simple.green.organic.happy.

Author: Robin Strong Elton

Gluten Free Allergy and Cold Relief (and an Organic Goody Basket Giveaway)

Over-the-counter gluten free allergy, cold and sinus relief that’s also sugar free, alcohol free, dye free and acetaminophen free. Keep reading for a chance to win a basket of natural goodies, valued at $100! Sponsored by DayClear.

My own prescription for health is less paperwork
and more running barefoot through the grass.

-Leslie Grimutter

When Jake was young he couldn’t do a whole lot of running through the grass. The poor kid was allergic to the entire outdoors, it seemed; his breathing would get all stuffy and congested, he would sneeze over and over again, his skin would rash up and thicken like an alligator’s, he would be all red around the eyes from rubbing them constantly.

He gets mad when I talk about it, saying that I’m always exaggerating his illnesses, and to him the memories are probably more of the running-through-grass variety than the results of it. But as a parent, it’s so hard to see your kids struggling to breathe; to be constantly, idling scratching, to the point where it was such a habit I don’t think he was aware of it.

What linguistic genius
set up the sneeze and wheeze
To rhyme so very perfectly
with the word “allergies”?

-Terri Guillemets

It was the worst at night, when his narrowed and raw nasal passageways would wake him up all night long, either because he was having a hard time breathing or because he’d been startled out of sleep by yet another nosebleed. He’d climb into our bed and I’d be kept up by the awful sound of him scratching away, often ripping his skin open in his sleep.

Scratching. Always scratching.

We tried everything out there that claimed to help, that didn’t involve a constant stream of meds. Oatmeal baths, cool showers, fewer showers, goats’ milk lotions (along with a hundred other lotions), black soap, no soap, apple cider vinegar, teas, local honey, and an ongoing process of cutting out and reintroducing foods.

(It’s worth noting that the most effective treatment was making him shower immediately after coming inside for the day, to get rid of whatever pollens and other irritants were on his skin and in his clothes. But that wasn’t enough.)

imagine him similarly dusted with pollen

Some things would help for a little while. Some just sort of suppressed some symptoms only to exacerbate others. Since the worst of it happened at night, we had to start giving him a nightly dose of allergy meds to keep him from doing serious damage to his skin while sleeping, and while that helped a lot it came with its own set of problems. Prescription meds were super expensive and some of the warnings for kids were alarming; we tried to save this for more severe flareups. Liquids definitely worked faster and better for Jake, but the sugar in the OTC syrup, which made it easier for the medicine to go down, made it harder for him to go down. Ironic, since we tend to think of allergy meds as being drowsiness inducing. Also, like his father, Jake was sensitive to the food dyes that added color, especially red; they made him hyper.

Eventually a dye-free allergy formula came out, but not every store carried it, and dye-free didn’t expand to other medicines, so we just never gave Jake anything but Tylenol for coughs and colds.

As to diseases, make a habit of two things—
to help, or at least to do no harm.

—Hippocrates

Gluten Free Allergy and Cold Relief

Odes Mitchell has a similar story. He was already active in the pharmaceutical industry when his son Mason was diagnosed with celiac disease, after several long years of struggling with illness. As Texas natives, the Mitchells were also privy to severe allergy seasons. They had a hard time finding an allergy medicine that alleviated his symptoms, without causing more side effects and symptoms due to his gluten intolerance.

Odes saw this gap in the over-the-counter market and formulated DayClear, a long-awaited solution for those with intolerances, allergies, or diseases that require near-constant vigilance when it comes to ingredients. It’s the stuff you need, without the stuff you don’t want.

This completely clear, non-syrupy line is:

Gluten-Free

allowing people with Celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity and wheat allergies to avoid side effects and symptoms

Sugar-Free

for diabetics and those looking to lower their risk of illness and disease while helping to control cravings, improve energy, and avoid allergens

Alcohol-Free

eliminating the side effects of alcohol intolerance that could include nausea, headaches, flushing, increased heart rate and fainting. Research indicates that cystic fibrosis and fibromyalgia patients may experience intolerance to alcohol and sensitivities to sugar, food colors, and artificial flavors.

Acetaminophen-Free

Did you know: 80,000 people head to the emergency room due to accidental acetaminophen overdoses?

Dye-Free

Most prescription and OTC products contain artificial dyes for no reason other than making them look colorful. Food coloring and artificial dye sensitivity can lead to hyperactivity, lack of attention, sleep problems, stomach and respiratory issues in some adults.

click here to enlarge

I love stories like this, where people tweak long-standing products and you just have to think: why didn’t anyone think of that before?

