It’s a much bigger issue than that.
Is this more than your average Facebook scroller and post title reader can handle?
I’m going to do my best to keep it brief and digestible…promise.
The beginning of the story is this:
The average age of onset of menstruation was 16 in 1860, 14 in 1920, and 12.5 today.
In the last 30-40 years, those numbers have moved down 6 months – which feels significant for such a short time.
The very start of puberty – breast development – has dropped two full years in those same four decades. So puberty is lasting longer, which may point to external sources of estrogen that our girls’ bodies are reacting to by beginning breast development.
The question to pursue is: Where is environmental estrogen found in larger quantities over the last century?
There is Estrogen in Meat…and Some Other Stuff
Why Girls Mature Faster These Days and What You Can Do About It! Early puberty is very real, but it's NOT all about the hormones in chicken! In fact, there are no added hormones in chicken - but our environment slams girls with estrogen from many sources.
All animals create hormones as part of their normal growth and development, and the testosterone and estrogen in animals is the same substance as in humans.
So every time we eat meat, we’re going to consume that animal’s hormones.
There are also six hormones approved for use in cattle: 3 natural, 3 synthetic. However, the residue in the meat is extremely small, less than that of natural hormones in some instances, and remember that research that showed that consumed hormones don’t make it through our digestive system all that efficiently.
That doesn’t mean I’m a fan of hormone therapy for animals, and it doesn’t mean there are no ill effects from it – similar to the problems in fish from hormonal birth control excreted into the water supply, aquatic ecosystems downstream from cattle farms demonstrate major fertility problems. The males are feminized and the females are masculinized. The hormones are at least somewhat persistent in the environment.
Besides that, the fact remains that “A 2009 study found that children who consumed the most protein from animal sources entered puberty about seven months earlier than those who consumed the least.” (source)
But correlation does not equal causation, and it’s not necessarily about the hormones – Marcia Herman-Giddens, lead author of a 1997 study on early puberty in girls, rang in on the 2009 study for the Huffington Post:
“It’s more likely that meat, milk, and similar foods help trigger earlier puberty because they are rich in protein, calories, and nutrients.”
You can poo-poo that comment all you want, but check this out: many vegetables have more estrogen than hormone-therapy-implanted beef:
Why Girls Mature Faster These Days and What You Can Do About It! Early puberty is very real, but it's NOT all about the hormones in chicken! In fact, there are no added hormones in chicken - but our environment slams girls with estrogen from many sources.
But – have these vegetables changed in estrogen quantity over the last century? Not likely. In the case of soy, we are certainly eating a massively larger quantity than the 1800s, and it’s possible we simply eat more meat because food in general is in greater abundance: easier to purchase, easier to prepare since it’s all done for you.
Why Chickens Get so Big so Fast
Yes, it’s true that the chicken breasts you buy in the store seem impossibly huge.
Yes, it’s true that today’s conventionally farmed meat chickens have massive amounts of breast meat.
Yes, it’s true that those poor chickens get so big in front that they often have trouble walking and may even break their own legs simply by the weight of their chests.
But it’s not added hormones in their feed (that wouldn’t work anyway).
It’s not injected hormones (they’d have to inject them multiple times per day for very little result).
It’s not any supplementation at all.
Big-breasted chickens are so because of three practices:
Breeding for growth
Feeding for growth
Growing for growth (their environment)
Are these things good for the chicken?
No.
But they make big meat.
Add to that the up to 30% filler that can be pumped into the chicken meat after it is slaughtered (salt, water, sugars, broth, preservatives), and you’ve got a recipe for impossibly fat, juicy chicken breasts.
The complexities of the human body are so vast that it’s impossible to pin a general downward trend in onset of puberty on one thing. However, scientists and doctors have quite a few researched theories:
Why Girls Mature Faster These Days and What You Can Do About It! Early puberty is very real, but it's NOT all about the hormones in chicken! In fact, there are no added hormones in chicken - but our environment slams girls with estrogen from many sources.
