12 Steps to Whole Foods

GreenSmoothieGirl Resource Library
control fever is so rare as to be something I needn’t worry about. In his other writings, Dr. Mendelsohn warns
against America’s love affair with vaccination and the epidemic of health consequences we have earned as a
consequence.
This book is a good start toward realizing that the doctor isn’t God: a good first step down a road to a mother
becoming a healer in the home.
You won’t so much get alternative health advice from the doctor as you will get understanding about the
medical paradigm’s limitations and abuses, which is helpful in a parent’s initial effort to break loose of modern
pediatrics.
Denise Punger, M.D.: Permission to Mother: Going Beyond the Standard-of-Care to Nurture Our Children
Dr. Punger is a GreenSmoothieGirl 12-Stepper and a brave new voice in modern medicine. She’s a boardcertified
doctor married to another medical doctor, but she’s also a mother who has breastfed for 12 years and
delivered her last baby via home birth. She’s an advocate of home birth, doulas, breastfeeding, and trusting a
mother’s instincts. This book is an important one for young mothers to own.
Eric Schlosser: Fast Food Nation and Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know about Fast Food
These books are geared toward teens. Give your kid an incentive to read one or both of these books. My 11-
and 13-year-old kids loved these best-selling exposés and never wanted to set foot in a fast-food establishment
again. (Okay, they never set foot in fast-food establishments anyway, except to make a bathroom stop on a
trip.) They inspired my oldest daughter to become a vegetarian, and she later converted her sister. Written for
preteens and teens, this is an excellent education in why you want to avoid all fast food. I overheard my
daughter after she read Chew on This telling a friend regarding the friend’s sugar habit, “You know that
children diagnosed with diabetes by the age of 8 shorten their lives by 25-30 years, don’t you?” (Heh-heh! My
evil educational plot is working!) Too bad the author states in the introduction that his favorite meal is a fastfood
burger.
Ron Seaborn: The Children’s Health Food Book
This is a seriously weird book! A friend recommended it to me, and when I picked it up at a health food store,
my then-four-year-old son went crazy for it. I read it to him several times a day, because he begged me nonstop
until I just couldn’t take it any more and was making up my own words. The antiheroes are the Starch Creature,
the Dairy Goon, the Meat Monster, and the Sugar Demon. Of course, the vegetable, fruit, and whole-grain
superheroes come in and save the day. This book is good for younger kids—just beware that the preschool
teacher might call you and say your kid is scaring the other kids by pointing out how bad their snacks are (this
actually happened to me).
Randall Neustaedter: The Vaccine Guide
This is the most science-based, objective, and compelling look at the vaccine issue of all the books I read as I
made the difficult decision not to immunize my children. For instance, although the DPT shot seemed a nobrainer
to avoid after reading about the evidence, Neustaedter is fair and balanced in saying that no known
deaths result from the tetanus shot.
346 12 Steps to Whole Foods
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw