Melamine Found in U.S. Infant Formula

What is safe anymore? The FDA said Tuesday that it had discovered the toxic chemical melamine in infant formula made by an American manufacturer. While few details were available late Tuesday, agency officials said they had discovered melamine at trace levels in a single sample of
infant formula. It was also discovered in several samples of dietary supplements that are made by some of the same manufacturers who make formula. For the full article go here.

Melamine was found in Good Start Supreme Infant Formula With Iron made by Nestle, and cyanuric acid was detected in Enfamil Lipil With Iron infant formula powder made by Mead Johnson.

I am not sure if this is news to make mothers become scared, but as a mother I am very concerned about the safety of my kids. Uffff...scary world!

The Good Guide

A friend of mine just sent me a link to the Good Guide, happy that it has an iPhone applications; it is all new to me (I am talking about the guide) so I already spent one hour browsing through their web-site.

The Good Guide provides information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home. The database contains about 60000 personal care and household chemical products for which they list their ingredients, certification (if available), manufacturer information and they also provide some advice on things to consider when you chose a particular product. This last one is an excellent source of finding out which ingredients are bad and you need to avoid when you buy personal care or household products.

GoodGuide partners with the top socially responsible investment research firms, as well as with leading non-profit organizations with high quality data on specific issues or industries. It also has a handful of advisors.

It is an excellent source and the only one I know so far that provides information on personal care and household products. It is worth trying it …. and it has an application for iPhone ;-)

#5 Plastic (polypropylene) Not Safe Anymore?

I was away from the news for a while but thanks to some readers, I found out about a new study saying that #5 plastic (polypropylene) was discovered (almost accidentally) to leach two types of chemicals. The study is described in a little depth on the EWG website. It is not clear under which conditions the chemical leached -- was it the enzyme used in the experiment, was it under normal conditions?? -- and whether it is dangerous or not

This is very sad news especially because that are many foods wrapped into #5 plastic (considered safe) and most of these foods cannot be avoided. Even the medication is packed in #5 plastic containers. It is not easy to get rid of it; yes you can eliminate from your house everything that is made from plastic but you cannot stop buying certain foods whose nutritional value is very important for a healthy diet.

This type of plastic was considered safe until now; however even now nobody is arguing that it is bad, the study found that the plastic is leaching chemicals. But what chemical is safe? I do not believe in chemical safety. I would not be surprised at all if one day they will find that the other two types of plastic (#2 and #4) considered safe now will be found to leach chemicals.

"Frankenstein Food" - Could Lower Fertility

Well, I have not find the time to write for a while because the cold season started earlier this year and with kids you feel like it never ends...

Here is a very interesting article worth sharing: it is saying that genetically modified (GM) food could lower a women's fertility. Infertility became such a big problem and I was always thinking (even there are not enough studies to prove it) that it is caused mainly by all our "modern" way of leaving (GM foods, the pesticides from the food; the chemicals found everywhere around and so on). Every time I read news like this I become so upset and sad...