This post is another one of our new features. We will be posting monthly recipes from the Children’s World Cookbook - UsBorne Books. To view or purchase this amazing and diverse cookbook, visit our friends at:

http://www.ubah.com/R2633

Bloomsbury Review - September/October 2002
The Children’s World Cookbook includes favorite recipes from many countries around the world. For the United States it is cheesecake and brownies! The most fascinating aspect of the book, though, may be the pages devoted to explaining one food type as it appears in different countries. For instance, the page on breads around the world shows pictures of brioche, pretzels, nan, pita, focaccia, and more. If your child has any sense of adventure when it comes to food, this book will surely be of interest. It is not a young child’s book, however, but meant for someone old enough to know his or her way around a kitchen - maybe even you. Reviewer - Cindy L.A. Jones, Ph.D.

French Apple Tart

(Serves 4)

175g/6oz. plain flour
85g/3oz. chilled butter
30g/1oz. caster sugar
1 egg yolk, beaten
1-2 tablespoons cold water
450g/1lb. cooking apples
55g/2oz. caster sugar
3 eating apples
2 tablespoons apricot jam
2 tablespoons hot water

a 20cm (8in.) flan dish

Oven temperature: 200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6

1. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and add them to the flour.
2. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Add 30g/1oz. caster sugar.
3. Mix in the beaten egg yolk and enough water to make a ball of dough. Put it into a refrigerator for 30 minutes.
4. Turn on the oven. Peel the cooking apples, cut them into quarters and cut out the cores. Slice the quarters.
5. Put the apples, cold water and sugar into a saucepan. Cook them over a low heat until the apple is soft. Stir well.
6. Sprinkle some flour onto a board and onto a rolling pin. Roll the pastry into a big circle about 2cm/1in. thick.
7. Line the flan dish with the pastry. Prick it with a fork and trim the edges with a knife. Bake it for ten minutes.
8. Spoon the cooked apple into the pastry case. Slice the eating apples and arrange them in circles on top.
9. Mix the jam with the hot water and brush it over the sliced apples to glaze them. Bake the tart for 30 minutes.

(c) 2000 Usborne Publishing Ltd.

We’ve all heard the recent reports of companies claiming to have all natural and organic products, increasing their prices to the consumer and then failing the independent testing done to assure that products are indeed as “Organic” as they claim to be.

How are consumers protected from this scam?  Many shoppers accept paying higher prices for higher quality products, and that usually means healthy, natural, and organic.  People purchase these products for a reason; they do not want the harsh chemicals, by-products or preservatives typically found in run-of-the-mill items.  I am one such mom that is adamant about organic products for my daughter, especially in the Health and Beauty Care section.  Too many of the well-known manufacturers use science-based rather than nature-based components in their baby lines.  I purchase my baby products at Sprouts or Whole Foods stores with the belief that they are indeed safer and subject to more stringent testing but…one never knows for sure, until now!

I recently came across the website called Skin Deep Beauty which evaluates every ingredient in most every product on the market when it comes to health and beauty care.  After evaluation, it then give the products a ranking from 0-10 with 0-2 being low-hazard, 3-6 being moderately hazardous and 7-10 being highly hazardous.  It breaks all of the items down into categories and then into further subcategories to help consumers search.  You can also enter specific ingredients to see what testing has shown regarding their safety and you can search by product name to find specific items you are currently using.  This site evens breaks down every ingredient and states what problems, diseases, etc. each of its ingredients have been linked to in testing.  It is truly a wealth of information about what we are putting onto and into our bodies.

Thankfully, the products that I have purchased were all in the very low hazard group, meaning they are indeed what they claim to be; organic, natural and SAFE.

This company is not for profit and they are funded by donations and sponsorships only.  They do some political work trying to get laws changed for testing, producing and manufacturing of health care products as well.  They offer companies a Compact for Safe Cosmetics that they can sign to declare:

That all of the cosmetics and personal care products made by our company anywhere in the world meet the formulation standards and deadlines set by the European Union Directive 76/768/EEC to be free of chemicals that are known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutation or birth defects.

To implement substitution plans that replace hazardous materials with safer alternatives within three years. We will accomplish this by:

• Conducting an inventory of potential chemicals of concern in our products (or byproducts) to determine their toxicity to living things, their persistence in the environment, their ability to increase in concentration in the food chain, their contamination of our bodies, or qualities they possess that pose hazards including carcinogens, endocrine disrupters, sensitizers, mutagens, reproductive toxins, developmental toxins and neurotoxins

   

• Developing an aggressive substitution plan and timeline: to move to safer materials, prioritizing for substitution those compounds internationally recognized as most toxic; to provide for an ongoing review of safer materials and chemicals as effective, cost-competitive alternatives are available, and; to work with upstream suppliers to provide toxicity data on chemicals in products.

   

• Publicly reporting on progress to meet these goals.

You can search the signers to see if companies that produce your most widely-used health and beauty care products have agreed to the compact.

By utilizing this resource and others like it, consumers have a watch-dog that can alert them to the dangers and false-claims by untrustworthy manufacturers trying to make a quick buck off of the “green” movement.  Thank you to Skin Deep, please keep up the wonderful work!

Hello Everyone!

This is our NEW feature, BookWormz, where we review and post about muti-cultural books that embrace our spirit of diversity and unity.  We hope you enjoy these favorites as much as we do!

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

Sing Along with Fred Penner as you follow four children from different countries, each getting ready for school. See what the pictures tell you about different ways of life in Europe, Mali, India, and China.

