To market To market

A good friend JH recently dropped by my office with a bag of organic apples that she bought from Pasir Panjang Wholesale Market. They were crunchy and absolutely delicious.

Inspired, I made a trip down to the market last Saturday and the first stop (and as it turned out, the only one) was at Zenxin Organic Food because my friend SY had parked her car there!



The shop was having a Halloween promo - inviting kids to try out food and "potions". There were a few staff cooking incredibly tasty organic food - I loved the baked potato with cheese, butter and garlic! There were plenty of organic raisins to go around too and also some brown rice. I had a cuppa of London Tea Company's Ginger Lemon tea and bought a pack for a preggers friend who seems to be suffering from morning sickness all day long.



Also grabbed two boxes of organic grapes (two boxes for $10), a large bottle of Dr Bronner's Castille Soap (finally found it here for $29.90 - i usually dilute my soaps so they do last quite long), and also a can of organic dried raisins that were $3 cheaper than other places.



I wished I had more time to go to other shops but the whiny boy was hungry so that was my first and very short visit to the wholesale market. Will be back again another time - maybe on my own so that I can shop in peace!

Supporting fair trade & organic, wisely

I've been a keen supporter of fair trade, organic, and natural products for some time now. It's not that I have plenty of cash to throw around, but it's that I realise I need to put my money where my mouth and heart is. So whenever I can, I try to buy these products but always wisely. And when you hunt in the right places, you realise that fairtrade and organic products are not always more expensive or priced exorbitantly.

Case in point: Tea from Marks & Spencer. These are Extra Strong Fairtrade tea that beat Lipton's weak brew hands down. I first discovered them about 1.5 years ago and have never looked back. Cost wise, depending on how many you buy, they range from $0.086 ($6.90 for 80 bags) each to $$0.066 each ($15.90 for 240 bags). The miserably, watered-down brew from Lipton? Last I checked from NTUC Fairprice's online site, its price ranges from $0.084 ($2.10 for 25 bags) to $0.053 ($5.30 for 100 bags) each. Given the huge difference in quality - honestly, the M&S tea is full-bodied and really shiok - I am willing to pay a wee bit more and support the Fairtrade movement at the same time.

Another favourite of mine are the Yummy Earth lollipops. Comparing them to the grossly-sweet Chupa Chups would be an insult. These lollipops have 100% natural flavours, no artificial dyes, 100% vegan, GMO-free, and no corn syrup. I like them too because you can really taste the subtle flavours. They cost $5.50 for 15 pieces, or $10.50 for the 30 pieces which comes in a reusable container. They work out to be about $0.36 each. Chupa Chups cost about $0.28 each, when they're on offer, or $0.33 each otherwise. And please don't try to compare by weight, cos that would be crazy. I don't think lil kids can tell that Yummy Earths are slightly smaller, and flatter, as long as they have a lolly in their hands!

So don't be so quick to judge and say that fairtrade and organic are priced out of range. Not all are, if you look carefully.

If you're keen to know more about fairtrade, you could start off reading a piece I wrote last year: Changing the world with ethical shopping

my little man

I love this picture. Although it's a blurry foto snapped on my mobile, it really really captures what Val is all about these days. He loves standing up on the bed, hanging onto the window grilles to peep at the world outside especially when it's dark and the twinkling street lights and enthralling headlights of cars whizz by. His favourite activity is to play peek a boo with the curtains. They're not exactly the cleanest things around! So i try to put them out of his way, but sometimes when someone forgets and lets the curtains down, Val's the first to dash over to tug at them.

Val's picking up new words too. Of course he can't say anything, but we know he knows what they are cos he looks at things we call out. Like with 'fish' he turns to our windchime that has an assortment of wooden fish, the same with 'fan', 'sarong', and 'ball'. I play the Your Baby Can Read video every morning after his bath time cos it's the only thing that keeps him still long enough for me to put on his clothes. Two days ago, when the children in the video said 'point' and a baby demonstrated the action, Val also raised his right hand and pointed his finger to point! it was very funny. and since then, he does that without fail whenever Baby Lauren (that's the baby who points her finger) appears. It's weird how there are some words he picks up very fast, some he just never. Like the word 'Star', i pointed out the neon glow-in-the-dark stars i have on our ceiling one night, and he caught on immediately but he just can't figure out where's my nose, ears, eyes and mouth. Anyways, he'll do so in his own time. It's just funny to see his antics.

