In 2009, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found an average of 287 toxins, including BPA, mercury, fire retardants, and pesticides, in the umbilical cord blood of American infants. If your baby is exposed to numerous toxic compounds in utero, it lengthens the period of exposure to carcinogens, thereby making your child more susceptible to cancer and other diseases later in life.
This underscores the importance of minimizing your child's risk for exposure to toxic compounds in the foods you feed him.
Yet, so many well- intentioned moms unknowingly add to ... infant formulas (in plastic bottles) during their first several months, then hit their tender little immune systems with cereal, which is the LAST thing they should be eating because it's mostly grain, which turns into sugar.
Now, baby food manufacturers are compounding the problem by suggesting that busy moms feed their toddlers highly processed food sold in convenient plastic tubs. As if that isn't enough, you microwave it first, further destroying and denaturing its nutritional value and promoting leaching of toxic chemicals right out of the plastic and into your baby's meal.
When you look at what we, as a society, are sacrificing by feeding our children processed foods, together with the amount of sugar our youth are consuming from candy and juices, sodas and further disabling their immune systems by bombarding them with 29 vaccines by the age of two—then letting them spend their days idly sitting in front of televisions and computers—it's no wonder we have the unhealthiest children in generations.
Western children, as a whole, are showing this damage in the form of lowered IQs, mood and behavioral problems, skyrocketing obesity rates, and multiple forms of chronic disease that are occurring at earlier ages.
Some baby foods are worse than junk foods.
Microwave Ovens
I am not a fan of cooking foods in the microwave for a number of reasons, which I've covered extensively in this past article. Microwaved food has been associated with the following problems:
* Causes your food to vibrate at very high frequencies, changing your food's chemical structure, structurally deforming its molecules and potentially making nutrients unrecognizable and unusable by your body.
* Creates the formation of free radicals and carcinogenic molecules.
* May result in actual changes to cellular DNA.
* May corrupt or destroy biophotons (light energy in living food).
* Some microwave ovens leak microwave radiation into the surrounding environment.
If you want to make use of your microwave, use it to clean your dishrags and sponges, but not to prepare food for your family.
Please Remember: Microwave Ovens and Plastics Don't Mix
One of the greatest concerns about microwave ovens is what happens to plastics and the food they contain when you heat them in this way.
When you put "microwave safe" plastic into your microwave oven, you're not going to see it bubble or melt, or see sparks fly or smell toxic fumes. You won't see or taste plastic particles in your food. As the microwave heats the plastic, the chemical bonds break silently and invisibly. If your plastic is scratched or worn, the degradation is worse.
So, as long as you stick to "BPA-free" plastics, you're okay, right?
Not necessarily so, according to what researcher and BPA expert Frederic vom Saal of the University of Missouri has discovered during his decade of research. Vom Saal states, "There is no such thing as microwavable plastic." His studies revealed leaching of BPA from all plastics tested.
BPA is a major ingredient in polycarbonate plastics, and those are often combined with other plastics, although it may not say so on the label. Polycarbonates are used in the following products (this list is by no means comprehensive):
* Canned food and soda can linings
* Plastic milk jugs
* Plastic wrap
* "Microwave-safe" plastic dishware
* Nalgene and other water bottles
* Baby bottles and sippy cups
* Toys and pacifiers
Libra