Skip the cans: Limit the BPA in your game day snacks by limiting your canned ingredients, or choosing BPA free alternatives. Soak beans overnight and boil them the next day for baked beans or bean dip. If you’re making chili, avoid canned tomatoes or tomato paste and look for boxed or jarred alternatives. You can also replace canned tomatoes with cooked fresh tomatoes. For beverages, Healthy Child, Healthy World recommends choosing beer and soda in glass bottles instead of canned if possible.

Less packaging: Look for ways to reduce the amount of plastic and packaging you purchase for your party. Save money, and avoid packaging, by buying bulk snacks, sweets, and ingredients. Steer clear of overly packaged convenience produce, like prewashed lettuce, premade carrot sticks, or individually wrapped fruits or veggies. These items often carry a higher price tag. Look for loose produce at your supermarket, or use this tool to find a local farmer’s market. Skip plastic tubs or bags by using minimally packaged ingredients to make one of your favorite snack foods at home, like potato chips or salsa.

Smarter produce: Veggies may not seem like a big part of your Superbowl menu. But a lot of traditional game day foods feature a few pieces of produce: cut up veggies for all those dips, chopped onions and peppers to top off a bowl of chili, celery sticks cozied up next to chicken wings. Remember to rub your fruits and veggies for 30 to 60 seconds under warm running water. Wash inedible peels; even though you discard the peel, cutting into the fruit or peeling the fruit can transfer chemicals into the fruits flesh through your knife. For edible peels, peeling non-organic fruits and vegetables is an easy way to avoid the chemicals that are absorbed into the peel.

Rethink disposables: If you can lose the disposable silverware and plates, that’s great. If you can’t, what about losing one of them? Keep your disposable plates, but use regular silverware. Use the restaurant trick of keeping a bowl of hot water by the sink and dump used silverware in the bowl so it’s rinsed and ready for the dishwasher. Or add dishsoap to the water and give your soapy silverware a quick scrub and rinse when the party is over. Try bamboo or unbleached recycled paper products for dishes and napkins. Remember to make recycling obvious by clearly marking your recycling bin.

Lose the shoes: Lower your toxic chemical exposures by asking your guests to leave their shoes at the door. Lead-contaminated soil from the outside creates the majority of lead dust inside our homes. Leaving your shoes at the door can cut your lead dust levels by 60 percent, and also reduce your exposure to pesticides, dust mites, and more. Create a designated space for shoes by the door and make it obvious to your guests by putting up a sign, placing a mat in the space, or putting a few pairs of your own shoes there.

More Non-toxic Tips Tuesdays:

• Take BPA Off of Your Grocery List
• Five Tips for the Non-toxic Chef
• A Green Makeover for Your Cleaning Supplies

Do you have any green Super Bowl party tips or recipes? Leave them in the comments, or visit our Facebook page and share them with the MomsRising community.

Vintage kids games are fun; but vintage legislation is not. Sadly, when it comes to protecting our kids from toxic chemicals, there’s a dangerous mega Mad Libs-sized blank space where comprehensive toxic chemicals reform should be. And as we all know, protecting our kids from toxics chemicals is no road trip game. It’s serious business.

Fill in the blank for families! Tell us why you want comprehensive chemicals reform: “I want comprehensive chemicals reform because ______________.”

Okay, so it’s not as funny as a hippo walking into a punch bowl. In fact, your fill-in-the-blank answer may not be funny at all. It might be very serious.

As you’ve likely guessed, this is about more than a Mad Lib game.  We’ll be delivering the answers you submit to leaders as we urge them to fix our broken chemical system.  And the voices and ideas from parents across the nation, combined together, are a powerful force for change.  Every submission makes a difference and adds up.  (So feel free to forward this to friends and family so they can act too).

That’s right, we’re compiling your fill-in-the-blank messages and bringing them straight to the top so Congress can know why families need comprehensive chemicals reform. Click here to add your message!

The time to act is now.  Our current chemicals legislation, the Toxic Substances Control Act, has not been updated since 1976. Back then, we didn’t know as much about how toxic chemicals can migrate from the materials and products in which they’re used – including furniture, plastics, and food cans – into our bodies. Our broken system leaves us exposed to countless toxic chemicals every day, chemicals that put our families at risk for cancer, learning disabilities, infertility, and more. We need comprehensive chemicals reform because we can’t protect our kids and families from toxics without the help of federal legislation.

*Share your experience today with us–and with Congress–by clicking here to fill in this question: “I want comprehensive chemicals reform because ______________.”

All of your feedback will be compiled into a book for Congress. We’ll personally present it to legislators as we educate them about the need for an update of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). An update to TSCA would provide vigorous oversight of chemical use to ensure all products are safer, and it would give the federal government enough authority to require that chemicals be tested for safety before they are put into the products we use every day.

Sharing the personal experiences of parents makes a huge difference when we’re talking to legislators of all stripes. In fact, they are our strongest legislative tool. Click here to share what you think with Congress by answering this question: “I want comprehensive chemicals reform, because_________.”

Tell us–and national leaders–today why you want comprehensive chemicals reform. And make sure to pass this along to your friends and families. The more voices we have, the bigger the impact! 

Together we can build a safer and healthier nation for all of our children.

Join us here on the MomsRising blog in the New Year every Tuesday for more non-toxic tips! In the meantime, here’s the full list of our 2011 tips. Enjoy, and have a happy New Year!

The Basics:

• ECOnomical: Top 5 Thrifty Non-toxic Tips
• Tips Tuesday: Top 5 Non-toxic, One-Ingredient-Swaps
• Tips Tuesday: Top 5 Toxic Habits You Should Break
• How to avoid flame retardants: Sing at the sink, listen to bears, and more
• 5 Non-toxic New Years  Resolutions

Beauty:

• Navigating a Sunscreen Wonderland
• Top Six Safer Summer Beauty Tips
• Top 5 Green Beauty Tips for Fall
• Gift Guide: Non-toxic Beauty Gifts and DIY Tips
• Tips Tuesday: Be a savvy, health-conscious, and socially responsible consumer and avoid the Toxic Trio

Home:

• A Green Makeover for Your Cleaning Supplies
• Tips Tuesday: Green Tips for Pets
• Non-toxic Tips for Winter Coughs and Colds

Work:

• Detox Your Workday and Green Your Office

School:

• Detox Your Dorm: Top 5 Non-toxic Tips for Your College Freshman
• Top Five Safer Back to School Shopping Tips

Holidays/Special Occasions:

• Tips Tuesday: How to Make a Green Baby Registry
• Tips Tuesday: How to Create a Green Wedding Registry
• Get Ready for a Green Halloween!
• Tips Tuesday: Green Holiday Travel
• Tips Tuesday: 5 Tips for Non-Toxic Holidays
• 5 Tips for Non-Toxic Toy Shopping
• 5 Green Shipping Tips for Your Holiday Gifts

Food:

• Tips Tuesday: Top 5 Tips for Healthier Fruits and Veggies
• Tips Tuesday: Makeover your lunch box staples
• How to Host a Green End of Summer BBQ
• How to Take BPA Off the Menu
• Take BPA Off of Your Grocery List
• Five Tips for the Non-Toxic Chef
• Tips Tuesday: Nontoxic Thanksgiving Makeovers
• 3 Easy Steps to Toxic Free and Yummy Stocking Stuffers

Skip those worn out resolutions this year, and try an easy, inexpensive non-toxic resolution instead. Here are the top five tips for creating your own non-toxic New Years Resolution:

1) Lose the shoes: Lower your toxic chemical exposures by leaving your shoes at the door. Lead-contaminated soil from the outside creates the majority of lead dust inside our homes. Leaving your shoes at the door can cut your lead dust levels by 60 percent, and also reduce your exposure to pesticides, dust mites, and more.

2) Open a window: We spend most of our time indoors, which is why cleaning up your indoor air quality is one of the most important things you can do to avoid toxic chemicals. Luckily, the best way to clean up your indoor air is also easy and free: Open a window for five minutes every day. This simple action significantly lowers levels of indoor air pollutants. Try to do this daily, and not just at home: If you can, open a window at work for a few minutes too.

3) Replace one thing: For most of us, it’s just not possible to replace all of the items in our homes that contain toxic chemicals. That’s okay. Instead of getting overwhelmed, why not focus on replacing one thing that you use a lot? Here are a few suggestions:

• Your most used nonstick pan: Think about what recipes you cook the most, and what cookware you use for those dishes, and focus on replacing that cookware. That way the foods you eat the most will also be the foods cooked in the healthiest way
• Hand soap: You wash your hands several times a day, so make sure you’re not exposing yourself to chemicals each time. Check out the Skin Deep database for non-toxic handsoap recommendations.
• All purpose cleaner: Your most used cleaner should be your least toxic. This is an easy, cheap fix: Use our DIY Cleaning Supply Guide to whip up a simple, two or three ingredient cleaner (Don’t worry about buying supplies; These are all ingredients you probably already have in your house, like water.)

4) Learn a skill: Easy, DIY skills will make your non-toxic journey smoother, and less expensive. This year, pick a skill that will help you detox your life, like:

• Learn how to cook your own beans or soup at home: Consume less canned foods, and less BPA, by learning how to make one thing at home that you usually buy canned. Don’t worry about learning how to make everything at home! Just focus on one recipe or skill and master it.)
• Master a DIY non-toxic cosmetic or cleaning supply: Not the crafty type? Don’t worry, you can use these one ingredient DIY swaps instead of tackling a big project.
• Pick up a good habit: Wash your makeup brushes. Regularly filter your water. Try one of the two habits listed at the top of this post.

5) Make a Big Change: Why are toxic chemicals in our cosmetics, cleaning supplies, kids toys, and more? This year, don’t get overwhelmed: get active. If you make one non-toxic resolution, take five minutes to make a change our outdated chemicals legislation. Here are a few ways:

• Learn more: Find out more about our current chemicals legislation with this comprehensive guide from Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.
• Take action: Click here to take action and ask your Senators to support the Safe Chemicals Act.
• Tell your story: Become a part of our story map by clicking here to answer the question “I want comprehensive toxic chemical reform because____________.”

Side dishes: Creamed corn or spinach, and green bean casserole, are annual must-have side dishes for many Thanksgiving menus. Unfortunately, both of these holiday foods often contain multiple canned ingredients.  Don’t ditch your favorite treats because of BPA in cans; a little tweaking can take this pesky toxic chemical off the menu. For green bean casserole, use fresh or frozen green beans. Buy organic if it’s possible, and no matter what, make sure to thoroughly wash your produce. The same rules apply for creamed corn and spinach. The Breast Cancer Fund has a simple recipe for homemade creamed corn that could also be adjusted to make creamed spinach.

Pie fillings: Canned pie fillings might be easy, but they’re also home to BPA. BPA in Thanksgiving Canned Food, a new report by the Breast Cancer Fund, found BPA in Libbys pumpkin pie filling, a staple of many Thanksgiving pantries. Use simple recipes to develop your own pie fillings, like  this Tips Tuesday apple pie filling recipe. For pumpkin pie, use these tips from the Breast Cancer Fund to roast your own pumpkin and create your own filling. If the pumpkin roasting feels intimidating or takes up too much space, replace pumpkin with simple squashes or try a sweet potato pie instead.

Turkey: When you’re choosing a turkey, the Environmental Working Group recommends selecting an organic or antibiotic-free turkey.  You can also use this guide from Healthy Child, Healthy World to find the healthiest turkey for your Thanksgiving table.