Our sample bottle of DayClear made it not even 24 hours before Jake cracked it open. While he has mostly grown out of the worst of his allergy symptoms, he still gets flareups during the spring and fall, and anytime we give the house a deep cleaning. His verdict was that it worked to alleviate his scratchy throat and nose, and that it tasted like medicine, not like medicine-masked-with-cherry-flavor.

DayClear is currently being launched in the northeast states including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia and Delaware— you can find a local store here and save $2 with this coupon. It’s also available nationwide via Amazon. I’ve added a graph of which products treat which symptoms at the end of this post.

Giveaway!

He who takes medicine and neglects to diet wastes the skill of his doctors.

-Chinese Proverb

Because I like to really stress that health is about a lot more than just management of symptoms, we’re going to balance out all this talk of allergies and medicines with a bit of healthy indulgences!

DayClear has provided this basket of organic goodies, pictured above and valued at $100, to a lucky simple. green. organic. happy. reader. Enter using the Rafflecopter widget below; you can choose one entry option or as many as you like.

This giveaway will run until 11:59pm on Sunday, May 22nd. Good luck!

For more info on DayClear’s products, visit their product page.

May 16, 2016
6 Citizen Science Projects for Kids in 2016

Teaching children about the natural world
should be seen as one of the most important events in their lives.

-Thomas Berry

You don’t need to be a scientist to conduct research that makes a difference. Citizen science projects allow anyone to make observations that contribute to a large body of data for scientists and researchers to analyze, without adding greatly to their research costs. It’s a great way to get kids feeling involved and empowered; enthusiastic about intellectual curiosity and the scientific method. With these six citizen science projects for kids, they’ll also learn and connect with nature and the creatures that inhabit it.

6 Citizen Science Projects for Kids

Penguin Watch

You’ve probably seen posts about Penguin Watch recently. Since penguins are top predators and spent most of their life in water, changes in their populations can be indicators of changes within their Antarctic ecosystem. Penguin Watch is a strictly online project that presents you with images of penguin nesting sites, and asks you to mark adult penguins, chicks, and eggs as well as any other animals close to nests. Afterwards, you can discuss the pictures with the science team or other volunteers. It’s like a seek and find puzzle, and they’re not always easy!

Darwin’s Dogs

How has doggie DNA changed as they evolved from wolves to man’s best friend, and how did those genetic changes affect behavior? Finding out more about how genetic change and behavioral changes are linked might help us understand neurological diseases in dogs— and people.

The Darwin’s Dogs project asks dog owners to complete a survey about their dogs and mail in a saliva sample so that researchers can connect DNA and personality traits. Results will be shared with participants and kids will really get to think through what makes their dog unique!

FrogWatch USA

Frogs and toads are both predators and prey. They’re very helpful for keeping insect populations under control, and for serenading us on summer nights with song. Frogs and toads are also sensitive to environmental changes, so being aware of fluctuations in their numbers can help us understand, anticipate, and fix problems within their habitat.

Volunteers taking part in the FrogWatch USA project learn the frog and toad calls for their area— a handy skill to have, and sure to impress at parties!— and commit to listening for them for 3 minutes multiple times during breeding season. You then report your findings online.

Whales as Individuals

When I was a kid, my dad “adopted” a whale for me, and I’d occasionally get a photo of that whale when it surfaced somewhere. His name was Patches. I suppose that he was among the four or five you could choose from not because whales are so very rare (they’re not ubiquitous but they’re not that rare), but because he was very distinctive and easily identifiable, with a huge white mark on his tail (fluke). Every fluke pattern is individual, like a fingerprint, and like a fingerprint it can be difficult and time intensive to suss out the minute differences between them.

The Whales as Individuals project lets participants help with that. You make notes on images of flukes, helping to fine-tune computer algorithms so that they can better identify whales and help researchers learn about their behavior, personalities and populations, as well as pinpoint conservation concerns.

Urban Buzz

Cicada lovers in our area are excited this year because Brood V is about to emerge and fill our summer nights with song. These bugs are sensitive to environmental changes, like temperature and creeping urbanization. You can help scientists determine how climate change and the “urban heat islands” created in cities affects cicadas by collecting a few dead specimens, filling out a data card for each one and mailing them off to the Urban Buzz team at North Carolina State University.

