My True Nature Blog

One of my objectives with this blog is to help educate us all about how to keep our families healthy through the use of natural products and remedies. I was thrilled when Dr. Julia Getzelman, the ONLY board certified, primary care, integrative pediatrician based in San Francisco (I know…hard to believe but true!) agreed to share her tips with us on a regular basis.

“Dr. Julia’s News” will come to us through this blog and you can feel free to ask questions or comment and she will get back to you. She is amazing and I know we are all going to be smarter about keeping our families healthy through her counsel.

Here’s Dr. Julia:

Kelly Boyd, founder of My True Nature products, and I met last November at the San Francisco Birth and Baby Fair. I became enamored of Kelly’s products when I understood that her My True Nature line provided a safe, natural/organic and locally produced alternative for keeping kids clean.

Happily, I also discovered that her “Stinky by Nature” bodywash/shampoo was very effective for my own daily bathing routine. I feel really good about its ingredients both in terms of its impact on the planet and its contribution to lowering my “toxic load,” the amount of unnatural (and often poisonous) substances we are exposed to in today’s world.

As an integrative pediatrician with hundreds of babies and young children as my patients, I’m concerned about the increasingly toxic world in which we live. In particular, young children are at the greatest risk due to exposure to toxins because their brains and other organs are rapidly developing.

Pound for pound young kids eat more food, breathe more air, drink more fluids and spend more time on the floor/ground (where there is an accumulation of dust, chemicals, metals and other environmental toxins) compared to older children and adults.

There are many things as individuals we cannot control about our environment, but we can and must take important actions to significantly reduce unhealthy and toxic exposures. Here are a few ways to make a big difference for you and your family:

• Food
– know where your food comes from, particularly which ranches and farms produce the meat and eggs you eat
– buy local, sustainable, organic food whenever possible
– try Meatless Mondays
– gather as a family for meals

• Personal Care Products
– don’t use anything on your child’s skin or hair with ingredients you wouldn’t eat
– use the Environmental Working Group’s guide to personal care products and sunscreens
– eliminate artificial fragrances (which contain endocrine disruptors)

• Household Cleaners
– use green cleaning solutions: investigate less toxic alternatives like using vinegar in place of bleach, baking
soda to scrub your tiles and hydrogen peroxide to remove stains

• Cooking
– eliminate Teflon pans
– don’t microwave in plastic and store foods/left-overs in glass (e.g., Pyrex) whenever possible
– use wax paper instead of plastic wrap whenever possible