Today's Featured Section: Family [0]

And a Random Article from It:
Organic Baby Food [0]

ear EarthTalk: I want to give my baby fresh, organic food but I don't have the time to make her special meals. What options are out there?
--Marie L., via e-mail

Babies deserve the best possible start in life, so giving them nutritious food is a must, not only for good health but also to establish positive eating habits as early as possible.

According to Consumers Union (CU), publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, commercial baby foods, many of which are made up of condensed fruits and vegetables, can contain high concentrations of pesticide residues. “A lot of these pesticides are toxic to the brain,” says Philip Landrigan, a professor of pediatrics and preventative medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Citing studies that have linked smaller head circumference and reduced intelligence in babies to in utero exposure to pesticides consumed by their mothers, Landrigan says it is best not to gamble when it comes to baby food.

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ong ago (like 1960), the rhythm of the average American housewife's life was fairly standard no matter where you went. Each day had its own task, and so the work got done in a logical, orderly fashion as the week progressed. It went like this:

Monday: Wash Day
Tuesday: Ironing Day
Wednesday: Sewing Day
Thursday: Market Day
Friday: Cleaning Day
Saturday: Baking Day
Sunday: Day of Rest

With a few variations (some folks had a gardening day instead of a separate ironing day, or the days were not quite in this order), this is the way everyone kept house for more than a hundred years. It was such a common scheme that day-of-the-week dishtowels emblazoned with that day's chore were everywhere. (You can still get Aunt Martha iron-on embroidery or paint transfers with this scheme--I collect them, in fact.)

There was logic behind this. Laundry was far and away the heaviest task a housewife faced, requiring a great deal of strength and fortitude to hand-wring clothes and carry big baskets of wet laundry to the clothesline from the basement washtubs. Monday was the day to do it, when you were still fresh and rested from Sunday. Tuesday's ironing followed Monday's wash. Mending and sewing on Wednesday made sense when you'd just been through the clothes and noticed what needed a button or a patch. And so on.

TNH features the day-of-the-week scheme for historical interest, not because you should do your chores this way (though some women still do and swear by it). I just like the orderliness of it as an idea, and I love those old dish towels. A note from reader Bill Larson: The children's song Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush [1] outlines the chore system too, though there's no market day and two cleaning days in this scheme.

Oh--and we know that the "featured section" doesn't really line up with the chores on Monday--traditionally wash day and Family day at TNH--and Tuesday--traditionally ironing day and Healthy Living day at TNH--because we roll laundry and ironing articles into Clean and Organized [1], and we needed homes for Family and Healthy Living. ;)