And about that Clothesline...

In my last post I mentioned using a clothesline as a way to increase movement.  Most of us probably aren't going to install a permanent line in our yards, or maybe don't even have yards.  I rarely dry clothes outside because I like my labor-saving devices and don't like bugs and bird poop on my clothes.  But I like knowing I can do so on occasion.

Apparently not everyone is so lucky.  Many Home Owners Associations (HOAs) do not allow clotheslines, partly out of safety concerns.

It turns out that people, including children, can ride into wires, fences and clotheslines when riding vehicles such as motorcycles or ATVs.  A study looked at cases of clothesline injuries sustained by children driving ATVs, and recommended that children should never drive ATVs.  The study did not suggest no one should use clotheslines.

There are also concerns about the unsightliness of clothes hanging to dry on condo balconies or in developments with shared common areas.  You know the saying:  "Don't dry your clean laundry in public".  I guess when people pay for a view or a certain aesthetic in their neighborhood they aren't thinking of laundry lines.

A few years back my sister Emily wrote about trying to use a clothesline in her neighborhood in Los Angeles.  Where there was lots of sun for drying clothes and an influential anti-clothesline HOA.

Suspiciously, this was followed a few years later by a Doonesbury comic strip on the topic of clotheslines banned by HOAs.

Things do seem to be changing.  There are now "solar access laws" in 19 states that permit clotheslines even if a HOA doesn't like them.  California is among them so I expect to see a clothesline up in my sister's yard ASAP!

This story on Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow highlights the states that guarantee people the right to use clothesline even if their HOA bans it.  Happily I live in one of those states.

By the way, clotheslines haven't always gotten such a bad rap.  This news story from 1954 describes how clotheslines actually caught and saved a child who fell off a fire escape.

I'm in a neighborhood with no HOA, and enough space for a clothesline.  And even though I don't have the yard strung with clotheslines just yet, I'm keeping my options open.

Sitting is the New Smoking

I've been intrigued by research showing how bad sitting is for us.  Exercise is good for us in many ways, but sitting all day can wipe out much of the good we do for ourselves with exercise.

As much or as little as we exercise on a regular basis, we all need to move as much as we can.  Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic labeled the modern problem of sitting too much "Sitting Disease".  In this USA Today story from 2012 he outlines the problems with sitting.  He advises getting up and standing or moving for 10 minutes every hour.  He gives suggestions such as pacing, walking and making a space chair-free during a phone call, for example, to encourage movement.

We have trained ourselves to think certain activities must be done sitting:  eating, working on the computer (yes, I am sitting while I am typing this!), talking on the phone.  But some days I do eat a meal standing up because I am also making breakfast, lunch or dinner while eating.  And it is really not bad!

There are many ideas out there for ways to move our bodies more.  I like this list of 22 ways to move more from a Readers' Digest story about adding movement to our everyday lives.  In addition to the usual suggestions of taking the stairs and parking at the far end of the parking lot, it includes opening windows, raking leaves by hand, and holding walking meetings as real ways to move more.

I have been remembering ways I moved earlier in my life.  Here are some things I did as a child that I don't anymore:

• walked to the mailbox to mail a letter
• walked or biked to the library
• walked to the corner grocery store
• rode my bike to school often
• opened the heavy garage door
• got up from the couch to change the channel
• walked to the phone to answer it
• used a manual can opener (I still do this)
• rode my bike to the beach in the summer
• used a clothesline in the summer or when the dryer wasn't working
• rolled up and down the car windows
• shoveled snow (I still do this)

I've been trying to do more of what I call "real movement".  I go to the gym to do strength training and run on the treadmill. However, in my mind there is a distinction between that created movement and movement that fills a more basic need.  

I recently rode my bike to class at the local community college campus after getting annoyed with how long it took to get out of the parking garage.  The bike ride served the real purpose of transportation, it kept me from sitting in the car, and provided exercise as well.  Don't get me wrong, I still drive plenty!  Northern Virginia can be a scary place to ride a bike, even with sidewalks.  But I am trying to work in more "real" activities such as walking or biking when I might otherwise drive.

The other day my dryer stopped working.  I know this situation will be resolved soon, so it is an inconvenience more than anything.  But as I hung up some laundry to dry in various places around the house, I noticed how I was bending down and stretching up repeatedly.  It wasn't intense exercise, but it was definitely movement!

