When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten?

Correction Appended

According to the apple-or-coin test, used in the Middle Ages, children should start school when they are mature enough for the delayed gratification and abstract reasoning involved in choosing money over fruit. In 15th- and 16th-century Germany, parents were told to send their children to school when the children started to act “rational.” And in contemporary America, children are deemed eligible to enter kindergarten according to an arbitrary date on the calendar known as the birthday cutoff — that is, when the state, or in some instances the school district, determines they are old enough. The birthday cutoffs span six months, from Indiana, where a child must turn 5 by July 1 of the year he enters kindergarten, to Connecticut, where he must turn 5 by Jan. 1 of his kindergarten year. Children can start school a year late, but in general they cannot start a year early. As a result, when the 22 kindergartners entered Jane Andersen’s class at the Glen Arden Elementary School near Asheville, N.C., one warm April morning, each brought with her or him a snack and a unique set of gifts and challenges, which included for some what’s referred to in education circles as “the gift of time.”

After the morning announcements and the Pledge of Allegiance, Andersen’s kindergartners sat down on a blue rug. Two, one boy and one girl, had been redshirted — the term, borrowed from sports, describes students held out for a year by their parents so that they will be older, or larger, or more mature, and thus better prepared to handle the increased pressures of kindergarten today. Six of Andersen’s pupils, on the other hand, were quite young, so young that they would not be enrolled in kindergarten at all if North Carolina succeeds in pushing back its birthday cutoff from Oct. 16 to Aug. 31.

Andersen is a willowy 11-year teaching veteran who offered up a lot of education in the first hour of class. First she read Leo Lionni’s classic children’s book “An Extraordinary Egg,” and directed a conversation about it. Next she guided the students through: writing a letter; singing a song; solving an addition problem; two more songs; and a math game involving counting by ones, fives and tens using coins. Finally, Andersen read them another Lionni book. Labor economists who study what’s called the accumulation of human capital — how we acquire the knowledge and skills that make us valuable members of society — have found that children learn vastly different amounts from the same classroom experiences and that those with certain advantages at the outset are able to learn more, more quickly, causing the gap between students to increase over time. Gaps in achievement have many causes, but a major one in any kindergarten room is age. Almost all kindergarten classrooms have children with birthdays that span 12 months. But because of redshirting, the oldest student in Andersen’s class is not just 12 but 15 months older than the youngest, a difference in age of 25 percent.

After rug time, Andersen’s kindergartners walked single-file to P.E. class, where the children sat on the curb alongside the parking circle, taking turns running laps for the Presidential Fitness Test. By far the fastest runner was the girl in class who had been redshirted. She strode confidently, with great form, while many of the smaller kids could barely run straight. One of the younger girls pointed out the best artist in the class, a freckly redhead. I’d already noted his beautiful penmanship. He had been redshirted as well.

States, too, are trying to embrace the advantages of redshirting. Since 1975, nearly half of all states have pushed back their birthday cutoffs and four — California, Michigan, North Carolina and Tennessee — have active legislation in state assemblies to do so right now. (Arkansas passed legislation earlier this spring; New Jersey, which historically has let local districts establish their birthday cutoffs, has legislation pending to make Sept. 1 the cutoff throughout the state.) This is due, in part, to the accountability movement — the high-stakes testing now pervasive in the American educational system. In response to this testing, kindergartens across the country have become more demanding: if kids must be performing on standardized tests in third grade, then they must be prepping for those tests in second and first grades, and even at the end of kindergarten, or so the thinking goes. The testing also means that states, like students, now get report cards, and they want their children to do well, both because they want them to be educated and because they want them to stack up favorably against their peers.

Indeed, increasing the average age of the children in a kindergarten class is a cheap and easy way to get a small bump in test scores, because older children perform better, and states’ desires for relative advantage is written into their policy briefs. The California Performance Review, commissioned by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004, suggested moving California’s birthday cutoff three months earlier, to Sept. 1 from Dec. 2, noting that “38 states, including Florida and Texas, have kindergarten entry dates prior to California’s.” Maryland’s proposal to move its date mentioned that “the change . . . will align the ‘cutoff’ date with most of the other states in the country.”