Pharmaceuticals in tap water: How many millions of women take birth control and hormone replacement therapy these days? All that extra estrogen is excreted into the sewage system, cannot be filtered by water treatment, and ends up in our water supply. There’s no way this only effect girls. (sources: 1, 2)
Estrogen-like endocrine disrupting chemicals (EEDC) – they’re everywhere, and this is definitely new in the last century.
sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Why Girls Mature Faster These Days and What You Can Do About It! Early puberty is very real, but it's NOT all about the hormones in chicken! In fact, there are no added hormones in chicken - but our environment slams girls with estrogen from many sources.
Not enough exercise: Getting exercise is one of the few actions research-proven to help avoid early puberty. (sources: 1, 2)
Fat accumulation/obesity: One theory is that because hormones collect in fatty tissue, additional fat may cause higher levels of hormones that spark the onset of puberty earlier. (sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
Familial make-up: Girls without dad in the home are twice as likely to enter puberty early. (sources: 1, 2)
Poor infant-mother bond. (source) , especially severe and early in life. (
Sleep patterns being interrupted: Poor sleep decreases melatonin levels, an important hormone. Artificial lighting and screens after natural daylight ends impact this greatly. (sources: 1, 2, 3)
Now we have to remember that research has only shown that all those elements may be related to early onset of puberty, in girls in particular (obesity, for example, actually works exactly the opposite in boys).
Correlation does not equal causation.
The problems above may in some cases be the result of early puberty or even completely unrelated.
Or perhaps they’re related to each other, like this one:
You’re Not Fat Because You Eat Too Much
Similar to the popular quick answer to the early puberty question, most people respond to the problem of obesity in one of three ways:
We eat too much!
Too much fat and sugar!
Not enough exercise!
Research over the last decade has begun to point to the possibility that endocrine disruptors in our environment – from the personal products we use to the containers for our food and drink – may be a major culprit in the obesity epidemic. (source)
Those same endocrine disruptors are also correlated with early puberty.
So it really isn’t all about the chicken.
Girls hitting early puberty is a big problem - but it's NOT all about the chicken! Find out the truth at http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2015/07/25/girls-early-puberty-not-about-chicken-hormones/
The bottom line is this – you can’t just avoid early puberty in girls (or messed up reproductive systems for anyone) by becoming a vegan.
Nothing is that simple.
But rather than be overwhelmed by another fearful article, be encouraged – you’re probably already avoiding a lot of the things responsible for reproductive malfunctions already, and if you’re not, take some baby steps today.
15 Ways to Improve Your Family’s Chances for Healthy Reproductive Systems
Why Girls Mature Faster These Days and What You Can Do About It! Early puberty is very real, but it's NOT all about the hormones in chicken! In fact, there are no added hormones in chicken - but our environment slams girls with estrogen from many sources.
Seek out natural personal products – I have a huge list of everything I use in our home RIGHT HERE. At the very least, familiarize yourself with the top chemicals to avoid, including any word that ends in “paraben.” From my interview with a biochemist, chemical sunscreens would be a big one to avoid, too. (See the interview here: “Have Some Hormone Replacement Therapy with your Bikini“)
Any organic food you can afford is a great idea since chemical pesticides are pegged in a whole host of issues including endocrine system woes.
Any whole foods you can eat vs. processed foods is a good step – you’ll avoid BPA in packaging and help your families’ bodies stay as healthy as possible and at a healthy weight. I can help you teach your kids to cook and enjoy real food – and if you’re a rookie yourself, you might pick up some skills in the process.
Help your children get sufficient and quality sleep. Limit screens especially at night. (See my post, The Secret to Healing Sleep, for more.)
Avoid birth control in your home and advocate others to do the same. NFP is a fantastic alternative to chemical birth control. Unfortunately, there is no filter on the market that I know of that can remove pharmaceuticals and estrogen from the water supply, so in this case, you’re mostly at the mercy of other people’s decisions.
Exercise. It’s one of the few interventions known to help prevent early puberty. (source)
Naturally, this post got longer than I was shooting for. I had to delete entire paragraphs and stay my hand from typing more that I wanted to share, but if you can still digest information like it’s 2010 and you desire more information, you have to read these articles:
