Meet the mom behind NatureMoms: Tiffany Washko
Ohio mom of three blogs about leading a healthier and more natural way of life that's good for your family and good for the planet.
Photo: Green moms meetup at Ford NAIAS: Diane MacEachern, Anna Hackman, me, Tifany Washko, and Stephanie Moram TW: I had lots of health problems with my oldest who is now 11. When he was a baby he was born very sick. He had a vaccine reaction and epilepsy, and he was hospitalized several times. I couldn't help but think that there had to be some reason why his start was so rocky. Was it something environmental? Something in my health? Something that I had been exposed to? Something in my diet? I just wanted to cover all of the bases to make sure that if I did have another child – because I did want to have another one right away even though I ended up waiting 3 years – that this didn’t happen again.
JS: What is the environmental issue that concerns you the most?
TW: Food. Because that’s the one I struggle with daily. All the foods that my kids want are all the things that they shouldn’t have. I have a real problem with foods that are marketed to kids and foods that have become the norm. They go to school and get pop tarts. It really bothers me that we don’t have a food culture that’s healthier. I ended up with colon cancer and I think it was largely because I had a really bad diet. I don’t want my kids to grow up in an environment where stuff is loaded with dyes and chemicals, like high fructose corn syrup. I wish everyone could see that that is not real food. And the food issue is an environmental issue because so many bad foods are sourced from crops that are subsidized and that are bad for the planet. It seems to be more important to the government to maximize the profits of the bad food companies than to give us access to good, clean non-processed food. It impacts our kids' health and it impacts their environment.
JS: What is one thing that any parent can do to start leading a greener, more natural lifestyle?
JS: So, what does a 'nature mom' do for fun?
TW: My family does a lot of hiking. We do the winter and fall hiking series that our city parks put on. We like to travel to national and state parks, but that doesn’t happen much with the kids. I guess I’m just a boring person, I don’t have any grand hobbies.
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