But it ain't so funny when it comes to eating and sleeping. He loves his organic cereal but screams and cries each time he is put in his high chair. Even the belt on the chair doesn't seem to contain him. Lately, he's developed a very bad habit of wanting to crawl around and eat. grrr...... it's a battle each time we feed him. As for sleeping............that's his biggest enemy. he now refuses to get into the sarong for day naps, he would twist and sit up and threaten to topple out of the sarong altogether. very dangerous. Yah, i never got round to the whole 'cry it out' sleep training i guess. But really, he can cry and cry for a LOOOOONG time without yielding. a few nights ago, he cried from midnight till 3 am for god-knows-what reasons, and then finally i had to offer the breast before he would sleep again................ARGGH.... these days, i just don't fight it anymore. when he wakes up at night, i just shove my boob to him and he's back at sleep quickly. Honestly i really don't have the energy to battle it out with him. So i do look on at envy at those moms who blog about their babies sleeping through the night....... i just have to accept that Val's just going to do that at his own time.

on raising a healthy child

the recent milk scandal in China once again reminds us of how much contaminants there are in almost every aspect of our life. This time it's melamime, but recently studies have also shown that polycarbonate, a plastic commonly used for milk bottles, contains the hormone-disrupting Biphesonol-A. Although i am a breastfeeding proponent, i am also well aware of the possible toxicity in breastmilk especially if the mom has been exposed to lots of pollutants and say, lead a relatively unhealthy lifestyle such as smoking. Some studies on breast milk have shown that mom's milk can have contaminants such as flame retardants, pesticides, toilet deodoriser, and dry-cleaning fluids! This is only natural since whatever mommy ingests, eventually baby does too. So, although we don't gulp down dry-cleaning fluids or sip the toilet deodoriser, the chemicals can be breathed in and makes its way into the breast milk. That said, however, breast fed children still tend to be healthier and less prone to cancer because of the antiseptic qualities in the milk.

That's why it's timely that just as the milk scandal surfaced, the book i ordered from the NGO "Healthy child healthy world" finally lands at my place. Great timing. This little book is chockful of great resources and insights on how to make our homes and our lifestyle so much 'cleaner, greener and safer' for the little tots. In fact, many of the contributors remark that their children's asthma improved greatly once they began removing chemicals from their homes. Goes to show how much chemicals that are insidiously penetrating our children's fragile systems.

After reading it, It has greatly strengthened my resolve to slowly, bit by bit, introduce more natural products into the home. I sure can't afford to overnight become a 100% organic eater, but there are some things that i believe will make a difference.

What i have already begun to do:
1. use more cloth diapers than disposables, and try to toilet train him asap: since the chemicals inside the diapers were banned from women's tampons years ago... surely can't be good to keep val's jewels in close contact with these questionable chemicals 24/.7.

2. Organic shampoo & bodywash for Val (only) that are free from all the questionable chemicals/ preservatives like parabens,phosphates, pthalates and sulfates. (i'm still thinking twice about switching to organic stuff for me since it's more expensive for adults - we have bigger surface area!)

3. water wipes 99% of the time, instead of wet wipes ---- in a bid to cut costs on buying wet wipes, i inadvertently switched to just water and reusable cotton cloths. means, we save the environment and also reduce val's bum from too much contact with chemicals and preservatives.

4. begin buying wooden toys --- using sustainable wood and non toxic paints. also, i read that if you use a lot of plastic toys, at least ensure that the toys are well-aired before first use since they emit a lot of harmful toxins in the air when newly unwrapped.

