DadTalk

Does Eating Out Give You a Headache, Too?

About 25 years ago, I came to the realization that I was getting headaches from dehydration. The problem started way back in 1986, after I first moved to Arizona.

I primarily blamed the dry heat, of course. After all, it was not always obvious how much I was sweating; the only real clue was salt-encrusted skin.

I’ve been checked for diabetes several times, but always get a clean bill of health on that account. About seven years ago, though, the problem became far more scary after I was hospitalized for rhabdomyolysis, a muscle complication of extreme dehydration.

For whatever reason, my body does a good job of telling me when I’m mildly dehydrated, but not when I go beyond a certain point. About the only clue I have after that is the color of my pee.

Since the hospital incident, I’ve learned to be as careful as possible. I force myself to drink water even when I don’t “feel” thirsty. Ironically, I will get very thirsty after taking that first drink of water. I also avoid sugary drinks, coffee, many types of tea and diuretics, (not counting fruits and vegetables.) I also put very little salt in my food and buy a lot of low-sodium products.

It’s a lot more difficult when eating out. Last night for example, I ordered a very salty pasta Jambalaya dish at California Pizza Kitchen. I didn’t think about the possible salt content when I ordered it, but I certainly could taste it. Pasta also is a problem, probably because it takes a lot of water to digest starch.

This morning, I woke with a headache. I’ve already consumed about a quart of water, but I can still taste the salt in my mouth. Even as I write this, I’m barely keeping the headache at bay.

The medical literature seems to back me up on this. Avoiding salty foods is one way to avoid getting headaches, according to WebMD and the Mayo Clinic.

But I’m curious: Does anyone else have this problem? Does the extreme saltiness of restaurant food leave them extremely thirsty or reaching for the Tylenol? Do you get headaches when you eat out?

Food Recalls Some Really Bad Eggs

By now I’m sure most everyone has heard about the half billion eggs being recalled by a couple of Iowa farms. So far, about 2,000 people have reportedly become sick, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Food and Drug Administration only says hundreds were sickened.

But while driving to check on a print job today, I heard Margaret A. Hamburg, the Food and Drug Administrator, on National Public Radio warning Americans on how to handle eggs safely. Wash everything a zillion times. Cook eggs until they’re charcoal. Forget over easy.

This is the kind of food system we now have. Think of it: It’s not safe to make mayonnaise at home, because salmonella might be crawling around in your raw eggs. Ditto Hollandaise sauce.

If a bit of egg leaks over the side of a bowl – like that never happens – the counter below it may contaminate a cookie or sandwich if not bleached clean. Just forget ever letting your kids eat traditional cookie dough batter, because it might sicken or KILL them. (Not a problem in our house, though; I long ago found a way to make great chocolate chip cookies without eggs and butter.)

Still Here

Yes, I'm still around; I just haven't had much time to blog lately. Our kids are just finishing up their second week of school already.

Our routines should settle down soon, which hopefully will give me time to blog again.
Brett Levy
thejournalismshop.com
dadalk.net

Baby Birds at School

These birds are in a 5-foot, near-dead tree right in front of Seth's classroom.

On the Floor

It's my mom's 70th bday and I'm on the floor of her suite sick as a dog. Headache, aches and fever. Missing family dinner now. Jeesh.

Up the Down Stairs

World's greatest exercise machine. Seth and Lael go the wrong way up the escalator.

End of Summer Overload

Man, so much to do, so little time. The kids go back to school in just two weeks. Two weeks!

Yikes.

First First

I knew it would happen some day, and today was the day. Seth took his first first in the breast stroke.

Yea Seth
Brett Levy
thejournalismshop.com
dadalk.net

Super Hero Dad

Good deed of the day: A woman slipped on ice cream (painted concrete floor) and started to fall on Lael and Seth who were eating ice cream. Instinctively, I grabbed the woman's arm -- the woman was walking between me where I was standing and the kids -- and caught her.

I'm pretty sure the woman would have crashed clear the ground, pinning Lael beneath her. To be honest, I didn't know I could move that fast.
Brett Levy
thejournalismshop.com
dadalk.net

Arizona Immigration Law Will Punish Kids the Most

Regardless where you stand on Arizona’s illegal immigrant bill, which puts pressure on police to identify and arrest suspected aliens, this state’s children will be the biggest losers when the law soon goes into affect.

There are obvious reasons: Children face the risk of deportation along with parents. Or parents might be arrested and deported without their children. And children will pay the price for the portion of law that allows the state to recoup legal fees from already impoverished parents.