All involved in increasing the age of kindergartners — parents, legislatures and some teachers — say they have the best interests of children in mind. “If I had just one goal with this piece of legislation it would be to not humiliate a child,” Dale Folwell, the Republican North Carolina state representative who sponsored the birthday-cutoff bill, told me. “Our kids are younger when they’re taking the SAT, and they’re applying to the same colleges as the kids from Florida and Georgia.” Fair enough — governors and state legislators have competitive impulses, too. Still, the question remains: Is it better for children to start kindergarten later? And even if it’s better for a given child, is it good for children in general? Time out of school may not be a gift to all kids. For some it may be a burden, a financial stress on their parents and a chance, before they ever reach a classroom, to fall even further behind.

Redshirting is not a new phenomenon — in fact, the percentage of redshirted children has held relatively steady since education scholars started tracking the practice in the 1980s. Studies by the National Center for Education Statistics in the 1990s show that delayed-entry children made up somewhere between 6 and 9 percent of all kindergartners; a new study is due out in six months. As states roll back birthday cutoffs, there are more older kindergartners in general — and more redshirted kindergartners who are even older than the oldest kindergartners in previous years. Recently, redshirting has become a particular concern, because in certain affluent communities the numbers of kindergartners coming to school a year later are three or four times the national average. “Do you know what the number is in my district?” Representative Folwell, from a middle-class part of Winston-Salem, N.C., asked me. “Twenty-six percent.” In one kindergarten I visited in Los Altos, Calif. — average home price, $1 million — about one-quarter of the kids had been electively held back as well. Fred Morrison, a developmental psychologist at the University of Michigan who has studied the impact of falling on one side or the other of the birthday cutoff, sees the endless “graying of kindergarten,” as it’s sometimes called, as coming from a parental obsession not with their children’s academic accomplishment but with their social maturity. “You couldn’t find a kid who skips a grade these days,” Morrison told me. “We used to revere individual accomplishment. Now we revere self-esteem, and the reverence has snowballed in unconscious ways — into parents always wanting their children to feel good, wanting everything to be pleasant.” So parents wait an extra year in the hope that when their children enter school their age or maturity will shield them from social and emotional hurt. Elizabeth Levett Fortier, a kindergarten teacher in the George Peabody Elementary School in San Francisco, notices the impact on her incoming students. “I’ve had children come into my classroom, and they’ve never even lost at Candy Land.”

For years, education scholars have pointed out that most studies have found that the benefits of being relatively older than one’s classmates disappear after the first few years of school. In a literature review published in 2002, Deborah Stipek, dean of the Stanford school of education, found studies in which children who are older than their classmates not only do not learn more per grade but also tend to have more behavior problems. However, more recent research by labor economists takes advantage of new, very large data sets and has produced different results. A few labor economists do concur with the education scholarship, but most have found that while absolute age (how many days a child has been alive) is not so important, relative age (how old that child is in comparison to his classmates) shapes performance long after those few months of maturity should have ceased to matter. The relative-age effect has been found in schools around the world and also in sports. In one study published in the June 2005 Journal of Sport Sciences, researchers from Leuven, Belgium, and Liverpool, England, found that a disproportionate number of World Cup soccer players are born in January, February and March, meaning they were old relative to peers on youth soccer teams.

Before the school year started, Andersen, who is 54, taped up on the wall behind her desk a poster of a dog holding a bouquet of 12 balloons. In each balloon Andersen wrote the name of a month; under each month, the birthdays of the children in her class. Like most teachers, she understands that the small fluctuations among birth dates aren’t nearly as important as the vast range in children’s experiences at preschool and at home. But one day as we sat in her classroom, Andersen told me, “Every year I have two or three young ones in that August-to-October range, and they just struggle a little.” She used to encourage parents to send their children to kindergarten as soon as they were eligible, but she is now a strong proponent of older kindergartners, after teaching one child with a birthday just a few days before the cutoff. “She was always a step behind. It wasn’t effort and it wasn’t ability. She worked hard, her mom worked with her and she still was behind.” Andersen followed the girl’s progress through second grade (after that, she moved to a different school) and noticed that she didn’t catch up. Other teachers at Glen Arden Elementary and elsewhere have noticed a similar phenomenon: not always, but too often, the little ones stay behind.

