AFRICAN GIRLS ARE MISSING SCHOOL WHILE ON THEIR PERIODS EVERY MONTH. I KNOW, LET'S MAKE THEM *CONSUMERS!* THAT'LL FIX IT!

photo by Vince Cook, from The New York Times



I've seen the ads Always is running to promote their project "Protecting Futures" several times now. Here's the gist: girls in Africa are frequently missing school during their periods. They don't have access to clean water and sanitation and are either not allowed, or do not want to attend while menstruating. It can lead to a 10-20% rate of absenteeism.

Holy Shit! Well that's easily fixed, let's send them pads and tampons! Let's send tons and tons of chemical-laden, single-use products that will wind up littering their land, while simultaneously convincing these girls that they simply must have this imported product in order to be able to better themselves.

This component to the campaign is so beyond me, I can hardly believe it. Are we really supposed to believe if we don't send them packs of maxipads there is no choice but to let girls sit in bloodied clothes every month? My God. Prior to Procter & Gamble women had no idea how to manage their periods, right?

From : The New York Times, 11/12/07

"Protecting Futures may be the most complicated project Procter has undertaken yet. FemCare cannot distribute pads unless the girls have private places to change them — so it is building bathrooms. The girls need clean water for hygiene, so in one school it is piping water from two miles away. It built dormitories at a school heavily attended by children from nomadic tribes.

It also needs to find ways to dispose of the pads, in some cases for practical reasons, in other cases for cultural ones. In some parts of Africa, people believe that one’s blood can be used to cast a spell, so girls would fear leaving bloodied pads exposed. Procter will probably install small, sealed incinerators near the new bathrooms, and train teachers to burn the pads.

Procter also plans to send nurses or doctors to the schools four times a year to troubleshoot health problems, provide health education and distribute pads. The Protecting Futures staff is working with local groups to teach girls more about puberty, even when that means training male teachers to address a subject that is often considered off limits.

'Discussions about sexual maturation are just not commonplace in African society,” said Ms. Macharia of the forum. “The parents hope the teachers do it, the teachers hope the parents do it, and the girls wind up thinking that menstruation is associated with doing something wrong.' "

So obviously it's kind of a complicated issue. But come on. Seriously? This is how we think we can be helpful - by teaching girls to consume and then pollute?

So I started poking around some of the mama cloth sites I know to see how this was being addressed by people who are a little more reasonable. Please take a look at the following response to the campaign from the folks at GladRags.

And while you're thinking about it, consider if you might not be willing to switch over to more sustainable feminine hygiene products yourself. I've come to think of the disposables we all think we *have* to have as right up there next to "I *have* to cut down trees to wipe my ass with."

Check out GLADRAGS, LUNAPADS,
and THIS THREAD ON MOTHERINGDOTCOMMUNE with posters favorites. Also be aware, *tons* of work-at-home moms make these. You can support another mom, or make your own!

EVERYTHING ON YOUR PLATE IS CORN

The Star Tribune ran an article this week entitled A KERNEL OF TRUTH? NATION'S OBESE ARE CORN-FED. My dad has begun to follow some the issues I've been bringing up since starting The Omnivore's Dilemma, and he brought the article to my attention. With the Farm Bill up before congress this fall for redesign, I think this is a great time to expose what, in my opinion, is a major major contributer to our country's remarkably poor health: the presence of what author Michael Pollan perfectly labels "a government-sponsored surplus of commodity corn." When I began reading his book I developed the distinct impression that corn, in its present state of genetically modified, calculated over-production really does have catastrophic potential for our national health. I don't think I'm overstating it: I'm talking about corn and I'm saying it looks more than suspect. Read the first section of Pollan's book and you will look at everything you buy with the intent to eat differently. Everything.

There is almost no packaged food item that does not contain corn by-products. I say "almost" because I can't imagine there is none, though I can't list a single example. It's in salad dressing, it's in the wax on your apple, it's in your drinks, it's in your beef, it's in your fish, it's in EVERYTHING. You may think you're eating a wide variety of food groups, but you're not. You're eating so many manifestations of a single raw product: corn, made abundant and ubiquitous courtesy of the US government.

A documentary is coming out called KING CORN. Go check it out. I'll post more links as I can.



Also see OXFAM to learn the basics on the Farm Bill.