I'm not planning on replacing my clothes dryer with a permanent clothesline.  But I am conscientiously trying to move more and sit less.

So how do you find ways to more throughout your day?

The Lunch Lady

Today I'm introducing you to my friend Melissa Hill Jones. 

Several years ago, Jones began changing her family's lunches as part of a move to an overall healthier way of eating. 

Jones started documenting her homemade school lunches on Facebook in a series called The Jones Family Lunch Project.  From her post on September 10, 2009:  "The Jones Family Lunch Project Mission is to feed our entire family the same healthy lunch and develop the culinary skills of our 3 children through modeling, experimentation and active participation."   

According to Jones, "The Jones Family Lunch project started with us finding our way, and now the feedback I get is that we are inspiring changes in others. Our kids are actually eating these lunches, and my husband and I are looking better than we have in years. People notice and want to know what was our secret." She continues, "No magic pills, no expensive weight loss program, no fad diets, we just made the small changes over time that add up to sustainable lifelong habits. We learned to eat our vegetables, and cut out the junk food."

 The album of lunch photos on Facebook represents the changes she and her family have made in their lunch menus and their overall eating habits.  The project continues today.  Sharing photos of her lunches allowed her to exchange ideas with diverse friends online, keep a record of what she made and produce a visual menu to show the kids and help plan future meals.  All photos on this post are taken by Melissa Hill Jones.  

I sat down with Jones to talk about the genesis of this project, its evolution, and the effect on her family. 

Jones said the lunch project really started when her kids were small.  At the time, they were attending Jewish schools which required lunches to be dairy or parve.  This means they could contain no meat or shell-fish.  She was trying to avoid packing the same lunch of peanut butter and jelly every day. In some situations peanuts were not permitted, and some of her kids have problems with tree nuts and dairy which limited their protein options.  

In addition she was concerned about the waste and cost associated with single-serving foods.  "Our lunches were generating lots of waste" from prepackaged items like applesauce, string cheese, and yogurt tubes, Jones said.

As the kids' elementary school moved to a spiffy new building and started a "green" initiative, she and another mom organized a fundraiser for the school selling Laptop Lunches, which are Bento box-style colorful, reusable lunch containers.  The boxes have been a successful part of her strategy to make real 
food fun to eat.

Tofu Stir-Fry Lunch

Initially her husband was concerned with the logistics of packing completely homemade lunches.  "He was concerned with how complicated it was going to be," said Jones.  It is definitely easier to use prepackaged things.  There is more time involved in packing and washing the containers as well.

Black Bean Lunch

Curry Lunch

Some of the family's favorites lunch items now include black bean burrito fillings, stewed kale served cold,  tofu stir-fry and Indian curries created by Jones' husband.  Early on Jones tried to recreate homemade versions of commercial products like cereal bars.  These were popular with her kids but too labor intensive.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Lunch with Hummus

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches still show up on the lunch menu but less often.  In the past fruit would return home uneaten.  Now fruit is cut up which seems to make it more appealing.  As the family has moved towards a vegan eating pattern, cheese and other dairy products have left the lunch boxes.

Jones's preparation habits include making extra of their main dinner course to use for lunch the next day, cutting up lots of fruit for breakfast and using the extra for lunch and cutting large quantities of fresh vegetables ahead of time to store in the fridge.  This goes along with the Jones family motto of "Always be Prepared."  As their eating overall has focused more on healthy choices, they try to keep junk food out of the house and healthy foods readily available.

Jones feels that getting her kids involved in lunch preparation was key, from helping choose the lunch containers to cutting up fruits and vegetables.

Today Jones is a full-time college student, wife and mother of three and part-time teacher.  She is a busy woman!  Asked for advice for other time-pressed parents wanting to do a packed lunch overhaul, Jones suggested looking first at the sides.   "Try to work in fresh fruits and vegetables and send nutrient-dense, high fiber stuff," she recommends.

Israeli Salad Lunch

She experiments with different types of food and reads cookbooks and recipes for inspiration, although not necessarily exact plans.  She mainly works with what she has in the cupboards and refrigerator.  This is one source of inspiration for Jewish cooking, and another for curries.

