Natural Moms Talk Radio » Podcast

To download this interview, please click here (mp3 format). This week I interviewed Dr. Lon Jones of CommonSenseMedicine. Dr Jones is an osteopathic family physician and an expert on xylitol. His interest in xylitol began when he used it successfully to treat his granddaughter’s recurrent ear infections. He then applied what he learned to his medical practice. You may have heard of xylitol before while researching  dental health. Xylitol, derived from birch bark, is a natural sweetener that does not contribute to tooth decay. Multiple studies have shown that xylitol reduces the incidence of cavities, and that this result continues even after the use of xylitol ends. [Side note: my Father old me that his 4 Great-Aunts chewed on birch bark to care for their teeth (they lived before the era of convenient drugstores and toothbrushes!), which I thought was interesting. The Native Americans also used birch bark in this way.] Dr. Jones is sharing: How xylitol prevents tooth decay. How much xylitol to use for maximum effectiveness Whether xylitol is “natural” or not Concerns about the safety and possible side effects What the Finns know that we don’t How to choose oral care products for maximum benefit Other uses of xylitol including prevention of ear infections in kids and as a sinus rinse How using a neti pot is like douching (yikes!) and more Mentioned on the show: My family uses Earthpaste, and its number 2 ingredient is xylitol Dr. Jones recommended the books The Boids and the Bees and  Why We Get Sick Xlear (pronounced “klear”) nasal spray to soothe and cleanse nasal passages

My guest this week is Jessica Oren of HerbalPapaya.com. We’re talking about the many benefits and uses of papaya for health and well-being. Among other things,  papaya has been show to: * support the blood * strengthen the immunity * great for birth and after as a comforting herbal sitz bath * pain relief * papaya is great for kids – it’s low in sugar and nutrient dense * helps acid reflux/heartburn in pregnancy * traditionally the seeds are used for parasites * autoimmune illness. Here is a link with more information on the health benefits of papaya. Jessica shares how she uses papaya in her family’s natural healing tool chest and that science is just scratching the surface of the benefits of papaya for health. She is also giving away a selection of Organic Papaya Leaf products to a listener! In order to enter, please leave a comment below. A winner will be randomly chosen on Wednesday, January 23 at Noon Eastern time. Thanks for listening!   [This post submitted to Sortacrunchy's Your Green Resource 1/17/13.]

My guest this week is Monica Sims. Monica is a Pediatric Nurse, a mom of 5 and the owner and brains behind Molly’s Suds. Monica started a business selling her all natural, non-toxic laundry products after researching the many problems with commonly used household cleaners. We talked about why Monica saw a need to start her product line, how the majority of chemicals people use in their homes are not safety tested, health problems associated with antibacterial cleaners and more. Since using Molly’s Suds for my laundry (including cloth diapers), I’ve noticed that the problem I’ve been having with a mildew smell has disappeared. I’m very impressed! Find more information on Monica’s all natural laundry products on her website.

Please click HERE to download this audio. (mp3 format) My guest this week is Nichi Kuechle of My Healthy Beginning.com. Nichi is a Parent Coach, Childbirth Educator, Doula, and Craniosacral Therapist, and Mom. We are talking about the “Fourth Trimester”, the postpartum period. Nichi is sharing tips on postpartum support and recovery, especially for moms of multiples. How can a mom have a healthy and happy postpartum experience? What kinds of things can she do during her pregnancy to prepare – physically and emotionally, for the new baby and postpartum recovery? These are a few of the questions we discussed. If you are currently pregnant, please listen. I enjoyed hearing Nichi’s wisdom and perspective. If you aren’t pregnant, do your expecting friends a favor – share this program using the social media buttons below. Be sure to check out the New Parent Toolkit available for download free on Nichi’s site!

