The landscape of children’s health has changed. No longer are our children guaranteed a healthy childhood – not in the face of the current rates of autism, food allergies, diabetes, childhood cancers and obesity. The mission of the AllergyKids Foundation is to inspire change in the health of children by protecting them from chemicals recently added to the US food supply – chemicals not found in children’s foods around the world.

Our goal is simple and straightforward: we want to protect the American children from the chemicals now found in our food supply and to place the same value placed on the lives of the American children that has already been placed on the lives of children in other developed countries. In our efforts to achieve this, the AllergyKids Foundation works to:

1. Educate parents and caregivers about food grown without chemical additives, growth hormones and toxins.
2. Address the increasing prevalence of chemical additives, growth hormones and toxins now found in the U.S. food supply and its impact on the health of our children.
3. Provide instruction and resources to help individuals and families reduce their exposure to hidden chemicals in their diets.
4. Cultivate team building and grassroots movements that drive change in our schools, communities, organizations, and federal food policy.
5. Inspire choices that enhance overall quality of life, improve nutrition and create change in the health of our communities.

Our mission is a mighty one, but we believe that our children deserve nothing less. We can accomplish so much together, as you have demonstrated since we launched the AllergyKids Foundation on Mother’s Day 2006. We have shared your stories with the press, on CNN, the Today Show and in the New York Times, and provided a valuable resource and tool, The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About it, published by Random House in May 2009. As we work to do more, we are so thankful for the heroic work that all of you are doing and continually inspired by your stories of courage, hope, tenacity and faith.
Together, we can achieve the healthy childhoods that our children so deserve. And at the AllergyKids Foundation, we believe that hope is the knowledge that change in possible. The challenge is in the moment. The time is now.

Today’s headlines are enough to make any mother wary. As we battle our toddlers in the grocery store, we hardly have the energy left to decipher the headlines: Organics aren’t healthier, death panels await health care reform, bankers receive record bonuses, swine flu pandemics swirl. What has happened to the world that our children are inheriting? And does anyone care?

Perhaps we should. Because the children of today represent the economy of tomorrow. Today’s parents and grandparents are raising the “think tanks” that are going to be the solutions to tomorrow’s problems . Today’s children will reinvent energy technology, redefine reform and regulations and enhance agricultural productivity in ways that we can not even begin to imagine. But only if we give them the tools with which to do it.

Obama insisting on school and education, with the support of Laura Bush, is a start. But more fundamentally, what about health? Today, 1 in 3 American children now has autism, allergies, ADHD or asthma. 90% of the worlds ADHD medications are prescribed to the American kids, while the US only represent 5% of the world’s population. According to MSNBC, sales of EpiPens are up, while test scores are down. And according to the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 2 African American kids and 1 in 3 Caucasian kids born in the year 2000 (that is this year’s 4th Graders) will be insulin dependent by the time they reach adulthood.

And while Kraft, Coca Cola and Wal-Mart formulate their products differently for children overseas (with reduced fat, salt and synthetic ingredient content), our National School Lunch Program continues to be a dumping ground for the remnants of the agrichemical corporations who are unable to dispose of their technology laced corn and soy in grocery stores, restaurants or to the livestock industry. And while we allocate $600 billion to the Pentagon in 2009, we only allocated $9 billion to the National School Lunch Program and a meager $2.4 billion to the FDA.

And we wonder why our children have earned the title “Generation Rx or why our economy is heaving under the burden of health care costs.

According to the World Health Organization, the US ranks 37th out of 40 countries (on par with Slovenia) in terms of “health care”. According to the American Cancer Society, the US has the highest rate of cancer of any country in the world, with migration studies showing that if you are to move here from somewhere like Japan, your likelihood of developing cancer increases four-fold.

We’ve done a lousy job of preventing illness in our country. And while that’s been good for Big Pharma, the costs being born by the majority of American citizens now far outweigh the benefits being reaped by a few corporate ones.

As we watch family members suffer from diabetes, cancers and asthma, it begs the question: Why? Why are these conditions often referred to as “American epidemics” in international publications like The Economist? Why does health care spending consume over 16% of our economy here in the US, while its associated economic burden in France is closer to 8%? Why does Starbucks spend more on health care than it does on coffee?

