Inspiration Video for Parents

Kids & Greens

Create a mouth-watering crisp green salad and set it on a plate before my children and they'll invariably push it to the very edges of the plate and ignore it.

Set out a tarp, one pot per kid, a big bucket of soil, seeds and water - and kids will spend an hour mixing up the soil and compost, poking seeds in, and sprinkling water to their hearts content! They'll delight in continuing to water, and watching daily for the first signs of life. They'll ooh and aah over the bright green shoots as they poke out of the dirt and run to check their progress every morning. Finally they'll watch carefully when you show them how to snap off a big juicy green leaf and take a bite and then try it for themselves. They'll marvel at how yummy it is and suddenly how much energy they have!

This was my experience planting spinach with a group of six 2-8 year olds. Yesterday each child harvested a couple leaves from the pots to add to our banana smoothie snack!

First Ever Raw Mom Summit

Interested in nutrition, pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting from natural, healthy and holistic perspectives? You'll absolutely want to check out the Raw Mom Summit starting online for free June 22nd.

Summit organizers, Shannon Leone (author of THE HEALTHY LUNCHBOX: Nutritious Meals Your Kids Won't Trade for a Lollipop!) and Tera Warner, (from www.rawmom.com) are teaming up to interview health, nutrition, and lifestyle leaders such as Susun Weed, Byron Katie, Jean Liedloff, Victoria Boutenko, David Wolfe, and many more.

I personally love getting free access to inspiring audio interviews to give me good ideas and keep me motivated, and connected. Check it out!

The Dirty Dozen & Clean 15

This past Spring the Environmental Working Group (EWG) released their latest Shopper's Guide to Pesticides.

You can find the full list of 47 fruits and vegetables that they tested and ranked here.

"An EWG simulation of thousands of consumers eating high and low pesticide diets shows that people can lower their pesticide exposure by almost 80 percent by avoiding the top twelve most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated instead. Eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables will expose a person to about 10 pesticides per day, on average. Eating the 15 least contaminated will expose a person to less than 2 pesticides per day. Less dramatic comparisons will produce less dramatic reductions, but without doubt using the Guide provides people with a way to make choices that lower pesticide exposure in the diet."

You Are Brilliant & the Earth is Hiring

Check out Paul Hawken's inspiring commencement speech at the University of Portland! The Yes Magazine website is also well worth your time.

Favorite quote - "Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.