5. use deet-free insect repellent that instead relies on natural plant remedies to ward off the mossies -- so far worked pretty well in timor. just gotta reapply often. luckily i also used very little deet insect repellent while pregnant.

6. frozen washcloths as teethers --- they have worked well, and i think i'm gonna junk the other plastic ones since i'm unsure what kind of plastics they were made from

7. buy organic oat, rice, barley cereal for Val --- i'm junking the other questionable food stuffs that were bought for him, e.g. nestle's teething biscuits. will henceforth buy only organic titbits for him. will be more expensive but.....

8. switched to using BPA-free drinking cups from SteadyCo (you can buy them at Robinsons i think), and BPA-free utensils from IKEA. And we serve hot porridge or cereal in porcelain bowls, but make sure they are well out of Val's reach.


What i plan to do next:

1. Floor cleaning liquids -- this is first on my hit list. Since Val is crawling around so much, it now makes sense to invest some $$$ into organic or at least less chemically-enhanced floor liquids.

2. go back to using baby-detergent --- okay, so i used to think it was all hype -- to sell more expensive baby detergents to paranoid parents but it is all worth it! look for baby or organic detergents that are free from harmful phosphates, phtalates, etc

3. unpack the steam cleaning machine that's still in the box --- it was given free but we've yet to use it.

4. hunt around the house, and eliminate plastic toys, plates, eating utensils made from PVC (No.3), Polystyrene (no.5), and Others (usually polycarbonate #7 )... luckily our family hardly heats up food in the microwave using plastics, we are a 'Corning ware' family haha.

4. decide what to do with those new Avent bottles i've got --- they are polycarbonate, and hence may leach toxins when heated. hmmm... they were quite expensive! and new! but Val still refuses to nurse from a bottle --- maybe his instincts are really better than mine?

5. try to convince my dad to stop spraying insecticide??? this is the difficult one. how? we do grow many citronella plants but they're all outside the house. although we don't have much of a mossie problem, but my dad still occasionally nukes the room

6...
7...
8....


LOts more to do, but the trick is to go slow and do it at a natural pace otherwise, it may freak out everyone else in the home!
One visible trend that's happening these days is that i do see more people using those fibre bags instead of plastic bags for their groceries. It provoked a discussion i had with my dad over plastic bags and how we now live so dangerously by packing foods in plastic bags whereas in their time, they had to bring their own tiffin to the hawker stall. These days, our family also tries to do that. If we know we're going to packet some food, we try to bring our own metal container. it does take effort no doubt.


From the book "Healthy child healthy world" p.g 95
DID YOU KNOW... that nonstick pans use a chemical called PFOA (dun ask me what's the actual spelling) that is now found "in the blood of nearly every American and has been listed by the EPA (America's environmental protection agency) as a 'likely human carcinogen'. Apparently Dupont and 7 other companies have agreed to stop using PFOA in their pans by 2015.

Oh, and one last thing....

the latest craze in the housecleaning department is apparent the microfiber cloth! This is the same same same fabric that our sports towel is made of -- you know the ubiquitous blue sports towel with a terry cloth feel and is highly absorbent? well, microfiber is now being touted as one of the most effective cleaning aid in the home since dust clings to it easily until washed. Incidentally, all of Val's diaper inserts are made of the same material. which means when he outgrows his diaper inserts, and if i can't sell them off second hand, there will be plenty of microfiber cloths handy at home!


Some great websites with a focus on cleaner, greener, safer living:

1. Environmental working group
2. Z recommends
3. Mothering magazine
4. Healthy Toys (A website that lets you check for toxic toys)

sharing a copy of Mothering Magazine

Incredible how online shopping has evolved over the years. I've found myself wandering more and more into US websites for exciting stuff to buy... and today i just got meself a one-year digital subscription of Mothering Magazine. I enter my credit card details, and within 5 minutes, an email arrives into my inbox giving me a link to assess my first digital copy of the magazine. How amazing! I mean, really really speedy, i say. So i'm impressed. Besides being environmentally friendly and having nary a carbon footprint, the digital subscription allows me to forward the ENTIRE magazine to THREE friends. Yup, that means my US$12 a year subscription for six bi-monthly copies is now triple the value. And, if i take the pains to print out the digital copy (which i don't think i will cos that defeats the point right???) , i could even lend it on to other friends, increasing the circulation! So i am mighty pleased. Initially I was tempted to subscribe to the print copies cos nothing beats touching and feeling a magazine. somehow, it makes reading more leisurely than peering into your laptop. But the costs were just too prohibitive, and i'm looking at the stacks of old mags i have at home that i don't know what to do with. So... the greenier option won.

So why did i blog? Cos i wanted to ask WHO WANTS me to forward the digital copy to? In case, you're clueless about Mothering Magazine - it's a great US-based magazine that promotes natural living, very pro-breastfeeding and attachment parenting. You can find out more about the magazine here. Tralalala...

how safe is that shampoo?

was reading a back issue of Mothering magazine when i came upon a really interesting article about safety of baby products.. so i went to the recommended site of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) that has a Skin Deep Database to check out how the baby products that i've bought so far ranked. SCARRIIIEEEE results for one of the most common baby products used in Singapore - - err... starts with letter J. Most of its products are ranked 5 and above. The higher the number the more hazardous it is! And this manufacturer also doesn't sign onto the Compact for Safe Cosmetics. This is a "pledge to formulate products that do not use ingredients that are known or suspected to cause certain health harms within three years of signing."

There was good rankings (1 or 2 out of 10) for an expensive organic brands --- two words, starts with letter C and letter B. But of course, the expensive organic one is like 5 times more expensive....... Considering that Val has so little hair (read= needs v little shampoo) perhaps its' worthwhile to consider sticking to this more expensive wash ... Besides checking out baby care products, this Skin Deep Database also lets you check out cosmetics and other personal hygiene products for big people. Quite interesting...... at least, another resource to better inform us, although it's a shame that most of the '0' hazard products are probably not found here but in the US.

YIKES. i just saw the ratings for a stretch mark lotion - famous brand starts with "M" and very expensive too. 7 on the scale! Ingredients in the product linked to: 1) cancer 2) development/reproductive toxicity 3)violations/restrictions/warnings 4)allergies 5) and lots of other scary stuff.!!!! Luckily during my pregnancy, I alternated between this and an organic brand - two words (is this sounding like charade??) one letter E and letter M. And that one is rating a ZERO on the hazard scale ......................PHEW....

Ok, so i am convinced. Organic is definitely sounding better although organic products are be quite expensive. As in PACKAGED organic products, e.g. organic milk in Hawaii costs $US6 per liter! But you can be smart and use or eat really organic products or whole foods, for example, Timor tomatoes (although they are irregularly shaped and sometimes with wrinkly skin) are juicier and sweeter than the imported ones i've tasted back home here.

So i say, time to junk the toothpaste and go for baking soda; forget baby oil and use virgin cold pressed coconut oil instead; grow plenty of citronella plants to chase mossies away; and instead of chewing on teethers that could possibly have toxic colours and materials - how about a clean washcloth frozen in the fridge? Babies are quite smart.... of all the toys Val has, he LOVES the damp cloth that i stick into his mouth every evening to clean his gums. He cries when i finish the job - the only time he ever cries when something is taken away from him. Oh, and ya, he's still striking the bottle. Maybe a lil bird told him about the latest news about BPA and babies bottles?