THE SWITCH TO CLOTH DIAPERS

I was cloth diapered as a kid, and 10 years later, I helped cloth diaper my sister. So when my son was born in 2005, I had already registered for (and received) 3 dozen prefold cloth diapers. And somehow, after the initial supply of disposibles I was given by well-meaning friends ran out, I just went and bought more. And more. And more. Until my son had celebrated his 2nd birthday, and the prefolds were still in a box in storage. I think I was afraid during those first hazy few months (meaning like 15) that I couldn't stay on top of the extra laundry. I wasn't staying on top of the laundry we already had. The kitchen was constantly in upheaval. I got more than 2 consecutive hours of sleep maybe a half dozen times that first year. I was afraid, I was very very afraid that diapers that needed to be washed would quickly turn into "that bucket of festering poop and cloth." And so the idea of cloth diapering was unceremoniously moved to the Back Burner.

After I felt really settled into the rhythm of motherhood, I still thought that I couldn't cloth diaper. This is because the world of cloth diapering has developed into something that appears really complicated. It's an industry, and it makes money. There are prefolds, organic prefolds, organic fair trade prefolds; snappies and inserts of hemp, wool, and silk; prowraps, kissaluvs, bummis, happy heinies; diaper ducks; fancy diaper pails and toilet add-ons. You can easily plunk down four or five hundred bucks if you want to. And while that's a considerable savings over what you'd spend on disposable diapers, it seems like a lot to spend all at once. The ease of spending $20 at a time on throw-aways seemed more accessible. And because I always sort of have a "do it right or not at all" kind of attitude, I picked not at all.

( I have since been made aware of an organization that serves low-income families by providing them with access to cloth diapering supplies by rental. Check them out at miraclediapers.org.)

But sometime earlier this year I started feeling really yucky about the choice I'd made. This came on the heels of a bit of a rampage, in which I very nearly rid the house of any commercial cleaning products. I had been reading articles whose content is well summarized in this article, "Clean Green" from Mothering Magazine, issue 141. Additionally, a stay-at-home dad in my ECFE class brought copies of THIS list of recipes for non-toxic, homemade cleaning products to class around the same time. It became important to me to get the chemicals out of our house. Yes, I've turned into one of those people who looks for milk-based paints and dreams of having an organic mattress. And it doesn't sound remotely crazy or alarmist or gullible to me.

So a couple of weeks ago, on my favorite moms' forum, a mom I really respect opened a cafepress.com store featuring products with THIS design, and something clicked. How can I reconcile making my own cleaning products with putting my son in diapers full of chemicals? I don't even clean with anything with bleach. I've been buying unbleached coffee filters for years. Why would I put my son in a chlorine diaper? I dug out the prefolds, gave them another wash and bought the right size covers the next day.

Recognizing that learning is trial and error in most any persuit, here is how I started and how cheaply I did it. I will have to make changes as I go, and there will be additional cost involved. But here is how I got started for $27.

I spent $12 on old school vinyl plastic covers. I have 9 of them, which is plenty. I used the prefolds I was given at my baby showers, about 3 dozen of them. Free. I had also received a few sets of diaper pins. Free. On the recommendation of another mom, I bought 3 Toddler size Snappi Fasteners from Amazon (because no one carries that size locally), and that was $15 with shipping. I really love them, by the way. I got the lidded bucket I'm using as a diaper pail from my mom. My friend Nicole gave me a few ProWrap diaper covers and a few more prefolds. That's it, and that's plenty. It works and I'm out $27. So there goes that excuse.


If you want to read more supporting the use of cloth diapers, click here: The Politics of Diapers and here: A Tale of Two Diapers.

A FORMER VEGETARIAN'S THOUGHTS: CHICKEN & GRATITUDE

Last night, I found myself with a raw chicken again for the third time in my life. It is becoming a little less terrifying; I grasped the meat and bones with confidence, if not hunger. I skinned and pulled and as I worked, my thoughts went in a directions I didn't expect. I felt

Gratitude. I thought about the animal whose body I was turning into food, and about how I sit on top of the food chain heap and this animal did not. I thought about how this animal turns grass and grain and bugs into sustenence, something I could not do (grass and bugs, since it was an organic free-range chicken). And even though I have yet to really like the taste of its meat, I thought about lucky I am to have such a food: unlike the soy I've consumed much of my life and will no longer, chicken - having a long long history of being consumed, and healthful - is part of the natural (albeit domesticated) food chain we have evolved to eat and prosper from.

I was very nearly praying, cutting the meat from the bone. It feels so very far away from where I have known. And I suppose like moving to a new city, it will feel more like home when I can regard where I am (preparing meat) and see a history (of meals). Right now I am in a place where I have no memories.



My reading in Omnivore's Dilemma last night brought up a very interesting thought, which I'll attempt to condense: Salmon, widely regarded as a good source of omega-3s, is now being engineered to eat, as the author so frequently says, the government-sponsored "surplus of cheap commodity corn." Consequently, the abandonment of its natural diet (algae, phytoplankton) has led to a sharp reduction in farmed salmon's omega-3 content. Conversely, beef -when fed on its natural diet, grass- has a higher omega-3 content. The day will come when people seeking balanced sources of omega-3s will routinely choose pastured beef over farmed salmon. And think about how seasonal true wild salmon is. You're not eating that fresh all year. It's a real paradigm shift, right?