Download this audio by clicking HERE. My guest this week is Katy Bowman of Aligned and Well and Restorative Exercise. Katy is a Biomechanist and her blog is a wealth of helpful information for anyone who wants to prevent and reverse diseases caused by habits of modern life. Our focus for this show: Habits and daily disciplines to prevent aches and pains in pregnancy and prepare for an easier labor. Katy answers my questions about belly bands for postpartum use, proper squatting form, the skinny on sucking in your stomach and getting back into shape postpartum, pelvic floor issues and more. Listen by clicking on the grey arrow below. (A transcript of this interview appears below if you would rather read. It’s a work in progress, it was unfinished by a transcriptionist I hired so I’m doing it myself. I’ll be adding to it throughout the week.) Carrie :  We are joined this week by Katie from alignedandwell.com. Good morning Katie. Katy : Good morning. Carrie : I am so excited to be talking to you. I am a huge fan of your philosophies and blog. I have three of your exercise DVDs and have some questions. Katy : Yes. Go for it Carrie : It is funny how sometimes you just happen upon something on the internet and don’t really know how you got there. You follow that little rabbit hole… I don’t remember how I found out about your website, but when I did I just started digging in and reading archives and searching various things and thought, “oh my Gosh this is really awesome. Makes a lot of sense.” So please tell us about yourself and your background and what you are all about. Katy : Well, I am a Biomechanist. Biomechanics is the science, the physics of Biology, I guess it is the easiest way to say it. My specialty is applying the field of biomechanics to injury and disease. And I have always been most interested in where disease comes from… the mechanisms … the actual cause. I don’t think there is a lot of work being done to try to find the cause as much as there is a lot of work done to take care of the problem. An engineer will usually figure out what the problem is before trying to find the solution. It is a lot easier to reverse engineer something than it is to kind of  stab in the dark to make a solution. So I have always that natural interest, but I have always come from a platform regarding the human from its original state, not the modern human because the modern human which is you know, not just the human living in the 21st or 22nd Century, but really the human as it is lived since humans were. So your earliest humans before there were cars and before there was abundant food, even agriculture. That population had all the same equipment. We have all the same equipment, but the habits are different. So I have always kind of investigated how do the habits of modern living contribute to a set of diseases that we call affluent ailments. Affluent ailments are all the stuff that you will likely have and that  your parents have and that your friends have. And they are very normal they become very common within our population, but it is always important to maintain the prospective of they are still diseases and injuries based on the way we live. They’re not genetic issues and they are certainly preventable if you know enough information and you know, can change the large components of the way you live. And you don’t have to give up your house and give up your food, but for example just not sitting as much in chairs makes a big difference. And then I would say that my focus has really become the pelvis. Pelvic floor disorder, female pelvic floor disorder was my specialty in graduate school so I did my research and my thesis on. So probably how you stumbled onto the blog was through something related to pregnancy or pelvic floor disorder because even though I do the whole body it seems like that where most people are coming from. They are coming to fix[...]

My guest this week is Dr. Shekhar Challa. Dr. Challa is a Board- Certified Gastroenterologist with 25 years of experience and the author of 3 books, including his most recent, Probiotics for Dummies. We’re discussing the importance of probiotics for health, specifically women’s health – during pregnancy, and for babies and kids. Dr. Challa answered my questions about: What probiotics (and prebiotics) actually are; Why are probiotics especially important for pregnant women and their babies? Illnesses that are associated with dysbiosis (improper balance of good to bad bacteria in the gut) What are some foods that contain beneficial bacteria? Can we get enough beneficial bacteria from food? How can you find a high quality supplement? In reading Dr. Challa’s book, I was surprised to find that in many studies, probiotics have shown to improve a variety of health conditions – and not just those directly associated with gut health. We’ve probably only scratched the surface, but research points to probiotics being useful in preventing or treating a variety of illnesses including asthma and allergies, weight gain, even cancer and depression. Dr. Challa has even developed a video game to educate players about the importance of probiotics. You can get it free at http://microwarriorsvideogame.com/ (Sounds like a Science project the kids will enjoy!) Probiotics for Dummies also features recipes for foods you can make at home to get more good bacteria into your gut as well as recommendations for choosing a good probiotic supplement. Note: Dr. Challa has generously offered to answer questions you may have after listening to the interview. Please leave them in the comments below! Related reading: Health benefits of kefir Breastfeeding and yeast infection Homemade lacto-fermented salsa Funky fermented food Raw milk yogurt in the slow cooker

My guest on this show is Geraldine O’Keefe of Escape To Sleep, an all-natural sleep aid made from organic aloe, herbs and flowers used traditionally for insomnia to help you relax and even aid in easing gastrointestinal problems. Geraldine is an Aromatherapist and Certified Herbalist who is talking to us about how to get a good night’s sleep. Some points discussed on this show: Why so many struggle with sleep these days. Side effects of poor sleep habits What is a sleep routine? Why women in particular suffer from poor sleep. What women can do during pregnancy and the postpartum period to sleep restfully. Tips everyone can implement to improve their sleep quality tonight. Be sure to check out Geraldine’s sleep tonic at Escape to Sleep if you need help in this area. Note: The audio was a little low on this recording, so please turn up your speakers or use earphones!

