Anne, the Creativity Alchemist at Smart Foods Healthy Kids emailed me this week, to explain about their ambition to help families wanting to be healthier, and dealing with food allergies.
Creativity Alchemist – isn’t that a fabulous job title? I so want to be an alchemist when I grow up. Their CEO’s title is Chief of Belief, and that’s pretty wonderful too.
Do go and look – this does look like it is a great resource, and the fairly new blog is entertaining – pooping on Batman, anyone?
They argue that fruit and vegetables shouldn’t be hidden in foods, and I agree absolutely. It’s never worked for me anyway (just makes my children look really closely at all homemade cakes to check for things that shouldn’t be there – and refuse anything they have doubts about), and I would like my children to be able to identify fruit and vegetables, to know what they taste like, and to actively enjoy them.
I’d like that to happen … not saying it is. Did you see the group of schoolchildren on the Jamie Oliver programme about school meals who couldn’t identify any of the fairly ordinary vegetables he showed them? Shocking.
Another shocking fact is one commented on by Smart Foods Healthy Kids, which I wasn’t aware of: that in the US, 1,358 pesticides and herbicides can legally remain as food residue. To see the Maximum Residue Levels for pesticides in the UK, see the Pesticides Safety Directorate documents, which provides maximum levels for 295 pesticides. To think I didn’t even know there was a Pesticides Safety Directorate … Note, though, that this UK list is for pesticides only, and doesn’t include any residues left from herbicides, fertilisers or any other additions, so the UK number will almost certainly be a lot closer to the 1,358 quoted by the Environmental Protection Agency in the US.
Scary.
Smart Foods, Healthy Kids offers an monthly newsletter, so if you’re interested, this might be a good way of staying up to date.
Footnote:
If you haven’t voted in the 2007 Weblog Awards today, please consider voting for Free From … I’d really like not to be the last blog over the line in my category, and they must be closing the voting very very soon.
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I’ve written a book summarising what we’ve learnt over 20 years of dealing with the gluten free diet, and it might be just what you’re looking for. It packs the lessons we’ve learned into what I hope is a helpful and straightforward guidebook. It’s available on Amazon, as a paperback or for your Kindle… |
I watched the entire series of Jamie’s school experiment, and the follow up. It’s really interesting! Voted for you BTW. :)
It is very interesting indeed – I’ve heard head teachers point out that the number of children taking school dinners has declined (with a knock-on effect on their budgets, I suppose) which was an entirely unexpected effect.
I sat with my nearly-teen daughters watching one of those diet programmes yesterday, where they showed the effects of eating junk foods and chocolate rather than fruit and vegetables … I hope the lesson went in.
Thanks for voting!
For your information…
If you have a child that is gluten intolerant, TEVA’s amoxicillin FOS contains gluten. It is marketed by TEVA but it is made by Clonmel. TEVA sold that product since 1998 and I don’t know if they still market that product.
Thank you for telling us, Barbara. It’s always worth checking that any medicines we need to give are gluten free.
I have asked regularly, in the past, and we’ve never been prescribed one that does contain gluten – but perhaps we’ve just been lucky. Or perhaps, as I have heard, all prescribable medicines in the UK are gluten free? I should check up on that – it is a very interesting point.
Yes…I have always been able to take amoxicillan but this last time it made me throw up by day 2. Everyone kept telling me it was kind of impossible to suddenly become allergic to it… As it turns out, it is Teva brand. Since I’m gluten intolerant, I am going to vouch for the fact that it appears to still contain gluten.
Hi Angela – thank you for confirming that. And poor you! I hope you’ve managed to find one you can take …