There is also preliminary research suggesting that the so-called "problems" with eating red meat are actually problems with what the meat ate. Modern cultures eating huge quantities of pastured red meat do not suffer the ailments we associate with our meat here, which is overwhelming from animals selectively bred for their ability to best tolerate a diet they would never select on their own. Turns out, maybe it's not about what you eat, so much as what your food ate.

Additionally, I'd never thought about meat being a seasonal food. Ever. But in looking through eatwild.com I discovered that several nearby farms only sell their beef after it's been pastured on grass all summer. Chicken is a warm-weather food. Who knew?


The answer is, everybody knew. Before we forgot.

FERTILITY AWARENESS, or WHY I GAVE UP MY IUD FOR A THERMOMETER

After our son was born (the abundant blessing of an extremely unplanned, out of wedlock pregnancy) I thought, "THAT can't happen again." By my 6-week post partum checkup, I had decided that the best prevention would be to opt for the extremely popular Mirena IUD. I was assured that the low-dose, local, progesterone-only implant would not affect my nursing relationship or my son. I felt comfortable knowing that its failure rate is 0.01%. I felt ambivalent about its possible mechanisms: (from mirena-us.com)

"* Block[ing] sperm from reaching or fertilizing [the] egg.
* Mak[ing] the lining of [the] uterus thin (this may also result in benefits like less menstrual bleeding over time)
*Stop[ing] the release of your egg from your ovary (but this may not be the way it works in most cases)."

And I felt thrilled that other than checking to make sure it was still in place once a month, it required zero mental effort or involvement to be effective.



However, in the two years since, I have met more and more women online in attachment and natural parenting communities who are opting out of "traditional" birth control methods altogether, in favor of something I had previously considered the domain of Catholics with 8 children and 1 one the way: Natural Family Planning. These women actually have small families. And most impressively, these women know waaaay more about their fertility and health than I was ever taught. When I first observed this, I was beyond curious; I was outright jealous.

So I bought a book that has turned out to be one of the most interesting reads of my life. Reading it changed how I thought about birth control, personal responsibility, the role of sex ed in classrooms, the natural rhythm of life, and overall, the value of connectedness. That book is TAKING CHARGE OF YOUR FERTILITY by Toni Weschler.

The book teaches about the body's fertility signals, and how to "read" them for use in both pregnancy prevention and achievement. Unlike the "Rhythm Method" whose failure rate is 25% (deducing an ovulation date based on the average length of your cycles, which can and do vary from woman to woman, and even for one woman, from month to month), the Sympto-Thermal Method (alternately known as Fertility Awareness) has a failure rate varying from 2-15%, depending on the practitioner's understanding and adherence to its rules. Fertility Awareness users observe and record three primary fertility signals: waking body temperature, cervical position and texture, and cervical fluid. This serves to highlight the part of the cycle where you must either use a form of contraception or abstain, or alternately, where you'd focus your babymaking efforts. You can look at a sample chart HERE.

As it turns out, my body is much less of a mystery than before. It's as if someone told me about a secret text encoded in me that I can now see, where before I saw nothing. Frankly, it's a bit of a thrill. I eventually came to regard the information in the book as so important that I bought my 17-year-old sister the teen counterpart, CYCLE SAVVY and she now has a basic understanding of her own fertility signals, something that comes in handy despite her abstinence for things like, say, knowing when to expect a period so she's not caught off guard in her ballet leotard.

Now I am so bowled over by the things we are NOT taught in sex ed. For example, I didn't know that given the proper conditions, sperm can survive in a woman's body up to FIVE DAYS. You can have sex on Monday and conceive on Friday. Leave me a comment if you were ever told that, please. I doubt any of us were. Obviously, this can impact conception, or lack thereof considerably. Beyond this, it's interesting to note that pregnancy due dates are also affected for women who don't chart. You may think, we had sex on such-and such date, and that did it. But it could have happened 5 days later. And what if your healthcare provider is one of the many who push induction for so-called post-maturity? What if they'll let labor commence naturally at 9 days "overdue" but not 14? Then you're looking at an elevated risk of hemmorrage and c-section, traceable in no small part back to a general lack of fertility awareness. Interesting stuff.



Ultimately, I came to a kind of decision that exemplifies the pith of what I want to accomplish now in my life: to be more connected, more responsible, more involved. So I had my IUD removed, and I chart my fertility signals. It's a different headspace than I was in before. And the work of knowledge is a blessing.