Soy unsafe for children?

[Anonymous]

btw i realize the turkey milk is a joke, but do i really need to get grass-fed milk?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or, make your own formula out of raw goat's milk, which is much less allergenic than cow milk based formulas. If I couldn't breastfeed, I'd do a combination of these two things. I would only use commercial formula as a last resort.

Since these animals are non-indigenous to the region, I cannot countenance using goats' milk. This speaks to the whole monoculture issue. Instead, wild turkeys - native to the DC region - produce a milk which, while a little sour and hard to access, is natural, non-allergenic, nutritious, and truly suitable for locavores.

And if your baby start clucking, you'll know why!

[Anonymous]

Our family has drastically reduced soy consumption for many of the reasons listed by PPs. Which is discouraging, because I have been a vegetarian for nearly 15 years, and was raising our kids veg. They all love soy milk, tofu, etc and I became addicted to the convenience of these high protein veg options. I have three little ones, work part time, and my DH's work hours are crazy. Convenience is a beautiful thing.

Anyway, after really thinking about it, and realizing that what we were eating was highly processed convenience foods, we introduced poultry and fish into our diets. All organic of course. But I worry about the contaminants in our fish, so I am very careful about what kind of fish we eat and how often. We don't do red meat (just couldn't go there), and the poultry we eat is organic and free range.

My point is that it is so hard to do the right thing. Give up meat for health and ethical issues, and buy into processed vegetarian options because they are supposedly healthier and more humane. Find out those products are not healthier nor more humane, so go back to eating meat. Can't win for losing!

It just shouldn't be so hard to feed your family healthy food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:oh dear, this thread is making my head spin. i thought my organic milk from whole foods was good enough?!?

I don't bother with industrialized milk from whole foods when there is milk available from local farmers that feed their cows a diet that's NATURAL to their species, therefore more healthy for me and my family. I also like the fact that you can visit these farms and see the cows yourself and see that they give their own families the milk from their land. Organic corn to me is still not responsible husbandry. Corn is a native tropical grass, certainly not something cows over the thousands of years have typically grazed on.

Don't we get enough corn in our diets:

1. High Fructose corn syrup in just about everything
2. Cattle, Chicken, Lamb, Farmed Salmon all fed it. The salmon part is really freaky since they add orange dye to it so the salmon gets the pink flesh, because on a diet of corn the salmon is so malnourished the flesh is white like cod.
3. Cereals and breads
4. Check out this website for the hundreds of uses for corn...it's even in antibiotics! http://www.ontariocorn.org/classroom/products.html


I'll stick to my corn on the cob and leave everyone else to consume their frankenfoods!

[Anonymous]

My daughter drank so formula and now soy milk due to a milk allergy. After this post today I looked it up. Soy formula has been available since at least the 1960s and now takes about 20 - 25% of the formula market. Since 20 - 25% of children do not have the symptoms they're looking for, it's hard to make the direct connection. For example....many children are put on soy milk for a reason. Do these reasons independantly factor in to the health issues they have? Is it JUST the soy formula or is the reason they're drinking the soy formula the culprit? It's impossible to tell unless they track these things. Many of the articles I read did not. I realize that feeding my daughter the juice of a bean instead of milk can't possibly be as good for her, but neither is drinking something she clearly is allergic to. You can find an article to prove or disprove nearly everything! I'm sick of it. Everyone's out to make us Moms feel bad about everything!

[Anonymous]

We eat soy products in moderation - tofu once per week - and have decided not to worry too much about it. There is something "wrong" with almost anything that we choose to consume (with the exception of breastmilk). We strive for nutritional variety so everything in moderation (except chocolate :wink. We are fortunate to not have a picky eater, I suppose, but I think that we also cultivated that from an early age (or like to give ourselves credit for it even if it is just luck), so soy is part of a varied and balanced diet for us. We do make an effort to eat "whole" unprocessed foods, the way that nature intended, as much as possible. Can't always afford to buy organic, which would be preferred, but we do our best with what we have. Yes, it is maddening that truly natural foods (organic, non-GMO, non-hormone injected) are a luxury in this day and age. Perhaps we should all be pushing the "food" industry for "truth in labelling" - rather than labels for organic products, they should be required to list all the hormones, pesticides, what their animals are fed, etc. ...maybe that would get people's attention about how disgusting our food industry has become!