The results of this years-long change in eating include "massive weight loss" on the part of the adults in the family, less waste generated and money saved by not buying prepackaged foods.  


Concludes Jones,"We have started a Jones Family Cookbook, so our biggest challenge may become a legacy to pass on to our future generations so that we may break the chain of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer that had plagued our own parents and grandparents. We want our children to have a better life, and ironically the path to better health started with their lunch and the snap of a camera."

Why Are There More Kids that Can't Have the Cupcakes?

I swear this blog is not about allergies!  But as someone with food allergies, the topic is ever-present in my mind and habits.  Self-preservation kind of works that way.  Recently I was discussing the school's no-cupcake policy with another parent (he was fine with it, by the way), and he wondered why there seems to be an increase in food allergies in recent years.  I have read different theories, but didn't know a definitive answer.  So I decided to try and find out.  I still don't have a simple answer.

Research shows that there is an actual increase in food allergies.  A study published in May, 2013 by the CDC confirmed an increase in reported food allergies between 1997 and 2011.

90% of food allergies are to the "big 8": peanuts, tree nuts, soy, wheat, fish, shell fish, milk and eggs, but someone can be allergic to any food.  FARE, the Food Allergy Research and Education group, has some great basic information about food allergies on their website.

While many researchers are not ready to suggest a cause of the increase in food allergies, there are some theories.  These include changes in food habits, such as delayed introduction of certain foods to babies, and differences in preparation.  There may also be more awareness and reporting of food allergies than in the past.

One example is the prevalence of roasting peanuts in the United States, as compared with boiling or frying.  China has a high rate of peanut consumption, but a lower rate of peanut allergy.  Peanuts are typically boiled or fried in China.  This study concluded that roasting uses higher temperatures which apparently makes peanuts more allergenic.

There is an interesting look at these theories on the UCLA Food and Drug Allergy Care Center website.  With a cool graphic!

So I still don't really have an answer to this question, just some ideas.  This is an important area of study, as food allergies are really on the rise and impact life significantly for those who have them.  My parting thoughts about food allergies:

• Take food allergies seriously.  An inconvenience for you is someone else's health,well-being, and maybe even life.
• Don't call something an allergy that isn't.

Thanks for reading!

Where Have All the Cupcakes Gone?

It is time to start writing!  This blog is, in part, a project for a journalism class.  It is also a place to write about things I think are worth discussing.  So speaking of school...

I've often wondered when it became expected that every event in a child's life at school required food.  Birthdays, Valentine's Day, the Last Day of School have all become treat-giving days.  Fortunately I have one child with a summer birthday and another who never really wanted to bring in food for his birthday, so I didn't have to have that fight.

Last week my son's elementary school announced a "no food birthday treat" policy.  This means no cupcakes, ice cream, cookies, etc will be distributed for a student's birthday.  Non-food items such as pencils or stickers are welcome.

This is partly in response to students with dietary needs ranging from allergies to diabetes. It also recognizies that not all families can afford the time or money to celebrate at school with treats for everyone.  And it helps remove some of the chaos and distraction that result when celebrations occur in a class of 25 students or more.

I know other schools have instituted "no cupcake" policies around the country.  I found an interesting discussion here.  People against the change point fingers at lack of physical education and recess as the culprit for our national obesity epidemic.  However, according to an article on MayoClinic.com, "Cutting calories through dietary changes seems to promote weight loss more effectively than does exercise and physical activity."

I am thrilled that the school will have this policy going forward.  From both a health and educational standpoint, it is a positive step.  Families can celebrate with food at home, and students can share non-food treats at school.  Public health advocates remind us that eating together as a family is good for our kids.  And finding ways to celebrate without unhealthy food is good for everyone.

Kids who have special dietary needs have many issues to deal with when a treat is brought by another family to be shared at school:  is it safe to eat, am I allowed to eat it, what is in it, who made it, will I feel left out if I don't eat it,  why didn't I know it was coming so I could bring something else?  As someone with food allergies, I can attest first-hand to this experience.  Even with the best of intentions, mistakes can happen.

If every student in the school brings in cupcakes just once a year to share with their class, that is close to 700 celebrations a year.  Trust me, the school cafeteria is loud and exciting enough during lunchtime without the birthday cupcakes.