We teamed up with green lifestyle expert, TV host, and author Sara Snow on a new video to show you five easy pantry swaps you can make to organic foods for a safer and healthier family.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCfBpwCmeQ8

Q: What experiences or influences in your life motivated you to dedicate your career to helping women lead healthy and sustainable lives?

A: I have always felt such a great sense of community and camaraderie with women. When I decided to become pregnant I became a pre-natal yoga teacher. I love being in a room of women in communion. I felt very supported by them and honored to be supporting them. When I gave birth to my first child I felt so blessed to be uplifted, educated, and empowered by such amazing women including my yoga teacher, mid-wife, doula, and friends. Having that sense of community got me through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. A sense of purpose and creativity was born from that period of my life.

Q: What was your “ah ha” organic moment?

A: Coming to the first Organic Center event 9 years ago and learning what was happening with our food system. I had been eating organically on and off most of my life, but that was a defining moment for me–when I wanted to join the mission.

Q: Tell us more about the purpose of pregnancy awareness month and how organic fits into it.

A: Pregnancy Awareness Month is an empowerment campaign designed to assist women in making educated, holistic, and confidant choices as they move into pregnancy and motherhood. The campaign also celebrates this time and encourages community both on grass roots levels as well as virtually. Pregnancy is a very vulnerable time. Everything you eat, drink, breathe, and touch will affect the growing baby inside a woman either positively or negatively.  At Pregnancy Awareness Month we want women to eat healthfully for themselves and the baby. Eating organically is a crucial component to eating healthfully. It’s at the top of the list.

Q: What strategies, tactics or activities do you use to inspire expectant moms to expand your mission by creating their own healthy communities?

A: We have an intensive social media campaign through our Facebook and Twitter pages, through our networks and partnerships, and on our website. We also help set up licensed events around the country. Anyone can get involved.

Q: What is your top tip you give new expecting moms on how to eat healthy and avoid toxins while pregnant?

A: Eat organic food whenever possible and drink filtered water.

Arsenic in the food supply: Questions and answers

with Chuck Benbrook, chief scientist, The Organic Center

Media coverage about findings of arsenic in brown rice syrup and other rice-based foods has failed to point out that arsenic is a concern for the entire food industry – in both conventional and organic systems.

Like lead, cadmium and mercury, arsenic is a chemical element formed over the eons and is part of the earth’s crust, occurring in soil and groundwater used for drinking and irrigation. The global supply basically is fixed, although levels and forms vary according to geography and soil type.

Some forms are more toxic than others. Mining and industrial processes result in movement of arsenical compounds in the environment.

Today, dangerously elevated levels of arsenic in soil tend to be mostly in areas downwind from industrial plants emitting smoke contaminated with arsenic, or in farming regions where arsenical herbicides or animal drugs containing arsenic (especially roxarsone) have been used. Arsenical herbicides still can be applied legally to golf courses, highway rights-of-way, sod farms, and cotton fields. Rice is about 10 times more efficient than any other grain in taking arsenic up from soil and much of the U.S. rice crop is grown on land formerly used to grow cotton.

There is no federal standard for arsenic in food and experts say the Environmental Protection Agency’s 10 part per billion (ppb) drinking water standard is not a comparable reference, nor is it necessarily a safe level.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization are tackling this issue now, but meaningful action to reduce exposures and risk are likely years away. In the meantime, PCC is trying to make sense of the often conflicting or incomplete data on actual levels in food, and what a safe level may be.

We’re part of an Organic Trade Association task force to examine the issues and make recommendations to the industry and consumers.We’ve asked our Congressional representatives to support a bill that would set a federal standard.

The Chief Scientist of The Organic Center, Dr. Chuck Benbrook, is a technical advisor to the industry task force.We asked Chuck to answer some of our – and your – pressing questions.

Q: Dr. Urvashi Rangan, senior scientist at Consumers Union, has said, “If you’re consuming foods with a lot of brown rice syrup ─ whether organic or not ─ and you have kids consuming a lot of those on a daily basis, you really want to take note. You may want to consider moderating the amounts of those foods that you eat for now until the government sets a standard, which it needs to do.”

Do you agree? And what does the data suggest a safe standard would be?

A: Yes, I agree, especially for young children. It’s surprising the recent Dartmouth study stirred up so much media attention and anxiety, since a number of studies over the last decade have reported similar levels of arsenic in a variety of rice-based products. Many of the studies end with ominous expressions of concern over arsenic exposure levels, especially for infants and small children consuming a significant amount of rice-based foods in the first years of life.

Why the heightened concern about babies and young children? A baby’s immature systems can’t excrete many toxic substances as efficiently as adults so they’re much more vulnerable to endocrine disruptors, such as arsenic.

