Dirt, Germs, and Virus… Oh My! Part 2

So I totally jinxed myself. I decide to right a blog post on immune systems and the kids and I get sick 2 days later. Clearly God thought I needed knocked down a few pegs, I was concerned I was getting a little preachy. Evidently He agreed. Sunday morning the kids just seemed extra tired then both fell asleep before 12. Stella never naps and Elliot rarely falls asleep by 12 so we knew something was up. They developed fevers that afternoon and had fevers overnight but by Monday their fevers seemed to have broken. (I don’t use thermometers so don’t ask me how high their fevers were.) They both napped Monday, Elliot napping almost 4 hours, but then seemed fine as they were staying up laughing until 1030 that night. I on the other hand, got it worse.

       I don’t know if I ever had a fever but the runny nose, cough, exhaustion, and sore throat didn’t start letting up until Wednesday. The rawness under my nose got so bad I gave in and ran out to get petroleum jelly because no natural oil was offering me any relief. Even though on some level the us getting sick may have made me look like a slight fraud, it also kinda made my point. Many of the things I’m discussing in these posts the kids are way better about than me (no, I do not eat dirt. And yes my diet is definitely much worse than theirs) and that seems to have translated to how much stronger their immune systems are than mine. So, without any further ado, here’s part two of my immune system ramblings.

       By now I’m sure you’re aware of how strict I am about the kids diets, and that plays a huge role in immunity.  The biggest factor is sugar, or lack of, in my kids diets. I’m not saying they never have any sugar. We’re actually using a new cookbook/meal planner right now and had French toast and pancakes for breakfast last week, and a couple of the dinners had a bit of added sugar to them. Honestly, thats more sugar than they usually get but still such a small amount Im not overly concerned. They don’t have sweets like cookies or brownies except the rare occasion we bake something or we go to a cookout or holiday/birthday event. Even then, I generally offer I wait for them to ask and then give them the smallest amount they’re willing to take like half a cookie or scrape the frosting off the cupcake. I explain to them that we don’t eat a lot of those types of food because they’re not good for the bugs in our belly. (Not pictured, me in the corner of the kitchen horsing down  2 cookies and a cupcake). We don’t keep juice in the house and if they have it at a restaurant or someone else’s house we cut it in half with water. (Stella’s catching onto that though… we can’t make it in front of her anymore.)

       Sugar suppresses your immune system and inhibits it from working properly. They also don’t have a lot of refined carbohydrates, which the body processes the same as sugar.  The kids don’t eat cereal, we buy sprouted bread, they don’t eat chips or crackers regularly, and even our pasta is whole wheat. I’m sure that comes as no surprise to you, but the other common ingredient in our food is seed oils. Seed oils are oils like canola, vegetable, grape seed, sunflower, safflower oil. (That is not a compete list) They’re in almost every processed food, and they are very bad for us. They cause inflammation, and weaken your immune system. They are a contributing factor in many chronic conditions. Food dyes are another thing that weaken the immune system. I don’t consciously avoid food dyes but because the kids don’t really eat anything processed regularly they’re not exposed often. Food dyes increase allergies and asthma in kids. If everyone cut seed oils, food dyes, and sugar out of their diet, we could severely decrease, if not almost eradicate, chronic illnesses including ADHD. But THAT’S controversial… and I would never say anything controversial on this blog… (Check back for a whole post on seed oils, although I’ve already got an anti vax post I’m definitely on Big Pharmas radar and only making myself a biggest target. If a mysterious accident happens, you know who it was. Jk I don’t have enough readers for that kinda excitement.)