Gravy and Green Bean Casserole: Skip the canned gravy and make your own with this simple recipe from the Breast Cancer Fund. If you’re in a time crunch, many supermarkets now carry boxed or jarred gravies. Replace canned mushroom soup with a jarred, boxed, or homemade version. Green bean casserole is such a classic in my house that I gave it a nontoxic makeover so I could keep it on my Thanksgiving table. You can find my recipe here, or create your own by subbing out canned ingredients for BPA-free alternatives.

Cranberry sauce: I have really good cranberry sauce news for you. If, like me, you’re a fan of the canned version, you’ll be happy to find out that the homemade, nontoxic version is both easy and inexpensive. The Breast Cancer Fund has this recipe for a simple, three ingredient cranberry sauce .

Watch your water: Remember that filtered water isn’t just for drinking. Make sure you also filter your water if you’re boiling water or using water as an ingredient in a dish. If you don’t have a filter, the Green Guide recommends placing an open container of water in the fridge for a few hours, which helps filter out chlorine, and let water run for a full minute before you use it for cooking or drinking.

Save energy: Speed up boiling time by covering your pots. You can cook beans and chickpeas much faster if you presoak them overnight, then boil them. When it comes to using your oven, preheating is a big waste of energy. Alexandra Zissu recommends skipping preheating and being smart about how often you check on items in the oven, since opening and closing the oven door is another sneaky way to waste energy.

Wash the rinds and peels: Wash all of your produce, even produce with inedible peels and rinds. It’s especially important to follow this rule if you’re slicing through the peel, since chemicals from the peel can transfer into the fruit’s flesh through your knife. If you’re zesting citrus fruits, make sure to scrub the peel and try to buy organic. You should scrub fruits and veggies for about 30 seconds each, which you can measure by singing the Happy Birthday song twice.

Pay attention to your soaps: A good chef knows that clean hands are one of the most important tools in the kitchen. So pay attention to what you’re putting on those clean hands! Chemicals from soap can transfer from your hands into the food your handling. Keep your hands clean with non-toxic soaps; you can find safer soaps on the Skin Deep database. The same rule applies for dishes: If you’re working hard to keep toxic chemicals out of of your foods, don’t ignore what your serving food on. Wash your dishes thoroughly with non-toxic dish soap. You can look up healthier dish soaps on the Good Guide.

Lets talk about kale: Kale! It’s everywhere. I cannot go to a food blog without stumbling upon a new kale recipe. Kale is delicious, super healthy, and more difficult to clean than your average green. We’ve talked about rules for cleaning produce before, but kale needs a special rule because of aphids, aka tiny grey bugs, that frequently show up on organic kale. When you’re preparing kale, soak it in a copious amount of salted water to remove dirt and aphids. After soaking, you can even briefly boil or steam in salted water to remove leftover aphids.

Today is Food Day, and we’re celebrating the power and the possibility of food. Thousands of people across the country are coming together to alleviate hunger, improve health, protect the earth, and protect workers, all through the power of food.

*Let’s get Food Day started today by asking Congress to support the Eat Real Agenda: http://action.momsrising.org/letter/FoodDay2011/

What is the Eat Real Agenda, anyway?

The Eat Real Agenda is a solution for fixing America’s broken food system by:

1. Reducing diet-related disease by promoting safe, healthy foods

2. Supporting sustainable farms and limiting subsidies to big agribusiness

3. Expanding access to food and alleviating hunger

4. Protecting the environment and animals by reforming factory farms

5. Promoting health by curbing junk-food marketing to kids

6. Supporting fair conditions for food and farm workers

Food Day is the beginning of a nationwide discussion about how to create a healthier food culture. With sky-rocketing levels of obesity and diabetes, as well as with increasing numbers of children experiencing food scarcity due to economic limitations, it’s important that Congress takes part in this dialogue and works towards creating food practices that contribute to the health and safety of American families.

*For Food Day today, ask Congress to celebrate with you by supporting the Eat Real Agenda:  http://action.momsrising.org/letter/FoodDay2011/

When it comes to food, and celebrating Food Day, don’t forget to have fun! Experimenting with healthy foods can be a delicious opportunity for the whole family. Get your kids in the kitchen and try out one of these special Food Day recipes. Invite family and friends over for a healthy potluck, or go on a food adventure by exploring some new fruits and veggies with your family. For more information on Food Day, visit FoodDay.org.

An apple a day and eating your peas led to good health, we once thought. Now, according to major food manufacturers, fruits and vegetables are “job killers” that will devastate the American economy.

Photo credit: James Vaughan (via Flickr).

In April of this year, the Federal Trade Commission, along with three other Federal agencies (FDA, CDC and USDA), released a set of proposed guidelines for marketing food to children to reduce sugars, fats and salts in the diets of American youth, and increase fruits, whole grains and vegetables. In 2008 Congress, led by Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Tom Harkin (D-IA), asked for these recommendations to address the nations’ growing childhood obesity crisis.

A coalition of major manufacturers of processed foods (including Fruit Loops, Lucky Charms and SpaghettiOs), fast-food chains and the media industry that depends on their advertising dollars are spending millions on lobbyists to derail the proposed voluntary guidelines.

The food lobby’s arguments are contradictory and wrong. They alternate between saying, on one hand, that the voluntary marketing guidelines won’t make a difference in reducing obesity among American children while, on the other hand, that they are unnecessary government intrusions into an industry that is already reducing its advertising to children. Which is it?

The children’s health crisis is real. Studies show that almost one third of all children aged 10 to 17 are overweight or obese. In the past three decades the rates have more than doubled among kids aged 2 to 5, and more than tripled among those ages 6 through 11. The incidence of “adult onset” diabetes in children and youth has more than doubled in the past decade.

A number of marketing studies have confirmed the obvious: Advertising to kids increases purchasing and consumption.  According to an analysis by the FTC, 44 food and beverage companies spent $2 billion in 2006 alone marketing to children. There’s a huge amount at stake for the junk food and media industries. According to the New York Times, James McNeal, a former marketing professor at Texas A&M University, estimates that children influence more than $100 billion food and beverage purchases each year.

Youth today are immersed in more commercial advertising, and in more media, than any time in history. Food companies understand that and have expanded their advertising to cover every corner of this new media-saturated world.  American University communications professor Kathryn Montgomery calls this “360 degree marketing” that includes the Internet, video games, cell phones, sponsored Web games, marketing in schools and eye-level packaging with cartoon characters and popular kid movies.

Food makers deny the link between their ads and children’s health.

Scott Faber, a vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, told one regulatory hearing, “I can’t imagine any mom in America who thinks stripping tigers and toucans off cereal boxes will do anything to reduce obesity.” It doesn’t take an advertising expert to know that food companies put SpongeBob (or tigers and toucans) on the box to sell more cereal. A recent study by John Hopkins University says that cartoon characters play a key role in getting children to nag their parents for fatty foods. One study even showed that young children think food packaged with a cartoon character on the front actually tastes better. Another study showed that if you wrap carrots in a McDonald’s packaging, kids say that the carrots taste better.

Despite their denials, in 2006 a coalition of these same companies created their own industry guidelines – the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative – to self-police their own marketing to kids of healthy foods. The original standards, while they were weak and allowed companies to apply their own definition of “healthy” (that conveniently always included their own products), did cause some companies to reduce their ads targeting children.  This past July they released a set of stronger and more consistent advertising standards.

In other words, major food manufacturers think that only some of their products are unhealthy for kids and have, accordingly stopped marketing these selected products.

But which is it? Does marketing influence our kids’ healthy eating habits or doesn’t it? The companies can’t have it both ways.

