Welcome to Green Diva Mom, your home for living green, inside and out. More than just a community of moms, Green Diva Mom is for moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents and siblings—anyone who cares about raising healthy children and healthy living on all levels, from what we put into the environment down to what we put in our own bodies. Check back daily for information, news, tips product reviews and recipes for leading a healthy life without sacrificing style.

ⓒ iStockPhoto - gmnicholas

It’s a school night and you are cleaning out your child’s lunchbox so it’s ready to go in the morning, only to realize that almost none of it was eaten. Some days it may feel pointless packing your child a lunch at all. The problem is that lunchtime is also playtime at school. Lunch needs to be a non-fussy affair so kids can get on with the business of playing with friends. Really, they don’t eat; they graze. Therefore, the lunches that get eaten are both appealing and easy to eat. Think “quick, healthy eats”, and offer a variety each day, and you will see a difference. Your success rate will be even higher if you go shopping with your child and have them help in the selection process. They will be emotionally invested in the choices they make, and the lunchbox will come back emptier (if not completely empty).

Finger food is king in the lunchbox world. Begin with a hearty main dish, such as a wrap. The outside wrapper can be a tortilla or flavored wrap, or try an Asian Fusion version, using a rice wrapper to hold the ingredients together. Fill with your favorite protein option, such as tofu strips, shrimp or chicken strips, topped with thinly-sliced cucumber, carrots, chopped lettuce and sprouts. Another easy option is a burrito filled with beans and cheese and topped with extras, such as avocado. (continue reading…)

As a vegetarian (and a female) I pay a lot of attention to my protein and iron intake since I can’t just eat a hunk of red meat and call it a day. Blacks beans are an excellent and inexpensive source of protein, iron, and fiber as well as folate and manganese.

While it’s nice to have a can of beans in the pantry, I find them to have a metallic taste and too much salt. In addition, most brands of packaged beans (the notable exception being Eden Foods) have BPA in the lining of their cans. To avoid all of these problems I like to cook a huge pot of dried beans at once then keep some in the refrigerator and some in the freezer. There are many variations on quick-soaking methods, crockpot beans, and pressure cookers. Here is my preferred and simple method using only a bowl, a pot, and the stove. (continue reading…)

ⓒ iStockPhoto - feverpitched

Whole foods - the general idea of eating close to nature, not the supermarket of the same name - provides the foundation for many healthful dietary styles. At the core, whole foods are basically foods that you could identify from your fridge or pantry if you went out to a garden, orchard or farm. You could go to a barn and pick up an egg, but not a chicken nugget. In a field, you could see tomatoes, but not ketchup, beans but not a burrito.

As with so many food styles that have advocates, whole foods have some fuzzy borders. Depending on who you ask, certain grains like oats may or may not be whole foods, since they require milling to be edible. Entire websites are devoted to what extent animal foods can be whole foods, like whether a boiled lobster is whole food while a grilled chicken breast isn’t. With the fuzzy borders comes myths about the nature and capabilities of whole foods. (continue reading…)

An occupational therapist at Packard Children’s Hospital shows parents what we need to consider when choosing a backpack that won’t cause back aches or injury.

ⓒ iStockPhoto - CagriOner

Allergen warning labels are everywhere. I once came across a transparent plastic bag of whole cashews bearing the warning “May contain cashews” and couldn’t help thinking to myself that, labeling aside, a person with a life-threatening allergy really ought to be able to identify the whole, intact form of his or her allergen. In my kitchen now, I have a tin of “Jumbo Hand-Cooked Virginia Peanuts” with a boldface warning “Contains Peanuts” and a box of nonfat dry milk powder with the “Contains milk ingredients” warning, which I mentally put in the same category as the warning label not to use my snow thrower on my roof or put my electric waffle iron in an automatic dishwasher.

There are practical business (really, legal) reasons for putting warning labels on products where allergen is an intended ingredient rather than a contaminant, like “Contains wheat” on the jar of wheat germ. With the way industrial food goes these days, the line of what’s an “expected” ingredient in anything is getting harder to find. Cool Whip, long engineered as a bastion of dairy-free fluffiness, actually has milk in it now (well, sodium caseinate, which was once part of milk). Given the litigious society we live in, companies may find a few obvious warning labels preferable to defending a lawsuit, so they develop a blanket policy of allergen advisories on all of their products that contain common allergens, whether it’s an intended ingredient or a cross-contaminant.

There’s a down side to the proliferation of allergy warning labels. People are ignoring them. A 2007 study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found a drop of 10% in the attention paid to food allergy warning labels between 2003 and 2006. The surveys the study was based on were conducted at patient conferences for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network; if anyone were to need to pay attention to allergen warnings, those are the folks, mostly parents of children with serious food allergies. (continue reading…)

Photo: Janet Harriett

You can make this with fresh or thawed frozen fruits.

3 cups plain, unsweetened applesauce
1 cup sliced strawberries
1 cup sliced peaches with peels on
2 kiwi, peeled
1 cup blueberries
Whipped cream or vanilla yogurt (optional) (continue reading…)

©iStockphoto.com - bunnylady

We’re well into August, but summer’s not done yet! Depending on where you live, high temperatures and hot weather can still stick around for quite some time. For many people, taking in a dip in a swimming pool is a favorite way to beat the heat and cool down. But have you ever considered the environmental impact of swimming pools? Obviously, they require lots of water, as well as chemicals and energy to run the pumps and filters that keep them clean. The following tips can help you reduce water loss, minimize the use of potentially-harmful chemicals and lower the energy needed to maintain your pool.

Choose Eco-Friendly Materials to Build Your Pool

If you’re building a new pool, opt for recycled, re-purposed materials. Doing so will keep these materials from winding up in a landfill and can also slash your energy output. An eco-friendly option for a pool foundation is ICF (Insulating Concrete Foam), which is “made of concrete mixed with other materials,” such as “Styrofoam coffee cups, wood waste, shavings and chips,” to help minimize heat loss, explains the Web site, GreenYour.com (1). Old recycled glass can be formed into new pool tiles, creating mosaics or patterns on the pool floor or around the pool. Water-based, low-VOC paints are great choices, too (1). (continue reading…)