The reasons? There are many. But perhaps the most differentiating is that in our country, sickness sells. With Money Driven Medicine, there is little incentive to prevent illness. Sickness is good for business. Disease enhances earnings. So if the processed food we buy in Aisle 9 contains ingredients linked to hyperactivity in children, then rather than ban the use of that synthetic ingredient and insist on the use of a more natural alternative, as countries around the world have done, we simply have to walk a few aisles over in the grocery store to pick up our ADHD medicines from Aisle 2.

And our economy hums along. Or does it?

In 1946, Harry Truman said, “A nation is only as healthy as its children”. And 50 years ago, we paid close heed, reaping the rewards of today’s Bill Gates and Meg Whitmans. Thirty years ago, we were still paying attention, as evidenced by today’s Mark Zuckerbergs and Sergey Brins.

But what about tomorrow? Given that our future productivity, economic viability and financial stability are contingent on the health of today’s children, perhaps we should pause and consider the seeds that we are sowing with Generation Rx.

And if you are inclined, you can Do Something about it and be part of the solution.

In the meantime, I may listen to a few earnings’ calls as evidence continues to mount regarding health risks like infertility that these bio-engineered foods present. I may also clean out my cabinets in an effort to reduce my family’s exposure to these genetically engineered organisms now found in conventional corn, soy and milk in the United States.

And as I do, I will reflect on the headlines of 2008, The Audacity of Greed, and the impact that the corporations, lobbyists and bankers spinning through the “revolving door” have on our policy decisions, while the theme song from Donald Trump’s TV show, The Apprentice, runs through my head:

“Money, Money, Money, Mon-ey, MON-EY!”

To learn more about Food Politics, please visit: www.foodpolitics.com, FOOD POLITICS at www.allergykids.com, or the Environmental Working Group at www.ewg.org

As I struggled to reconcile what I was learning about these corporations, their profit-driven strategies, our government and the global food crisis, I was fascinated by an article by Michael Pollan, “Playing God in the Garden” and a recent Catholic News document from the Vatican stating that “the responsibility for the food crisis “is in the hands of unscrupulous people who focus only on profit and certainly not on the well-being of all people. If one wants to pursue GMOs (genetically modified organisms) one can freely do so, but without hiding that it’s a way to make more profits” given that “a more just system of distribution and not the manufacturing of genetically modified foods is the key to addressing the problem.”

According to the Wall Street Journal‘s Money and Investing section, one of these corporations has recently seen their stock price rise 170 percent.

As the Vatican cries “moral foul”, is this a signal that there’s more fire than smoke on the horizon? We will have to wait and see. So let’s circle back tomorrow here at www.drgreene.com!

For those savvy eaters in our nation of 300 million eaters, you might be stunned to learn that according to the United States Department of Agriculture, the United States is the world’s largest corporate producer of genetically engineered organisms. Since the introduction of these bio-engineered ingredients into our food just over ten years ago, we are also one of the only developed countries allowing these ingredients into our food supply (stats from USDA/ERS: Rapid growth of adoption of genetically engineered crops continues in the US).

As I continued to learn more from the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, I also learned that no human trials had been conducted to assess the safety of consuming these genetically modified and bio-engineered foods, prompting government agencies around the world – from Europe to Russia to Australia – to either ban or label these ingredients due to the health risks that they may present.

Through documentaries like The Future of Food and a May 2008 Vanity Fair investigative story , which detail the remarkable relationship that the agrichemical, food corporations have with our government, I learned about a “revolving door” that exists between the food industry and our government agencies. Candidly, the stories read much like a James Bond movie or George Clooney’s Michael Clayton and reminded me of a recent New York Times piece titled “The Guys From Government Sachs” about the “revolving door” between the investment banking industry and our government.

Struggling with this knowledge? I was, too, so head back to www.drgreene.com tomorrow to learn what we can do about this!

For those of you who read yesterday’s article, you know what a mess our food supply has become.

In the last eight years, the Food and Drug Administration, charged with safeguarding the health of our nation’s 300 million eaters, has not only seen its budget decline but has also seen its staffing levels fall behind its workload.