Then, of course, there are the facts. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies reviewed the scientific evidence on the influence of food marketing on diets and diet-related health of children and youth. The report found that “current food and beverage marketing practices [put] children’s long-term health at risk.”

The food industry’s convoluted and contradictory arguments can only be intended to obscure a simple fact. According to noted food and nutrition expert Marion Nestle, “To satisfy stockholders, food companies must convince people to eat more of their products or to eat their products instead of those of the competitors.”  It’s logical for them. Unfortunately, that mission helps degrade good health in too many places.

• Navigating a Sunscreen Wonderland
• Top Six Safer Summer Beauty Tips
• How to avoid flame retardants: Sing at the sink, listen to bears, and more
• ECOnomical: Top 5 Thrifty Non-toxic Tips
• Tips Tuesday: Top 5 Non-toxic, One-Ingredient-Swaps
• Tips Tuesday: Top 5 Tips for Healthier Fruits and Veggies
• Tips Tuesday: How to Make a Green Baby Registry
• Tips Tuesday: How to Create a Green Wedding Registry
• Tips Tuesday: Top 5 Toxic Habits You Should Break
• Detox Your Dorm: Top 5 Non-toxic Tips for Your College Freshman
• Top Five Safer Back to School Shopping Tips
• Tips Tuesday: Makeover your lunch box staples
• How to Host a Green End of Summer BBQ
• How to Take BPA Off the Menu
• Take BPA Off of Your Grocery List

So with BPA making a cameo appearance in nearly every canned good on the market (including organic canned foods for kids), what is a responsible grocery shopper to do? Stop buying cans all together? Completely cutting canned goods out of your grocery shopping might not be possible. And that’s okay! Instead of worrying about getting rid of everything, lets edit out the worst canned goods and find economical solutions for replacing them. Here are the top six tips for taking BPA off your grocery list:

Beans and Chickpeas: Skipping canned beans and chickpeas originally seemed impossible to me. Turns out, soaking, and cooking, your own beans and chickpeas is not only the best BPA free option, but it’s also cheap, easy, and boosts the flavor of the legumes. Soak chickpeas and beans overnight or use this quick soak method from Bon Appetit. Soaking makes the beans cook easily and quickly once you’re ready to boil them.

Brands that don’t use BPA: Good news: They do exist! Bad news: There aren’t that many of them. Eden Organics has been using BPA-free liners on their cans since 1999. All of their cans except for their canned tomatoes are BPA-free. Vital Choice, Oregon’s Choice, Wild Planet, and Eco Fish all offer some BPA free canned fish, including tuna, salmon, and sardines. This blog from TreeHugger outlines all of your BPA-free canned food options.

Top 10 foods not to get canned: If you’re going to buy canned food, as with most things, some cans are worse than others. The Breast Cancer Fund has a handy, wallet sized tip sheet that shows you the top 10 canned foods to avoid.

Replace your soups: Parent Earth has several kid friendly soup recipes that can be whipped up for lunch or dinner. Invent your own simple soup by adding beans, veggies, and/or grains to boxed broth or easy homemade broth. If you do buy soup at the grocery store, try to buy boxed or jarred versions.

Skip the canned beverages: Health Canada found unhealthy levels of BPA in diet, non-diet, and fruit-flavored canned sodas, as well as energy drinks. Canned beer is even more dangerous because of the solubility of BPA in alcohol. Find out more about sneaky sources, of BPA on Healthy Child, Healthy World.

Say no to receipts: Sometimes, you need a receipt. Maybe it’s a big ticket item, maybe you’re on a strict budget: You know when a receipt is necessary. But when you can avoid receipts, you should. Most receipts are coated in a powder that contains BPA, which you can absorb through your hands. Avoid receipts when possible, wash your hands frequently, and don’t commit the all too easy toxic faux pas of letting receipts build up in your wallet or at the bottom of your purse.