If you have to give your baby soy milk due to allergies (and do not breastfeed/pump, whether it be for physical, medical, sanity or pure choice reasons), you are doing the best you can with what you have available. I guess I would try to get organic/non-GMO soy milk, which is aplenty, again if I could afford it. But I would not lay awake at night fretting that I am harming my baby. But I would consider cutting back on soy milk once my kids are past the age where milk is a nutritional requirement - afterall, there is a reason why 20 year olds don't still breastfeed - nature says we no longer need milk after the first few years of life in any case...Yes, I do still drink cow's milk myself, though perhaps I should give up dairy as I don't really need it and maybe one day I will (have already given up red meat, rarely eat chicken, so most meals are either fish or vegetarian).

[Anonymous]

Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Polyface Farms, etc. - how do I chose "good" quality foods (no antibiotics, no estrogen mimicing soy, no additives, no preservatives, etc.) without my grocery bill flying through the roof (that stuff is so expensive)?

Everything in moderation I suppose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Polyface Farms, etc. - how do I chose "good" quality foods (no antibiotics, no estrogen mimicing soy, no additives, no preservatives, etc.) without my grocery bill flying through the roof (that stuff is so expensive)?

Everything in moderation I suppose.

I do Polyface and a CSA for my veggies. I would never step foot into a Whole Foods, for me it's beyond "organic", instead I want to give back to the local economy and eskew industrial farming, even if its organic industrial.

My meat is MUCH less expensive than grocery store organic. I buy in bulk (the butcher cuts to my specifications and then it all goes in my deep freezer). My veggies are also cheaper, but I get ALOT of veggies in my CSA box when certain things are in season, so you have to be flexible. For instance, right now, I'm eating an insane amount of Kale, Spinach, and some Asparagus.

I only go to TJs for a few convenience foods, but certainly not their fresh meats, dairy, or veggies (which BTW are awful). Of course Whole Foods is going to be outrageously priced, they fly their food in from all over the world. Peppers from Israel, peaches from Chile, and lamb from New Zeland. I don't want to have anything to do with the pollution that adds to our planet. Also, the profits from those outrageously expensive foods don't make it back to the farmer, but increase WF's profit margins.

Eating clean does not mean you have to shop at high end grocery stores, but it does mean that you have to be flexible and eat what's in season and you have to be willing to plan a bit ahead and use the freezer and be willing to do some research into where you can find good stuff. For instance, beans & strawberries are about to be in season. I'm going to eat as many fresh as I can consume and then blanch lots of beans and pop them in the freezer for to eat throughout the year. I will also freeze a few pounds of strawberries.

Oftentimes when you hook up with a local farmer and buy 10-15lbs of Straweberries (or insert a seasonal veggie here) they will give you a discount off the price per lb because they need to move their fresh product that might otherwise spoil. This is where I start to freeze.

FWIW...I work full time too, so this is not impossible.

[Anonymous]

Around here maybe, but try it in other parts of the country. I tried it in the deep south, which is where a lot of stuff is grown so you'd think it wouldn't be a big deal. Ha! It's great that you can do it, but I think most people literally can't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Around here maybe, but try it in other parts of the country. I tried it in the deep south, which is where a lot of stuff is grown so you'd think it wouldn't be a big deal. Ha! It's great that you can do it, but I think most people literally can't.

Well, let's add that to the "plus" column for living in the DC Metro area, since there are always so many negative posts about being here

I wrote earlier about my daughter being on soy formula and I would just like to thank this thread. There have been so few nasty posts (the "Breastfeed" one was a little snarky but it was a viable alternative, although not once your child is on soy and your milk has obviously dried up and the days of wet nurses are long gone!). Anyway, I love the posts with where to buy meat and about that farm that delivers! I appreciate that so many of the organic-friendly Moms (like SurelyYouNest and others....I'm the one who wrote the "I don't feel guily" post so I remember the screen name from that, but I don't want to discount the others) are so helpful and not judgemental of those of us who are just doing a little here or there. These suggestions are helpful and lack judgement and that is so uncommon!

[Anonymous]

OP thanks for posting. I don't eat alot of soy so it never occurred to me it could be unhealthy for kids. Chicken nuggets are the only junk food my kids eat and I was excited a few weeks ago to get them eating the Morning Star chicken nuggets instead of the processed meat ones. They only eat it once a week but I may go back to the standard Tysons and Perdue.