From 2003 to 2006, the number of food safety inspections conducted by the agency dropped by 47 percent, leading its own Science Board, chaired by Barbara McNeil, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Department of Health Policy at Harvard Medical School and a radiologist at the Brigham and Women’s in Boston, to declare that the agency could “no longer fulfill its mission without substantial and sustained additional appropriations.”

In “an alarming report,” the New York Times stated that the FDA had also declared that “American lives at risk” and that the FDA lacks resources and “can no longer ensure the safety of the food supply.”

And I thought all I had to worry about was the declining stock market and sick kids.

As I dug into additional research from organizations like the Cato Institute, the Environmental Working Group and the Royal Society of Chemistry, I learned that a lot of the scientific data highlighted in the press has been funded by the food industry and propagated by groups with legitimate sounding names like the American Council on Science and Health. I also learned that in the last ten years, our food supply had been chemically engineered in order to enhance product shelf life, productivity and profitability of food corporations.

But if you want to learn what the USDA has to say about all of this, I invite you to join us tomorrow here at www.drgreene.com to learn more!

And anyone that eats can attest to the utter confusion that our food supply has become. As headlines swirl about beef recalls large enough to feed every American two hamburgers, baby formula laced with melamine, and controversial additives used to preserve processed foods, eaters can’t help but yearn for the days when all we had to worry about was contaminated spinach.

To be candid, I was never much of a foodie. When I heard about Michael Pollan’s PBS Interview with Bill Moyers, I couldn’t relate when he said that his “path was through the garden“. My path was through the aisles at Costco and the tubes of blue yogurt, since I saw the organic thing as a lifestyle choice that I couldn’t afford.

But as 2008 headlines exposed our tainted financial system, stories followed about our tainted food supply. As I read about baby formulas and jars of salsa laced with who-knows-what, I was left slack-jawed as I learned that the financial industry wasn’t the only industry that had experienced deregulation, lack of transparency and failed oversight.

But if you want to learn more, you’ll have to check back in with me tomorrow here on www.drgreene.com. See you soon!

Whoah.  What just happened?  Does the end of this year at all resemble what we thought we knew twelve months ago?

As I reflect on 2008, it seems as though the world as we knew it redefined itself.  As the stock market fell, heroes like Michael Phelps and Dara Torres inspired us, as new players like Sarah Palin, Rachel Maddox, and Rick Warren emerged on the scenes.  And while headlines told us about toxicity in our financial system, our food supply and our politicians, comedians kept us laughing when we otherwise might have cried.

Somehow we survived it all: the downturns, the corporate scandals and the crises.  And we survived with our hope, faith and dreams still in tact.  Because that is who we are.

We are mothers, fathers, inspirers, creators, nurturers, and care givers.  We are teachers, lawyers, accountants, nurses and writers.  And the future rests in our resiliently remarkable hands.

We are soundly educated, compassionately connected and have been given the tools to affect the change that is now required to restore the world to one worthy of our children’s inheritance.

The opportunity is tremendous.  The adventure is ours for the taking, and the calling is that of our children’s voices asking us to use our hearts and our minds to seek to return the world to one that they deserve.

Yet as the world as we know it changes, we must not be daunted by the enormity of the task at hand.  But rather, we should collectively engage our passions, our hearts and our minds and collaborate on how we can each take one tiny step forward, just as our children first learned to do as toddlers.

Together, if we each do our part, we can restore the integrity that is now lacking in our system, our food supply, our banks and our government.   And through these small courageous acts, we could create a ripple of hope whose force is more powerful than any one of us could achieve individually.

What steps can we take?  Cutting back on a digital cable package in order to buy more fruits and veggies?  Reducing the artificial colors in your child’s diet?  Switching out just one conventional lightbulb for a compact fluorescent lightbulb since they last ten times longer?

Perhaps it is carpooling with a friend, reaching out to a local Congressman or serving on the nutrition board at your child’s school.

As we stand together, with our children’s hands in ours, can you imagine the collective strength of what we could achieve if we each took just one step forward?

In the words of poet June Jordan, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

And as I look into the eyes of our children, we are the ones that they have been waiting for, too.