“In this cheerful picture book with an accompanying CD, four children in different cultures act out the revised words to a traditional song, ‘Here We Go round the Mulberry Bush’ … Brimming with activity and color, the stylized acrylic paintings make each setting look different and inviting … Slipped into a plastic pocket on the endpapers, the CD features Canadian musician Fred Penner singing the new words. Appended notes introduce the old song and the accompanying movements. An upbeat way to introduce the notion that people around the world are different yet have much in common.”
- Booklist

“This multicultural treat will encourage creative movement as well as creativity in inventing other verses for preschoolers.”
- School Library Journal

Sung by: Fred Penner
Illustrated by: Sophie Fatus

To order Here we Go Round the Mulberry Bush, please visit our friends at:

BAREFOOT BOOKS and enter EV01 upon checking out.

Happy Worming,

“Zapateo” is a Peruvian dance mixing Andean and African heritage, popular in a few coastal towns south of Lima is kept alive mostly by Afro-Peruvian children living in the area.

Traditionally, children practice throughout the year to dance for “Baby Jesus” when Christmas comes but lately, little children have started to understand that it is up to them to maintain the tradition.

Children have started to join dance companies to practice and improve their skills, the video that we share with you is in Spanish but even if you are not a Spanish speaker you can be sure to enjoy the music and the performances. The kids in the video come from unprivileged rural areas south of Lima, but in spite of their financial situation, they find joy in what they do, stepping hard to show their devotion and commitment to the dance and their ancestry.

httpv://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=L79ymaMDmjU&rel=1&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//i.ytimg.com/vi/L79ymaMDmjU/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskKbkde1rz6CS8EYhwKIC7QT&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1

To fully join a company, the children have to be “baptized” which includes splashing with Holy Water, some encouraging words from their “Zapateo Masters” and eating some salt.

The dance consists of a competition between two groups of dancers and it’s also a way to create music using the feet as a percussion instrument. Usually dancers are accompanied by guitar and cajon (wooden drum box) players. The Afro Peruvian Zapateo is similar to the stepping tap dance of African Americans and other Afro descendant communities around the world. The origins of most of them are from Africa itself

Gigi Pedraza
Inca Kids, A Fair Trade Store
www.incakids.org

I have a three year old who loves the water. Seeing the pool everyday gets her so excited and she can’t seem to think about anything else but jumping in that water. She just loves paddling the length of the pool and floating on the raft with me, but her favorite part is jumping off the pool deck to fetch her chew toys…Did I mention my three year old happens to be a Golden Retriever? My point in sharing this tale (or should I say tail?) is to discuss one of the summer activities kids enjoy more than anything. What could be better on a hot summer day than to splash around with friends and family in a cool body of water?

Swimming is a phenomenal way for your kids to expend some energy and burn calories. The best part about it is, they don’t even recognize they are exercising. When you introduce a child to a new “movement experience” like swimming, running or biking, it needs to be as enjoyable as possible. If the act feels like a chore, the child will lose interest and enthusiasm almost immediately. That is the great thing about swimming. 99% of the time, the child is begging for you to let them get in the water. Many, if not all of them, are hard to pull away from the water once they get in. They could be as wrinkly as a Shar Pei and they would keep on treading water.

Of course before you can allow your child to swim without parental assistance, they will first require some swimming instruction. Although the tried and true method of throwing your child into the deep end of the pool to “sink or swim” was once a popular method of swimming instruction, most people today (including the local law enforcement) would say that is an antiquated and ineffective approach. The best way to teach your child to swim is to enroll them in a professional swimming instruction class. These classes are taught by well-qualified instructors who can teach your child to be a successful swimmer. They create a fun and supportive environment that teaches children to be less fearful of swimming. Throughout the classes, your child will develop the skills necessary to become stronger swimmers. Don’t wait too long to get your child acclimated to the water. They say that if you haven’t learned to swim by the time you are 15 years old, chances are you never will.

If you can’t find a credible swim school in your neck of the woods, try looking at your local municipalities’ recreation calendar; many offer swim classes year round for kids of all ages. Check with your local Parks and Recreation Departments to see if they can send you out a listing of all the swim related classes they have available.

Once your child has mastered the basics of swimming including floating, treading water, kicking, paddling, submerging their faces under water, jumping off the sides of the pool and using their arms and legs to swim to you, they can be introduced to more diverse and advance swimming activities. If you child shows an athletic disposition to swimming or diving, find a local swim team for them to belong to. Swimming laps is a great total body cardiovascular workout for kids to be involved in. They get to meet other kids who share their love of the water, learn proper breathing techniques that can transfer into any other endurance sport and will get a great resistance training workout. When you swim, you use your arms and legs to displace the water around you. The water acts as a form of resistance which helps build muscle while you swim around the pool. It really is the best of both worlds. You can get a great total body resistance training and cardiovascular workout at one time. What could be more efficient than that?

While all the information listed above is designed to encourage your children to become comfortable in the water, I must stress the EXTREME IMPORTANCE of water safety. Each year approximately 830 children ages 1-14 die as a result of unintentional drowning. That statistic is for Maricopa County in Arizona. You can only imagine what that number is on a nationwide or on a global scale. In order for you to keep your kids, and your kids’ friends safe around the pool this summer, please make sure you take the necessary safety precautions. For some of the best tips on how to keep your children from becoming another drowning statistic, check with your local fire departments for a checklist of important safety tips you can implement around your home.

Have fun swimming and keep up the good work!

Christopher Hillery has been a Certified Personal Trainer for 9 years and is the owner of Transformer Fitness in Phoenix, Arizona. He was once an overweight child and knows first- hand how the effects of being overweight can be damaging. It is his goal to help overweight children and adults develop lasting healthy habits and a positive body image. Chris can design a full workout program for parents and children which can include a nutrition program, along with equipment to use at home. For this and other services visit http://www.transformerfitness.com Chris can be reached via email at: christopher_hillery@yahoo.com