There is another problem, though, that is only now making the news. Like other states, police officers are assigned to public school campuses. Under federal rules, schools must provide an education to all children, legal or not. From educators’ perspective, these rules apply to the on-campus police.

But Russell Pearce, the state senator who authored SB 1070, wants campus police officers investigating children who they suspect being illegal immigrants, reports the Arizona Capitol Times.

Says Pearce:

“To assume that schools are areas protected from enforcing the law is simply not correct. If you have a legitimate suspicion that a person is breaking the law, you have to investigate it.”

Food Recalls Something Stinks in Recall of Four Kellogg’s Cereal

I always knew that eating too much junk food – or cereal for that matter – could make you sick to your stomach. But how about getting sick before eating Apple Jacks or Froot Loops?

Apparently, something has gone wrong with the packaging of some Kellogg’s cereal packages, which are emitting a strange, off-flavor smell, reports the Food and Drug Administration.

As often the case, the FDA says don’t worry about any health problems; nausea or diarrhea won’t kill you. Wait a minute, doesn’t pooping problems imply someone ATE the cereal or gave it to their kids despite the smell? Just saying.

Below are the recalled products:

Recalls 2 Million Cribs

When my wife was pregnant with Seth, we did what a lot of families do: we went to Babies R Us and picked out our favorite crib. We wanted a drop-side convertible so that it would grow with our child.

A relative bought us the crib, but it never made it to toddler bed. We wound up getting Seth a slide bed and Lael a metal-framed white bed. In fact, all that we have left of the crib is the headboard, which is gathering dust in the garage.

Considering all the recalls of drop-side crips – more 2 million were affected by today’s announcement – I suppose it’s for the best. The recall brings the total number of cribs that need to be fixed up to 9 million, reports WebMD.

“They outsource the manufacture of these cribs and are using very inferior hardware to make the side go up and down,” says Consumer Reports safety expert Don Mays. Another problem is poor quality instructions, which leads to upside down assemblies.

Here is the list of cribs recalled today:

• Simmons Recalls to Repair Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards
• Million Dollar Baby Recalls to Repair Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards
• LaJobi Recalls to Repair Bonavita, Babi Italia and ISSI Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards
• Jardine Recalls to Repair Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards
• Evenflo Recalls to Repair Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards
• Delta Recalls to Repair Drop-Side Cribs Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards Child Craft Drop-Side Cribs Recalled Due to Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards

My Daughter Is Famous … Sort of

So I was on the phone with my mom looking for a place to celebrate Seth’s 8th birthday when it struck me that CrackerJax might be the right choice.

The place has miniature golf, go-karts, video games, lousy food, etc. So I go to the website when suddenly a photo of two kids driving go-karts pops up.

Cue double take: Hey, my daughter, Lael, is driving that yellow go-kart! (The photo is actually used twice, once in the flash banner and then again at the bottom of this page.)

So who else thinks we should get free lifetime passes?

FDA Needs to Get a Grip on Food Issues, Report Finds

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s abilities to discover potential threats to food safety and prevent outbreaks of foodborne illness are hampered by impediments to efficient use of its limited resources and a piecemeal approach to gathering and using information on risks, says a new report by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council.

In other words, the FDA is a mess. The Agency only responds after a disaster rather than predicting potential ones. Of course, this is nothing new to those who have been paying attention, but it’s always nice to have a report to make the prognosis “official.”

More importantly, this report, which was requested by the FDA and Congress, proposes solutions, such as:

• Encouraging the FDA to adopt a risk-based approach to health data to more quickly identify potential food-chain problems.
• The FDA should increase coordination with state and other federal agencies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for example, oversees meat while Oregon’s health department seemingly discovers more problems than the FDA does.
• The FDA should build a centralized food data center that can rapidly collect and disseminate food problems.
• The FDA should standardized testing and rules among states, then farm out inspections to state agencies.
• I’d read the whole report, but it costs $70, even on PDF. Jeesh.

A Tough Lesson to Learn

I spent most of my afternoons last summer teaching my kids basic swimming: putting their faces in the water, holding their breaths, diving down to retrieve torpedoes and basic freestyle.

In March of this year, I began schlepping the kids to the park district aquatic center for more lessons. By April, Seth was on our community swim team.

Not surprisingly, Seth was the slowest of the swimmers. Not only was he slower than his classmates, but most of the younger children as well. I say not surprisingly for two reasons: 1. Because the kids out here have been swimming for years and 2. Because speed is not my forte, endurance is.

