More Ethical Products for Kids

Imagine how much money you would have to spend if you had to buy a crib, raised cot, daybed a junior bed and a longer bed while your kid grows. However, this is exactly what most of us do as our kids are growing.

One of the niftiest and greenest pieces of furniture to come along for kids in a long time is The Leander Bed. This is a functional bed that can be taken apart and put together again to turn into several different types of sleeping platforms including a full crib with rails and a long formal bed.
Another nifty gadget that has been around for a while are Color-Changing Eco Lamps. These are soft little plastic 'ghosts' that you plug into a wall. If you press the ghosts belly and it turns green then you have switched it on for an hour. If it is orange then you have switched it on for over four hours and if it is red you have switched it on for over eight hours. I like this product because it teaches your kids about conserving energy and timing energy usage. It is made by a company called Tio and it is not much more expensive than a night light.

One of the messiest baby accessories to deal with are plastic baby bibs. Finally a company is making biodegradable baby bibs. Cocoboheme's bib feature big beautiful pictures of chickens, pigs, frogs and other animals. They are made out of potato starch and are solvent free. This means that your baby can suck on the bib without you having to worry about he or she eating chemicals. You can use them more than a couple of times before you have to throw them out and after you do they do not leave a big stubborn carbon foot print like typical plastic baby bibs.

Did you know there are companies out there that are now making eco-dough, eco-fingerpaint and eco-puzzles? Eco Kids, which is a family based company based out of California is now making all of these things out of plant and fruit extracts. The play dough and paint is made without toxic metals, dyes or chemicals.

All of the containers the toys come in are biodegradable and the puzzles are made out of Radiata Pine which is a wood that is sustainably forested in New Zealand.

It is nice to buy products for your children that do not have you feeling guilty about a thing.

Healthy Sugar Substitutes

My kids have sweet tooths and so do I and my husband. Still we all know how sugar is supposed to be bad for you.
The first thing that you have to do is cut the level of refined sugar that you take on board every day. This means that you must cut right back on sugar rich foods such as cakes, cookies, candies, chocolate, jellies and the like and if you currently ladle sugar all over your breakfast cereal in the morning, stop doing it right now.
In addition, if you take sugar with your tea or coffee, try to wean yourself off sweetening your drinks or if this is something that you cannot imagine doing, try a natural sweetener like stevia or sucanat as alternative.
The first of these natural sweeteners is somewhat controversial in that it is approved by the FDA as a dietary supplement but not as a sweetener. Nevertheless, even though it is a little expensive, the extreme sweetness of stevia means that a little goes an awful long way, so the cost per cup of tea or coffee is probably no different to cost of the sugar you are currently buying.
On the other hand, sucanat is a one-for-one direct replacement for processed sugar and as always, there are plenty of places on the net where you can obtain both of these substances.
The point about having too much sugar in your diet is that not only does all of that instant energy tend to get piled on as fat if it is not used, processed sugar is bad for your immune system and particularly for your skin. Consequently, if you consume too much processed sugar or products made from sugar, it is pretty much a given that you are going to suffer boils and other skin problems.
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that you have to cut all sweet foods from your diet, but what you should do is replace the sweets that you used to use with natural sweet substances wherever possible. For example, eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is an essential of any well-balanced diet, and if you want to boost your immune system, then you can replace some of the sweetness that you have lost with the sweetness of fruit.
Furthermore, there are lots of other entirely natural sweet substances that you can use to satisfy your sweet tooth. The sweet syrup that is commercially extracted from Agave comes in three different variations, ranging from a ‘light version' that has little traceable taste of the plant (just sweetness) to the version that carries a noticeable taste of the plant itself.
You then have reliable old standbys like maple syrup as well as less known but entirely natural sweeteners such as barley malt, date sugar, fruit juice concentrate and sorghum syrup.
There is also honey with some varieties such as manuka honey from New Zealand having acknowledged antibacterial qualities as well as being stunningly sweet as well. Indeed, as you can read on the website, the antibacterial qualities of this particular honey are so pronounced that you can even apply it to wounds for its antibacterial qualities!