I’ve been quiet lately because I’ve been catching up on my reading. I’ve got 6 cookbooks at my bedside table right now and only 2 of them are likely candidates. Even a book titled “What to Eat When You Can’t Eat Anything” is filled with wheat-egg-dairy recipes. They should have just called the book “Eat Organic” since that seems to be the main advice.

I’ve also been getting some news on food allergies delivered to my e-mail. This one’s depressing:

Nurse shortage at schools

and a little scary. I’m glad I don’t have this problem, but what about the millions of kids that are in school? The good thing is that nurses, from what I hear, are in high demand once again. Ten years ago our nurse friends in St. Louis were lamenting the fact that they were getting laid off from hospitals left and right, senior nurses were being asked to work double and triple shifts, take on more responsibilities than they could really handle, etc. These days we meet nurses coming in to the US just to meet the demand.

I’ve also been reading up on air quality and indoor air pollution. When we were in Texas in 1998 and considering our next move, we made up a chart of the cities that were on our list, including their air quality, water quality, crime rate, etc. How *could* we have missed this vital piece of information this time around? Ohio is one of the worst states in terms of air quality. You guys that live in the coastal regions are getting much better air — be thankful:D. Because moving out to Antarctica (where air quality is best) is out of the question for us, we have to do what we can here without taxing our already weakened lungs (genetics and all that). So right now I’m looking into getting an air purifier. I’ve got a couple of brands in mind but reviews have been mixed, and the fact that some purifiers release ozone as well is confusing me. I talked to my cousin over the weekend — she’s an environmental engineer — and she said that most states, including Ohio, are actually doing the best they can, but you can only do so much. Her main advice is for our family to avoid going outdoors and exercising/working out during the hours when air quality is at its worst — i.e., rush hour. So that means walking and biking around with Dad after he gets home from work is not advisable. We’ll also have to schedule our nature walks, now that the weather is glorious, at odd times during the day. Sigh…. the tradeoffs of living in an industrialized nation…. but I shouldn’t complain. We are richly blest.

This post doesn’t have much to do about food, I know, but I’ve always taken a holistic approach to taking care of my family’s bodies — food is just one way. I do have a few recipes that I’ve tried, and the kids successfully stayed away from all things wheat-dairy-eggs for 3 weeks, until we went to St. Louis over the weekend and attended a couple of birthday celebrations:). Right now they’re a bit stuffed-up, but hopefully nothing serious. We are back to strict diets, as their request 4 weeks from now is lasagne al horno. I’m thinking of making it with rice sheets, as well as buffalo mozzarella (which some people with dairy allergies can tolerate).