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Raise Green Kids
Deirdre Imus talks about her book "Growing Up Green: Baby and Child Health Care".
Sam: Now our count it down to Earth Day. We are showing you how to green in every aspect of your life, how to go green. And we are kicking off this series this morning with Deirdre Imus, the author of "Growing Up Green!---Baby and Child Care". Now her book is a roadmap for how to raise all of our children in a healthy and environmentally friendly way. It's packed with really wonderful tips. We are just goanna show you some of them here but I have to admit already I have a crush on you, Deirdre Imus, and I`ll tell down that I am sorry but I really do, I, even before I met you I did, because these are such great ideas. But...
D.I.: Thank you, thank you. Sam.
Sam: Tell me why is it even important for us to be thinking about raising a child environmentally friendly from day one. Why is that important?
D.I.: It's important because our children are being exposed in all directions from their food, everyday products, cleaning products everything in the home. The air, our soil, our water is polluted. Many these products in our food chain has carcinogens and neurotoxins and endocrine disrupters, hormone disrupters , so it makes sense to use at least some of toxicity with everything you do with your children for alive.
Sam: And reading this, it starts to make sense to me because we have somebody crying in the studio. It starts to make sense to me because (Oh, baby) you smell the product when you spray, it smells harsh to you, but the kids are on the floor, (Right!) they have their mouth on the table, they are actually ingesting all these stuff. Let's start with the house cleaning products and do we get the chemicals out of these products?
D.I.: Yes, these products are all non-toxic products, the great example here of hand dish, distilled white vinegar which has been around for years, and then non-toxical purpose cleaners. The difference with the green and non-toxic cleaning products is that they do not contain chlorine bleach (alright) or ammonia or any of those synthetic chemicals.
Sam: Those are two that we are really worried about, chlorine and ammonia.
D.I.: Really. Especially chlorine bleach for moms that have little babies and pets. It's a low-lying chemical, which means it`s at around our knees here. It stays at that level where your child's mouth is breathing, (inhaling) a young child. So it's much more detrimental to children.
Sam: I love your tip that cleaning products should look like water because if they don't, then they have chemicals and false colorings and everything else, sort of. So they should look clear like that. I didn't think about that.
D.I.: Unless they use vegetable dye for their colorings, they are naturally going to be clear. Otherwise they have synthetic chemicals that are very harmful.
Sam: I didn't even think about that.
Sam: Now glass bottles. This was the biggest news yesterday with the plastic bottles, glass bottles and baby food, organic baby food. Tell me why organic food`s important.
D.I.: Organic food is important because organic means that all the food that you are feeding your child does not have pesticides. Again, pesticides are known carcinogens and neurotoxin and are totally in links from studies with all the children's illnesses that will happen. It smells good, right?
Sam: It does smell good.
D.I.: "EARTHS BEST" (the trademark of an organic food for children) has been around, this is what I fed my son, my nine-year-old son and I've even eaten this baby food, there's a study that was done where they found in conventional baby food over 16 different pesticides, just in a jar of baby food.
Sam: See, and let's see, let's say that again, because when I read that this morning, getting ready for your interview, that really shocked me. Sixteen in a test of baby food, regular baby food. (Right!) How many pesticides did they found?
D.I.: Sixteen they found. And pesticides are known carcinogens and neurotoxins and are linked to everything from cancer, to autism, to learning disabilities, allergies, asthma.
Sam: Well, let's be fair, this cost more money than regular baby food right now, by about how much?
D.I.: Well it does cost a little more, but also you can buy them in bulk. You can go to certain stores, health food stores now that they are more cost-competitive and of course now Gerber has an organic line as well. Sam: OK, that's helpful.
D.I.: So,there`s alternative, but you can make your own baby food. I did that as, when my child was a baby, it's easy to make, just mashing up the yams and the potatoes and the green vegetables. It`s, it`s easy.
Sam: so in that way, it isn't more expensive. And you can keep ...
D.I.: No, it's not.
D.I.: So a lot of them you can put in glass jars at home, and it`s, you save money.
Sam: There are so many more tips in this book, there,from the school stuff that we just... I wanted to talk about this. This really bothered me when I heard about this from....
D.I.: Well, the baby bottles are big thing too, glass bottles are the gold standard for baby bottles. I highly recommend glass. For whatever reason, if someone doesn't want glass and there is healthier plastic bottles, but still it's plastic. They've taken out the major chemicals in them but they are still toxic.
Sam: We'll link you if you are interested in this topic to her book and everything else you need to know in abcnews.com. This was just wonderful. Again, (Thank you!) there`s one of the reasons, one of the reasons that I have a crush on you!
kick off: Originally means to make the kick that begins a football game. But here just means to start, to begin.
carcinogen: A cancer-causing substance or agent.
neurotoxin: A toxin that damages or destroys nerve tissue.
endocrine : The secretion of an endocrine gland; a hormone.