My guest on this show is Melinda Friedman of The Dental Essentials. The Dental Essentials is the first and only nutritional supplement specifically formulated to promote cavity resistance. The ingredients in The Dental Essentials have been clinical proven to reduce the incidence of cavities by up to 95%. When taken daily, The Dental Essentials can also “re-mineralize” or heal tooth decay that may have already started. Topics discussed on the show: Why parents who feed their kids a healthy diet find that they still have tooth decay The role of supplements in preventing cavities How the research and work of Dr. May Mellanby and Dr. Weston A. Price align with the science behind Dental Essentials You can listen to this show by clicking on the mp3 link below. A transcription of this show is below if you prefer to read rather than listen. Speaker 1:  You’re here with Carrie at Natural Moms talk radio and my guest on the show today is Melinda Freedman of Dental Essentials.  Welcome Melinda. Speaker 2:  Welcome, thank you.  Thank you.  It’s nice to be here. Speaker 1:  Yeah, I’m excited to talk about this subject because since becoming a parent, it’s something I’ve done a lot of research about and kind of had a lot of emotional distress about it, so I’m thrilled to find your company and your website and your products. I’m really looking forward to our discussion, but first of all tell us a little more about Dental Essentials. Speaker 2:  Sure, the Dental Essentials is a small company.  It’s only been around for just under two years.  We create a very small line of nutritional supplements, specifically designed to help reduce the instance of cavities and it is basically following in the nutritional approach.  So we have looked at sort of the history of research that has been done sort of attempting to limit the number of cavities that children get or completely eradicate them through a nutritional approach and we’ve taken the key ingredients, identified the key ingredients, the minerals, the vitamins that were used and distilled them down into a product that’s very simple for people to use.  We have a liquid formulation for younger kids and a tablets formulation for kids who are able to take pills. Speaker 1:  Right, well I mentioned that a lot of parents like myself, have had kind of an emotional distress when it comes to dental decay and I think that’s because we are trying so hard to feed our kids “healthy diets.”  There is so many different ideas about  what that means and it’s really a topic I have researched for years and years since I was a teenager, really. And when I became a parent I assumed my children would have the same experience I had, which is that I never had a cavity.   I’m 36.  I’ve never had a cavity. My friends kind of made fun of me growing up, they said you ate “bird seed” at your house.  My parents were really health nuts, you know and I just knew that was going to be the way it was going to be with my kids.  And so when they developed cavities, it made me feel like a failure. Speaker 2:   Yeah. Speaker 1:  So a lot of parents find that, even if they are trying to feed their kids a whole food diet, their children still develop decay.  What is contributing to that even in an otherwise healthy diet? Speaker 2:  Good question and I just want to say that the people that I have encountered and also my personal experience mirror yours dramatically.  I mean, I also expected my children to have the, you know, just the stellar examples of cavity free living and I was shocked, but the thing that shocked me even more then my child getting a cavity, when I thought OK, my diet growing up even though I would have thought it would have been New York City in the 70′s and had flouridated water.  Yeah, my background wasn’t great.  Lots of cavities year after year and I thought, OK, I don[...]

My guest this week is David Luks of Honeydrop beverages. Honeydrop offers delicious, fresh brewed all natural teas sweetened only with honey. We’re talking about the recent controversy over honey: how you can avoid buying “fake” honey, why honey from China is not real honey at all (and why this matters to you), why honey is superior to refined sweeteners and artificial sweeteners, and how Honeydrop ensures that the honey that goes into their product is the real deal. I got a chance to try the Ginger-Lemon flavor and it was awesome! You can find Honeydrop teas in natural food stores such as Whole Foods and they’re also available to order online. To listen, just click on the grey play button below. P.S. a recent listener told me she has been having trouble with the audio player. If you’re having difficulties listening, please let me know in the comments so I can troubleshoot!