(With any discarded exoskeletons, you can have a cicada party! Or, hook them on your lapel as a creepy brooch.)

BioBlitz

At a BioBlitz, members of the community work with scientists and teachers to find and identify as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time, as well as get an overall count of the plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms that live there. Among other things, this helps researchers track whether species populations are declining, and whether invasive species are booming. It also helps YOU to learn about the creatures in your own backyard!

There are over 250 BioBlitz events scheduled so far for 2016; this is a noteworthy year to take part, since it’s the National Park Service’s 100th birthday. Find an event near you or plan your own.

Need more citizen science in your life?

Here are 14 more citizen science projects to try. Yay for raising kid naturalists!

Pin it for later!

May 9, 2016
Sustainable Tuna: For Our Health and the Health of Our Oceans
The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope.
Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning:

we are all in the same boat.

— Jacques Cousteau

My interest in environmentalism and sustainability began like it did for a lot of people in the 80s and 90s: the movement to save the dolphins. I was a card carrying Greenpeace member, very vocal and emphatic and in awe of these big, playful, social, intelligent creatures.

Whenever I’d get really wound up, my dad would always say, “won’t anyone THINK OF THE TUNA?” He was being silly, but that didn’t make him any less right. (In retrospect, that statement was true for a LOT of things my dad said.)

While it was and still is important to fight for the dolphins, whose numbers were dwindling as they were trapped in undiscriminating tuna nets (purse seine nets), we also need to think of the tuna. They might not be as cute and cool as dolphins, but they and all of the other creatures of the sea are part of a delicate ecosystem; decimating any one part hurts all the others, and harming our oceans harms our land and our health as a species.

When one tugs at a single thing in nature,
he finds it attached to the rest of the world.

—John Muir

Tuna is an important food for our health; it’s a lean protein, full of B vitamins, and an easily bio-accessible source of essential omega-3 fatty acids, which are great for our brains and our hearts. Unfortunately tuna can also be a source of mercury, thanks to the state of our oceans, and in danger of being overfished out of existence, especially as more and more people turn to fish as an alternate meat source.

Sustainability when it comes to tuna requires a multi-faceted approach:
- protecting habitat by taking measures to keep our oceans clean,
- putting fishing practices into place that ensure tuna populations remain strong for future yields,
- while not endangering other species through bycatch.
When purchasing sustainable canned tuna, making your choice is actually pretty easy. You’ll want to look for the blue Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label: this indicates your fish has been responsibly caught by a certified sustainable fishery. These fish are caught at levels that “allow fish populations and the ecosystems on which they depend to remain healthy and productive for the future” (emphasis is mine). From ocean to plate, this fish is kept separate from non-certified stock and can be traced back to its source, so you can rest assured it’s labeled correctly: you know exactly what you’re getting.

(By comparison, no matter where your chicken was raised, it’s likely processed alongside other chickens, and therefore susceptible to contamination. In the event of contamination, it can very difficult to determine where the problem started.)

Now I’m going to make things even easier! The only brand that is a full line of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified sustainable seafood is Wild Selections®. This brand really is working hard to ensure a healthier planet and “fish-full” future.
- Wild Selections gives back to the oceans by donating 13 cents from every can sold (a total of $1 million by 2018) to World Wildlife Fund marine conservation and fishery improvement projects.
- They bear the blue MSC eco-label, letting you know the fish in your can comes from well managed fisheries and healthy fish stocks.
- Their tuna is premium quality, sustainably sourced and 100% traceable; you can actually enter the code on your can at WildSelections.com to learn where the fish inside was caught.
- They use simple, all natural ingredients; Wild Selections tuna is Non-GMO Project verified and delicious.
So, save the dolphins, but save the tuna too. You can check the store locator to see who carries Wild Selections near you; I was able to pick mine up at my usual grocery store (Giant). Check out the Wild Selections® You Tube channel for videos to learn about the Wild Selections difference, their partnership with World Wildlife Fund and the Marine Stewardship Council certification.

And for more about the importance of sustainable fishing— some of the numbers are mindblowing— and how Wild Selections is helping to ensure healthy seafood is around for future generations, feast your eyes on the infographic below You can make it full-page for easier reading by clicking on it.

We must plant the sea and herd its animals
using the sea as farmers instead of hunters.

That is what civilization is all about—
farming replacing hunting.

Jacques Cousteau, Oceanographer

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
April 28, 2016