After a practice or two, we decided Lael wasn’t ready emotionally to be on the swim team. But physically, Lael is highly advanced in every sport she tries.

Back to Seth: It took a couple weeks before my poor boy could make one length across the pool without flopping onto his back, resorting to chicken, star, rocket. Unfortunately, he was spending so long on his back, he wasn’t really swimming.

Illegal Levels of Lead Found in Juice Drinks and Fruit Cups

Lead exceeding California’s legal limit was found in dozens of popular juice and fruit products, according to the Environmental Law Foundation.

Drinks in violation included Earth’s Best Organics Apple Juice, Hansen Natural Apple Juice, Safeway 100% Juice Apple Cider and Trader Joe's Certified Organic (pasteurized) Apple Juice.

One of the drinks we have in the house for Shabbat – Kedem Concord Grape Juice 100% pure grape juice – is on the list. While we don’t have packaged pears, peaches and fruit cocktail in our house, several dozen products were on the high lead list.

The complete list of products tested can be found here, as well as on the jump. The products, which are in violation of California’s Prop 65, were found to contain more than 0.5 micrograms of lead.

The Environmental Law Foundation has submitted the drinks in violation to the California Attorney General and 58 county district attorneys hoping the government will take action. If California drops the ball, though, ELF plans to file a lawsuit in 60 days, according to the group’s press release.

This report has been slow to show up in the mainstream press, but you can listen to this KQED radio report for more information.

Product Recalls 12 Million Shrieks Over Cadmium Found in McDonald’s Shrek Glasses

In the I can’t-believe-this-happened category, McDonald’s is recalling 12 million Shrek classes because they contain toxic cadmium, reports The Wall Street Journal.

While McDonald’s claims the glasses are within safety levels, the company decided to play it safe after an anonymous tip to U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif, revealed the problem, reports The Chicago Tribune.

“McDonald’s is asking consumers to immediately stop using the glass out of an abundance of caution,” writes the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The site provides details on how to get a full refund.

While there may be a Chinese connection, the CPSC reports ARC International, which is a French company with a New Jersey plant, as the manufacturer of the classes. Perhaps the paint was purchased from a Chinese company? Might be, but the company’s vice president is not saying where the paint came from, reports The Huffington Post.

Book Review ‘Farm’ Takes Children on a Learning Journey

One of the problems with living in Arizona is the lack of family farms to visit. That’s why our farmer’s markets here have so few vendors.

Ironically, Arizona is a huge farm state. It’s just that all the farms are of the gigantic corporate variety.

Arizona does have a few farms that are kid friendly, if you’re willing to dish out a bit of cash, but going to visit your uncle’s family farm is not really part of the Southwestern experience.

Farm by Elisha Cooper does a good job of illustrating farm life today. No, not of the Arizona variety, but more like the giant Midwest farms I used to drive by when I was in college.

The farms differ from the Arizona variety because the Midwest blended the family model with the industrial: big combines next to chickens, miles of corn next to small vegetable plots.

So while the images painted by Cooper are not of our idealized version of the small family farm, Farm does paint a clear picture of what life is like for many American farmers these days.

Children’s Tylenol Recall, Herbal Supplements, Choking and More

The last week of school crushed all life out of me. Here’s a round up of some news you may have missed:

This Recall of Kids Drugs Keeps Getting Stranger

Just what was going on at that Pennsylvania plant that made children’s Tylenol? Apparently the plant had been shrinking its work force while failing to train contract and temporary employees, reports the Chicago Tribune.

McNeil, the division of Johnson & Johnson that made children’s Tylenol, may face criminal action, reports The New York Times. In case you missed it, “McNeil voluntarily recalled more than 136 million bottles of liquid pediatric Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and Zyrtec because they may have contained too much of the active ingredient of the drug, metal specks or inactive ingredients that failed testing requirements.”

Other stuff that came out of a hearing last week:

• “McNeil hired a contractor to quietly remove packages of Motrin from retailers for suspected quality problems.” In effect, the whole thing was a massive, silent recall.
• More than 40 products overall were recalled, reports the Los Angeles Times.
• The Food and Drug Administration seems so irked by the goings on at McNeil that it has referred the case to the agency’s criminal investigation unit.

Those Herbal Supplements May not be Safe Either

The whole point of herbal supplements is that they’re natural. I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think customers want lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic or pesticides in their supplements.