My guest this week is Rachel McFadden of HappyGreenBabies. We’re talking about Minimalism and Minimalist Parenting. You can listen to the show by clicking on the grey audio player below the transcript (at the bottom, just before the comments). Or you can read the transcript below. Carrie: Today we’re going to be talking about minimalist parenting. For those of you that have been following the blog for the last few weeks, Rachel is the mom behind the Green Mom’s Weekly post that we’re doing every Monday. So, she is the originator of that and we hope that you guys can all join and link up to her weekly green mom’s post on her blog. Okay so minimalism. Rachel: Yeah. Carrie: It’s definitely becoming a thing online. Like last night, I was doing a little bit of googling because I follow a few minimalist logs, but I was looking for some that were a little bit more geared towards moms and parenting. And I found several that I’ll mention later on, but how would you define minimalism? Rachel: The simplest thing I can say is a simple life. Simplifying the way that we live, and not cluttering it up with stuff. Enjoying the simple things, and not needing actual “stuff” to make us happy. C: Yeah, definitely. You know, it’s interesting because ten years ago the buzz word was “organization”. There were all these books, blogs and magazines centered around organization. And then there was a kind of an evolution into simple living and I think people realized, wait a sec. I don’t think we can organize this stuff, we have too much! You basically defined minimalism as a simple approach to life, making more room for life, having less stuff, less clutter. Many times when we find websites and blog and ebooks about minimalism we find a single person who has a very… R: …free life? C: Yeah! What’s the word I’m looking for? Nomadic! A nomadic lifestyle is enviable, but now that we’ve settled down with a family and children, how can we embrace minimalism? R: Sometimes we get bogged down… like when I was pregnant with my first, with all of the stuff that consumers feel they have to have to have a baby, that’s getting pushed on them by Babies R Us and all these massive baby stores and you have thousands of items you think you need. For this tiny little baby! I was kind of the same way. I got all this stuff and realized you don’t need it! What’s more important is spending time with the baby, like what we talk about on Green Moms Weekly – attachment parenting. My son is beside me, looking for his underwear. C: Even minimalists have underwear! R: Exactly. So after having my second child I realized that those things you really don’t need. What’s important is spending time with your baby. Being able to “wear” your baby, co-sleeping for me was one of the simplest things I could have done. It made my life a lot less hectic. The bedtime routine, what i remember with my first, trying to get him to sleep in a crib was never successful. He ended up in our bed anyway. So it just seemed simpler to cut out that whole struggle in life anyway. C: My first crib was a really, really large … laundry basket. R: Wow.That’s really cool. C: Another thing that we mentioned briefly is that minimalism seems to be kind of an offshoot from the organization movement of maybe the 80′s and 90;s. There were so many great books being written, blogs and websites and stuff. There was the Get Things Done (GTD) movement, and all the things that shot out from that. And then it was about simple living, so it transitioned from organizing to simple living. because I think people just realized, wait a minute, I have too much. Too much stuff, too much running around, too many activities, too much house, too much stuff in the house. I need to simplify it. And now it’s kind of even further trickled down to minima[...]

My guest this week is Lisa Aman, LM of New Life Home Birth. Lisa is a licensed midwife of over 25 years with a thriving homebirth practice in South Carolina. We’re talking about her Midwife To Be correspondence course for aspiring midwives. Lisa is also hosting Homesteading classes for girls ages 7-12 to learn recycled crafts, gardening, herbs, natural health, and healthy cooking. Lisa encourages midwives who are interested in her mission trip to Uganda to contact her. Be sure to listen to get more details! Lisa’s blog is at DancingMidwife.

My guest this week is Dr. Linda Miles of derma e natural bodycare. Derma e is an award winning 25 year old company who was just rewarded the 2011 “Natural Choice Award for Best Skin Care Products” by Whole Foods Magazine. Dr. Miles spoke with me about: Ingredients to look for in your skin care products How to read product labels Ingredients to avoid for use on the skin The role supplements play in younger looking skin Lifestyle choices that keep you younger looking The scoop on sunscreen and parabens How to find high quality natural skin care products  

This week I spoke with Melissa Fay Greene, fellow Atlanta resident and author of several books, including No Biking in the House Without a Helmet. Melissa is the mother of 9 children. Her first 4 came to her the usual way, and the second set came via adoption. Melissa talked with me about her beautiful large family, her decision to adopt internationally, suffering with post adoption depression, the challenge of bringing a new child into the family, life with several spirited boys in the house, whether her mothering style has adapted over the years, and how her biological children have benefited from her decision to adopt. I loved this interview! It lasts a little longer than most. I hope you take the time to read Melissa’s book. Instead of painting a perfect picture, it portrays a realistic one, complete with tears and laughter. You can read more about Melissa and her family at her website.

My guest this week is Cathy Daub, founder of BirthWorks.org. BirthWorks is a non-profit organization that certifies women to become childbirth educators and doulas (for more information about hosting a workshop, click here). They offer childbirth preparation classes and can assist you in locating a doula. We’re talking about the instinctive wisdom of birthing women,  why birth doesn’t need to be “taught”, and why childbirth education is still valuable. We also discuss why birth has such an impact on early mothering experiences. Cathy has also written a book; Birthing In The Spirit, you can view a movie about the book on YouTube.

My guest this week is Dr Heather Manley, N.D. “Dr. Heather” is a Naturopathic physician, homeschooling mom and author. Dr. Heather is sharing some great advice on creating a natural first aid kit for your family. See which “must have” homeopathic products she recommends you keep on hand for bumps, bruises, burns, bites and stings, as well as advice on administering homeopathic remedies for the beginner. Heather also spoke with me about her books, Human Body Detectives, a series for children that educates them about the body’s systems in a fun way. Be sure to check out Dr. Heather’s Twitter and Facebook page. Mentioned on the show: Environmental Working Group’s skin deep page