        So, most people don’t want their kids putting things in their mouths because of germs. The reason my anxiety spikes when my kids put toy in their mouth at the library or children’s museum? Plastic. I just imagine all those tiny plastic particles shedding off that toy and making their way deeper and deeper into my child’s body. I’m shuddering just thinking about it. But then I take a deep breath and let it go. I don’t worry about germs because my children are not going to get some life threatening chronic disease from putting the same thing in their mouth some other kid had. And, personally, I just think sterilizing things is extreme. I understand the intention behind it, you want to protect your children from illness especially really bad illnesses but I think it does more harm than good. I think when we do this we’re handicapping the kids immune systems because they can’t develop if they’re never exposed to anything. It’s never bothered when my kids are sick, but to be honest I’ve never had a really sick child who’s clearly miserable so my opinion is bias. Even when Stella was really sick the 2-3 times over the first 3 years she just laid around watching tv and slept a lot she never really seemed miserable.

        When I say we don’t sanitizer anything including our hands I’m referring to hand sanitizer. Did you know it’s linked to infertility, specifically in men? And no, just because it’s harmful to sperm does not mean you can use it as a spermicide, which the internet so helpfully pointed out. Thank goodness because I was about to swap my coconut oil lube for hand sanitizer! The biggest reason I don’t do hand sanitizer is because it dries out your hands. Jk that’s just an annoying factor. The biggest reason is because it, again, handicaps your immune system. We’re not meant to live in sterile environments, our ancestors certainly didn’t. I don’t have the kids wash their hands before meals either, or before bed or any other extra time people have their kids wash their hands.

       Speaking of washing, I don’t bath my kids every night either. They get bathed once a week (honestly sometimes longer) unless they went swimming. Sometimes they’ll take a bath more often than that if they want to play but I don’t worry about washing them unless it’s been a week. When we do bath them I don’t use soap on every square inch of their body. I was their hair, I wash their private parts with soap, and that’s pretty much it. I let the water do the rest. I’m sure a lot of people will have something to say about this but I’m not ashamed of it. My kids aren’t dirty and they don’t smell. (Well, generally they don’t. I can’t confirm they didn’t this week because my nose as been so stuffed up). clean their hands and face with water or a baby wipe when they get food on it and when they have gotten into an exceptionally dirty situation we give them a bath but kids don’t need baths as often as we think. No one does, I only shower twice a week and on rare busy weeks once a week. It must not bother Jakob that much since he’s still with me. The skin has its own microbiome that works with the immune system to protect you, and when you’re constantly scrubbing at and washing your skin you’re washing that microbiome away and it and the immune system can’t work together as efficiently.

        If you haven’t quit reading by now, there’s a good chance you’ve decided you do not in fact want to be my friend because my family is gross. But seriously, if you didn’t know any of this would you think that? Do me or my kids smell bad? Do we look dirty? (This may be one of those times where I’m asking questions I don’t want the answers to…) Do we have lice or bed bugs or anything else you think of when you think of dirty people? No. If you do decide not to be my friend anymore, don’t take it out on Jakob he showers every day. You can still hang out with him. Who knows to what extent any of these things contribute to our immune systems, and maybe there’s other things as well like the lack of fragrances in our home affecting our lungs or something I haven’t thought of. I always thought that having pets was adding to the toxic load in my house, but Dr Josh Axe said that having pets decreases the risk of allergies and asthma by 50%, so ya know pros and cons. I’m sure the fact that my kids are vaccinated has a huge affect on how strong their immune systems are, because they weren’t inundated with tons of diseases at once at a very young age. I don’t know if that’s exactly how vaccines affect immune systems but I have heard multiple doctors say that their unvaccinated patients do not get sick as often as vaccinated ones. I know the reason they’ve never had an ear infections is due to not being vaccinated. Because of that they’ve never had antibiotics so that could be another contributing factor to their strong immune systems, since antibiotics destroy your gut micro biome. But this isn’t a vaccine post so we’ll move on.

       If you’re not willing to boycott showering, you could try hand washing dishes apparently hand washing dishes, as opposed to using the dishwasher, is linked to decreased risk for asthma, eczema, and hay fever. I will not doing that. I literally do the opposite, I have to run my dishwasher twice a day half the time.

       So am I just lucky and have really healthy kids in spite of my horrible hygiene habits? Or are my kids really healthy because of my unconventional hygiene practices? We report, you decide. And you subscribe to my blog post. At the bottom of the home screen. Do that too.