<i>Peaceful Revolution:</i> When Did It Get So Hard To Be A Mom?

Ten years ago, we didn't worry about sending a peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into school with our children, and we didn't medicate our eight year olds to get them through the school day.
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Since when did it get so hard to be a mom? Ten years ago, we didn't worry about sending a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into school with our children; we didn't medicate our eight year olds to get them through the school day; and the movie Rain Man was all we knew of autism. Today, it is estimated that 50 percent of Hispanic and African-American children will develop diabetes, that 1 in 90 boys has autism, and that 1 in 4 children has asthma. Pediatrics just reported that from 2002-2005, there was a 103 percent increase in diabetes medication for children, a 47 percent increase in asthma medication, a 41 percent increase in ADHD medication and a 15 percent increase in high cholesterol medicine.

How did our children get so sick?

As a proud, American mother of four children, I was stunned to learn that chemicals that have been added to the U.S. food supply over the last ten years that have either been banned or labeled in countries like Australia, Europe, the UK, Japan ....even Russia because of the health risks they present. I was stunned to learn that no human studies have ever been conducted on the long term safety of these chemical additives, so our children have literally been engaged in a live human trial for the last ten years without our informed consent!

Did you know that food additives and dyes have been linked to asthma and ADHD?

Did you know that insecticides have been engineered into our food supply? Yikes!

Did you know that there is a synthetic growth hormone was introduced into milk in 1994? Yuck!

Did you know that Kraft doesn't include Yellow #5 in the mac 'n cheese boxes they sell overseas?

Did you know that allergies are one of the first indicators that a child's immune system is compromised? Some might even say that children with allergies are our "canaries in the coal mine," warning us of how dangerous our food supply has become.

If we stop to listen to these little "canaries," we can learn a lot! And we can go a long way in protecting the health of our little ones!

If you need a little inspiration or a bit of background information on what's going on with our food, log onto to allergykids.com, search our Resources page, learn a little (or a lot!) about simple steps that you can take to protect the health of your family. We've been featured in the New York Times, on Good Morning America, on CBS News with Katie Couric and in other news media talking about the toxins in our food supply and the impact that they are having on the health of our children (and all of us!).

And feel free to ask me a question. We've built out a great team of experts, including pediatricians, scientists, neurologists and researchers from around the world to help you take care of your family! Check out allergykids.com and then circle back to momsrising.org and let's get to work, as there is so much that you can do to take control of what may seem like an out of control situation!

A Peaceful Revolution is a blog about innovative ideas to strengthen America's families through public policies, business practices, and cultural change. Done in collaboration with MomsRising.org, read a new post here each week.

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