cloth diapering and other stuffz

So we began Val's journey into this world with the ubiquitous Pampers that were given by the hospital. I loved the fact that there was an indicator strip on the outside that showed how many times baby had peed and when it was time for a change. It was nice, especially for a new mom, and also an anxious first-time breastfeeding mom who was not sure how many times her baby was peeing. Soon after a day or two home, we decided to go back to the good ole Chinese cloth diapers but we used Snappi fasteners instead of safety pins that made our job much easier and less scary.
I bought them from Mothercare, but they're also available in Kiddy Palace and the Bumwear shop. Why the switch back to cloth? Well, i was really curious to see when Val was peeing and how much, and felt that having cloth diapers allowed me to do that. Also, it just felt cooler, and kinder on his tiny bum. And with my folks so willing to help out, we decided to use cloth diapers. I really think that using cloth in this day and age requires a lot of support, otherwise, you get plenty of complains of wet beds, and frequent washing! And so from there, we found out that Val would pee many many times right after a feed and then gradually stop after an hour or so, and then the next cycle starts at the next feed. Oh and yes, Pampers is also very expensive! So we began using cloth during the day, and Pampers at night.


When Val was about six weeks, I bought the first Bumwear pocket diaper to try them out. I had read about them and heard conflicting reviews and was curious to see if they work. I bought the petite sized one cos Val was still so small. It's a nice dark purple shade with light purple buttery soft fleece inner lining. It worked quite well, and much better than the OLD versions that had cloth outers that would leak often. (I had borrowed 2 of the old ones from a friend and they were always leaking). But somehow, i was still not as satisfied cos everytime i wanted to change Val, i felt the inner fleece and it was always kinda humid and warm. Surely that can't be very good for his jewels i thought.... hmmm..... the search continued....

Then I spoke to some friends who had also been using pocket diapers and they recommended Happy Heiny's which is one of the many brands sold online at the Whoopee kiddies store. But somehow they didn't appeal to me. The price is also comparable to Bumwear. Then Rani told me that she had ordered some Bum Genius cloth diapers and they worked better than Bumwear. i began to read up more on the brand and from its manufacturers Cotton Babies. The reviews were mostly positive, so i decided ok, let's try some! And so i bought six of them and so far, it's been GREAT! Truly! The inner lining is ALWAYS dry, and the inserts can really soak up Val's pee. But occasionally when i didn't velcro the tabs tight enough, there has been 2 leaks. But other than that, i feel that he seems really dry and comfortable. My only grouses : i dunno how long the velcro tabs will last, and i hate the fact that they only have pastel colours!

I also bought a dozen flannel wipes from Cotton Babies because i've decided that relying on wet wipes is not financially sound! Much as i love the Pigeon Chamomile wipes that dispense so wonderfully and smell so nice, and wipe so nicely, they are just too expensive at $10.10 for 3 packs. I mean, since Val poos such sticky stuff, and i don't want to do a shoddy job cleaning him up, i tend to use quite a few pieces each time. So i decided to see how it would be using flannel wipes and warm water on him instead. So far, so good! I mean, it helps that he now only poo poos 2 times a day so it's not a big hassle soaking and washing the flannel wipes. My grouse: the flannel felt sooo much softer and nicer before they were washed! Now that they have been washed repeatedly, they don't seem to get softer as promised! Oh well.........................

Anyways, these days by using a combination of cloth diapers, Bumwear and BumGenius pocket diapers, we find that we're only using about 1 disposable a day! That's a great reduction of disaposable waste although i don't know whether it translates into actual $ savings since we do use quite a bit of water, electricity and human effort to launder the cloth diapers! At least, i comfort myself that water although scarce is renewable and with Newater technology, haha, we're recycling it while landfills take years and years to degrade and the world is running out of space! That said, you do need patience if you intend to go cloth diapering cos when blowouts happen, and Val's runny poo smears all over your pants, i have to rely on my sense of humour to laugh it off!

As for disposies, i've found that Mamy Poko is a good choice since it's not as expensive as Pampers but just as effective, and it's got a great poo poo pocket that really does trap the runny breastmilk poo very well. Huggies, although an established brand, tends to bulk up and makes Val look err... overly endowed down under. As for the more affordable Drypers - sorry, the sticky tab drives me nuts, so i stopped after the first pack. Since we're down to using only one disposable a day, i've decided to stick to Mamy Poko for now until someone recommends me something better.


***Note: this may have read like an advertorial but it is not! i have not been paid by anyone to advertise their stuff! just wanted to share with others what i'm doing....