But a Congressional investigation found these nasty contaminants in herbal dietary supplements, reports The New York Times. The metals were at least below what is considered the danger threshold – though there is no safe level for lead or cadmium. Worse, 16 of 40 of the tested supplements contained illegal levels of pesticide.

Food Children Can Choke on

The American Academy of Pediatrics wants labels on foods that are known choking hazards, reports The New York Times. Before you dismiss this whole story, about 60 percent of choking incidents treated at hospitals are caused by food.

In one case, a Marine couldn’t save his 23-month-old daughter after she choked on an unpopped popcorn kernel. Another dangerous food: hot dogs, which are a leading cause of choking.

Alfalfa Sprouts Sicken Dozens

If you have ever tried growing your own sprouts, you know you’re supposed to rinse alfalfa seeds in a chlorine bath to kill off salmonella bacteria.

So you would think Caldwell Fresh Foods would be extra careful. Sadly, another wave of food poisoning has struck at least 10 states and sickened at least 23 people reports The Portland Oregonian.

The sprouts were also sold at 400 Wal-Mart stores in 15 states, reports The Associated Press.

Teach Kids to Swim Earlier

My wife will be the first to admit that she feared our kids drowning at a young age. That’s why I wanted to teach them to swim as soon as possible.

Living in Chicago for two crucial years and intense resistance from my kids delayed meeting that goal until just recently, but the American Academy of Pediatrics recently announced that children from 1-4 years of age are less likely to drown if they receive formalized swimming lessons at a young age, reports The News-Gazette.

Drowning is the second-leading cause of death for children ages 1-19.

Maybe the Bad News Will Slow Down Soon

The good news for parents keeps on coming. Here is another round up:

Wal-Mart Pulls Cadmium-Laced Jewelry

The world’s largest retailer responded to an Associated Press report by pulling its entire line of Miley Cyrus necklaces from shelves because of cadmium contamination, reports The Associated Press via The Washington Post.

While Wal-Mart may sound like it’s being responsible here, keep in mind that The Associated Press first found the toxic metal in some Wal-Mart jewelry back in January. Wal-Mart’s position at the time: it could not afford to check products already on store shelves.

Perhaps it’s the other way around.

Sweets to be Removed From School Vending Machines?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture may soon have the authority to regulate nutrition standards for food outside the lunchroom, reports the Chicago Tribune. Of course, this is the same agency that counts fat-laden French fries as a vegetable, but I’m sure we can trust them. (It’s not like they ever favor big food makers or anything.)

Vending machine companies are supportive of a federal law because they would no longer have to navigate the mix-and-match regulations of states, counties and school districts.

BPA Still Getting Into Food

You remember Bisphenol A, that nasty chemical found in plastic bottles? Yeah, it’s the same one that forced us all to start buying stainless steel water bottles.

Well, don’t think you’ve removed it from your diet yet, especially if you eat canned food. BPA was found in a range of concentrations in cans containing soda, fruits, vegetables, soups, milk and even fish, reports the Gary Post-Tribune.

Everyone disagrees about how safe BPA is, though entire countries have banned the stuff because they fear it causes hormonal and developmental problems in young children.

Oh, did you think glass bottles are safe? Well, they would be except that BPA also was found on the often coated underside of lids!

Clues to the Johnson & Johnson’s Mystery Recall

Remember that mysterious recall of children’s Tylenol, Benadryl, Motrin and Zyrtec in April? It turns out that the medicine may have indeed been contaminated with bacteria, reports The Associated Press via the Peoria Journal Star.

But don’t worry, the Food and Drug Administration says the whole thing was no big deal:

“We think the risk to consumers at this point is remote,” said Deborah Autor, director of FDA’s drug compliance office, in a call with reporters.

Of course, they also said:

The FDA reiterated that serious medical problems with the products are unlikely but advised consumers to stop using the medicine as a precaution. Parents are instructed to use generic alternatives instead.

Encouraging consumers to use generics is a huge slap in the face of name brand companies that spend a fortune on lobbying against cheap competitors, so my guess is the problem was more severe than the FDA is revealing.

Mercury Found in Some Skin Whitening Creams, Newspaper Finds

Okay, this one is more for parents: You might want to think twice about using skin whitening creams since the Chicago Tribune found some contain high levels of mercury.

Actually, only six of the 50 tested creams had more mercury than allowed by law. The bigger problem is as always with the FDA:

The Food and Drug Administration banned mercury in skin-bleaching or lightening products in 1990, but the agency rarely tests the products to see if consumers are at risk. The Tribune’s tests – among only a handful ever conducted – show that tainted products are still readily available.