The exposure level to a child for any contaminant, per pound of bodyweight, can be 10- or even 100-fold higher than an adult, and the risk levels 100- to 1,000-fold (or more) higher. This is why all developed countries now base their toxic chemical control programs on protecting the health of pregnant women, infants and children.Keeping them safe over-protects most of the rest of us.

Q: Shoppers are learning this news about arsenic and rice isn’t new ─ that studies in 2008, for instance, showed elevated levels of arsenic in rice milk prompting Denmark and the U.K. to advise against rice milk for children under age 3 or 4 1/2, respectively. Gluten-free customers especially are upset they weren’t informed of these concerns sooner because they rely on rice foods. Is it possible they’ve consumed excessive amounts of arsenic and how would they know?

A: Unfortunately, it is possible and on a global basis nearly certain for some populations at certain times. It’s shameful that government and the food industry haven’t addressed this documented problem more systematically. One wonders why pesticides and animal drugs containing arsenic are still in use.

For parents who want to minimize risks, it’s a good idea to avoid foods known to be high in arsenic, such as brown rice syrup, rice-drinks, and certain fruit juices, unless they come from a reliable source and assurances of safety are backed up by credible, transparent science.

There are sound reasons to focus more attention on arsenic levels and risks but parents shouldn’t feel overly anxious if their child has been fed a rice-based food or milk replacer. If parents are really concerned, simple urine, hair and nail tests can determine short-term or long-term, chronic exposures. A solid paper on measuring arsenic in the body by government scientists (Orloff,Mistry, and Metcalf)appeared in the August, 2009 “Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health”. The authors wrote:

“Measuring the urinary concentration of As is useful in assessing recent exposure to As, and high-quality reference ranges are available … Biomonitoring for As in hair and nails has been used in many studies and is particularly useful in evaluating chronic exposures to As. Interpreting the health implications … is limited by the small number of studies that provide information on the … relationship between biomonitoring test results and adverse health effects.”

Be aware these tests are expensive and require a specialized laboratory to quantify properly the levels present and their forms, since some forms are less toxic than others.

Q: What about juice? Consumers Union reported in January that only 41 percent of the non-organic apple and grape juices tested would meet its proposed standard of 3 ppb of total arsenic.

A: It meansthat a 22-pound toddler should drink no more than 4 ounces of juice a day, and a 35-pound child should drink no more than 6.75 ounces a day ─ about one juice box. This is based on a risk tolerance rate of 1 in 1,000 for cancer, which is far less strict than the standard commonly used by EPA for most other carcinogens (1 in 1,000,000), but it’s a level that the food industry can achieve.

Q: You say pears may have somewhat higher levels, too. Are organic choices safer?

A: Of course organics are safer. Organic standards always prohibited arsenical and other conventional pesticides. Certifiers have had authority to order soil testing when there’s cause for concern, and there’s discussion underway now to require testing for various residues as yet another check for safety. Organic standards also prohibit animal drugs containing arsenic, still used for non-organic chicken, turkey and hog production.

Reprinted with permission of the Sound Consumer, a publication of PCC Natural Markets

The Organic Center’s chief scientist, Dr. Chuck Benbrook, was quoted in the article; Benbrook spoke about how GMO’s have created weed resistance and substantially increased herbicide/pesticide use. He said “When it comes to the potential for health and environmental damage in farming communities, this is a train wreck unfolding.”

We’re hoping exposure in a mainstream mag like this will educate even more Americans about the problems with our food system. To read the full article pick up a copy of the May issue and turn to page 286.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YanjXUBxTJg

Choosing to go green for spring cleaning is important for many reasons. Foremost, by using these alternative choices in place of other conventional cleaning products, people can reduce their exposure to toxic chemical ingredients. According to the American Association of Poison Control Center’s 2010 report cleaning products are among the most significant sources of exposure to toxic chemicals in the home.  In fact, they’re responsible for roughly 7 percent of all toxic exposures reported to the U.S. Poison Control Centers each year. Our top green spring cleaning tips utilize natural and organic cleaning agents that are easy to use, affordable and safe for the home, children and even pets!

Using natural and organic solutions for cleaning also helps protect the environment. Natural products are biodegradable, non-toxic and they don’t require any extra packaging since most of them can be found in your home.  Plus, by using natural products, you’re ensuring that no additional toxins are released into the air, our water supply or our planet’s precious soils. This is especially important given that according to The Environmental Protection Agency, each person in the United States produces an average of four pounds of household hazardous waste (HHW) each year for a total of about 530,000 tons/year!

Click here for Seven Sustainable Swaps to Detox Your Home