[Anonymous]

Polyface has buyer's clubs throughout the region, but do be aware that they do use some grain feeds, which they buy locally, and which are not organic. Joel Miller prefers local to organic and says consumers should be willing to overlook a little atrazine in the grain because at least it's locally produced. I go to great efforts to buy almost all my food locally, but I do want it to be organic (though not necessarily certified).

[Anonymous]

I have been a DCUM since 2003. Over the years I have seen many messages asking about local, organic or natural, grassfed meat. There is a significant interest to support the health of ourselves, our environment and our animals. As such, I recently took up the challenge to provide ethical and healthy meats at bulk prices. No hormones, no antibiotics, no animal biproducts. It is grassfed which is far healthier than conventional organic. Good for the environment, good for the animals, good for local family farms and good for your family's health!

I have local, grassfed, organic beef available for pick up on the border of Silver Spring on May 29/30. I am offering it in 23-25lb boxes of mixed cuts at a bulk rate of $9/lb. If 25lbs is too much you can always split an order. I also have ground beef available for $6.50/lb.
Pre-order now to be sure of availability. The beef is cryovaced and freezer ready.

Check out my website for details: www.kolfoods.com/goodforkfoods.
Email to order: [e-mail]

Devora

[Anonymous]

Oh 9:42 - you should blog or write a book. I'd love to get educated by you. How did you go about selecting a butcher? Willing to give out the name? How do you CSA while working full-time? How do you learn what freezes well, and for how long, etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh 9:42 - you should blog or write a book. I'd love to get educated by you. How did you go about selecting a butcher? Willing to give out the name? How do you CSA while working full-time? How do you learn what freezes well, and for how long, etc?

9:45 here. I actually got most of my information from books and blogs. I would love to one day find the time to put together a website that reviews all of the local farms and tells people how to best do business with the farm...ie bulk buying/delivery/store sales/farm sales/u-pick and then a section of the website on how to handle the abundance of seasonal produce that hits at one time. For instance, when strawberries hit, they all come at once and peak for only a few weeks, how is one to best preserve the bounty for later use? How about carrots and can you store potatoes all winter in the garage? The answer is yes. Most potatoes are sitting around a full year before you buy them at the grocery store. Why not have a potato that you purchased locally that sat in your own garage or cellar, not some dirty storage space?

For the bulk meat from Polyface it could not possibly be easier. They team with a local butcher in their area and either deliver the meat to you (at .25/per lb delivery) or you can pick it up. You place your order with polyface and then they call you to tell you the cattle has been taken to slaughter and then you call the butcher and they walk you through the process of how you want your meat cut up. The meat then comes frozen, wrapped in freezer paper, and labeled. Same thing goes for the hog and of course the chicken is pretty easy. There are other farms that do this as well. The beef ends up costing me about $4/lb after all is said and done-really, these are Costco prices for gourmet meat.

Once you start eating this way, going to farmers markets, going to farms with the kids for a fun weekend, and getting excited about clean eating, you meet other people who do the same thing and you end up getting alot of great leads on where to find the best food. There is even a guy out in Loudoun who is building his own grainery and will be grinding local grain for sales (this won't be up and running for a year or 2). This is pratically unheard of! Due to the recent awareness this movement (informally called Slow Food) is really taking hold and people are stepping up to the plate and making these local farms really become relevant again. Here is a list of MUST reads for anyone who wants to learn more:

1. If you don't do anything at all PLEASE read Barbara Kingsolvers book "Animal Vegetable Miracle". I wish every kid in America had to read this as a requirement before graduating high school. Go on Amazon tonight and buy it, it is very entertaining and is NOT a boring dry food read.
2. Read "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan and if you want more in depth knowledge read his 1st book "The Omnivores Dilemma" don't start with Omnivores, as it is very intense and a bit technical.
3. Read "Real Food" by Nina Planck

A great local blog is www.theslowcook.blogspot.com

I really could go on and on and I'm sorry for hijacking this thread, I think there are a lot of people who want nutrious food that is handled and grown responsibly, but are so frustrated that they don't know where to start or don't have the money to shop at Whole Foods, I really feel passionate that there are great options, especially in this fertile area of the country we live in, the word just needs to spread. Farmers are not so good at marketing and websites.