Fluorescent orange mac n cheese noodles: Replace the bright orange brand with the white cheddar brand (it really does help reduce your child’s unnecessary exposure to synthetic chemicals).

Or if your kids are like mine and freak out, then stick with the bright orange, only don’t use the ENTIRE packet of bright orange powder the next time you mix the box up – use 90% of the pack of fluorescent orange powder mix, then slowly cut back to 70% of the pack, then 50% of the pack?..until they are less dependent on seeing that bright orange bowl of noodles!

2) Less is more

Look for the following on food labels:

• Ingredient lists with FEWER ingredients
• Ingredients with SHORTER names
• Ingredients that you can PRONOUNCE
• Ingredients that your GRANDMOTHER cooked with

3) Organic Options

Oh, how we wish that organic food was easily affordable! Because by law, organic food is not allowed to contain these synthetic chemicals, genetically engineered proteins and chemicals and all of the other harmful substances we’ve been discussing in our posts this week!

Unfortunately, it is these safety laws that make organic food more expensive, since organic farmers must adhere to strict standards and testing when it comes to ensuring the safety of their products.

So if you can’t afford an entirely organic shopping cart, then choose ONE THING in your kitchen to convert to organic, consider choosing something that your children consume a lot of (in our case it was milk, in yours, it might be bagels). Just making that one change will help reduce a huge heaping serving of chemicals in your kids diets!

As we converted our family over to a more organic diet, our pediatric bills actually dropped…..a lot! So the money we saved at the doctor’s office helped pay for that extra nutritious food!

NOTE: given that different children have different allergies and sensitivities, make sure to read ALL labels before feeding your children, especially as manufacturers often change their ingredients unannounced.

Start with Baby Steps

The important thing is to remember not to make the perfect the enemy of the good and that ANY start is a good start!

And Remember….

This is a slow and steady process. It will not happen overnight (even though you may want it to!), so you may want to consider approaching it the same way you approached potty training or weaning your child from the sippy cup…a slow and steady process!

Additional Resources

Learn more about the importance of reducing your child’s exposure to environmental toxins at www.drgreene.com, , Healthy Child Healthy World and the Environmental Working Group
Learn about Additives and Nutrition Action at the Center for Science in the Public Interest
Additive Free and Preservative Free Food at Feingold Association
Additional Books, Films and Resources at AllergyKids.com

As the population gets sicker, including our kids, the laundry list of chronic conditions grows – diabetes, asthma, allergies and ADHD. On top of that, the cost of health care continues to climb.

Since 2001, the health premiums for a family of four have doubled; health premiums are expected to surge another 6 percent in 2009; and spending on health care has been growing faster than the economy. Among developed countries, the US faces the biggest burden with an estimated cost equivalent of 1.2 percent of GDP in 2007. That means that out of all of the developed countries in the world, we spend the most on health care.

So how much is that exactly? Well, our GDP measures the total market value of all goods and services produced within our country and is estimated to be somewhere around $14 trillion dollars. So if you calculate just one percent of that, you end up with about $140 billion dollars (can’t you hear Dr. Evil saying that?!). That’s how much we spend on health care.

$140 billion dollars. Can you even get your head around how much money that is? Let’s get a feel for how much ONE billion is…

If you were to count one billion seconds (not 140 billion, but just one billion), it would take you 31.7 years of continuous counting. To get to two billion, would take 63.4 years, to get to three billion…well, you probably wouldn’t live that long. So you wouldn’t stand a chance of counting up to 140 billion. And that’s how much we spend on health care costs here in the US.

Which means we have less money to spend on things like groceries, new shoes or gymnastic practices. Not only is lost productivity on health care costs exacting a heavy burden, but according to the Congressional Budget Office, Americans are faced with increasingly difficult choices between health care and other priorities. So we also have less money for new cars, new houses or paying off the debt we’ve got on both! A perfect example of how calamitous this has become comes from the New York Times who recently stated that “Starbucks pays more for health care than it does for coffee”!

As these health care costs continue to spiral out of control, they are creating a burden not only on households across the country, but also on our health care system, our corporations and our economy. Not to mention on our personal pocketbooks!