The parents of the redshirted girl in Andersen’s class told a similar story. Five years ago, their older daughter had just made the kindergarten birthday cutoff by a few days, and they enrolled her. “She’s now a struggling fourth grader: only by the skin of her teeth has she been able to pass each year,” the girl’s mother, Stephanie Gandert, told me. “I kick myself every year now that we sent her ahead.” By contrast, their current kindergartner is doing just fine. “I always tell parents, ‘If you can wait, wait.’ If my kindergartner were in first grade right now, she’d be in trouble, too.” (The parents of the redshirted boy in Andersen’s class declined to be interviewed for this article but may very well have held him back because he’s small — even though he’s now one of the oldest, he’s still one of the shortest.)

Kelly Bedard, a labor economist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, published a paper with Elizabeth Dhuey called “The Persistence of Early Childhood Maturity: International Evidence of Long-Run Age Effects” in The Quarterly Journal of Economics in November 2006 that looked at this phenomenon. “Obviously, when you’re 5, being a year older is a lot, and so we should expect kids who are the oldest in kindergarten to do better than the kids who are the youngest in kindergarten,” Bedard says. But what if relatively older kids keep doing better after the maturity gains of a few months should have ceased to matter? What if kids who are older relative to their classmates still have higher test scores in fourth grade, or eighth grade?

After crunching the math and science test scores for nearly a quarter-million students across 19 countries, Bedard found that relatively younger students perform 4 to 12 percentiles less well in third and fourth grade and 2 to 9 percentiles worse in seventh and eighth; and, as she notes, “by eighth grade it’s fairly safe to say we’re looking at long-term effects.” In British Columbia, she found that the relatively oldest students are about 10 percent more likely to be “university bound” than the relatively youngest ones. In the United States, she found that the relatively oldest students are 7.7 percent more likely to take the SAT or ACT, and are 11.6 percent more likely to enroll in four-year colleges or universities. (No one has yet published a study on age effects and SAT scores.) “One reason you could imagine age effects persist is that almost all of our education systems have ability-groupings built into them,” Bedard says. “Many claim they don’t, but they do. Everybody gets put into reading groups and math groups from very early ages.” Younger children are more likely to be assigned behind grade level, older children more likely to be assigned ahead. Younger children are more likely to receive diagnoses of attention-deficit disorder, too. “When I was in school the reading books all had colors,” Bedard told me. “They never said which was the high, the middle and the low, but everybody knew. Kids in the highest reading group one year are much more likely to be in the highest reading group the next. So you can imagine how that could propagate itself.”

Bedard found that different education systems produce varying age effects. For instance, Finland, whose students recently came out on top in an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development study of math, reading and science skills, experiences smaller age effects; Finnish children also start school later, at age 7, and even then the first few years are largely devoted to social development and play. Denmark, too, produces little difference between relatively older and younger kids; the Danish education system prohibits differentiating by ability until students are 16. Those two exceptions notwithstanding, Bedard notes that she found age effects everywhere, from “the Japanese system of automatic promotion, to the accomplishment-oriented French system, to the supposedly more flexible skill-based program models used in Canada and the United States.”

The relative value of being older for one’s grade is a particularly open secret in those sectors of the American schooling system that treat education like a competitive sport. Many private-school birthday cutoffs are set earlier than public-school dates; and children, particularly boys, who make the cutoff but have summer and sometimes spring birthdays are often placed in junior kindergarten — also called “transitional kindergarten,” a sort of holding tank for kids too old for more preschool — or are encouraged to wait a year to apply. Erika O’Brien, a SoHo mother who has two redshirted children at Grace Church, a pre-K-through-8 private school in Manhattan, told me about a conversation she had with a friend whose daughter was placed in junior kindergarten because she had a summer birthday. “I told her that it’s really a great thing. Her daughter is going to have a better chance of being at the top of her class, she’ll more likely be a leader, she’ll have a better chance of succeeding at sports. She’s got nothing to worry about for the next nine years. Plus, if you’re making a financial investment in school, it’s a less risky investment.”

Robert Fulghum listed life lessons in his 1986 best seller “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” Among them were:

Clean up your own mess.

Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Take a nap every afternoon.

Flush.

Were he to update the book to reflect the experience of today’s children, he’d need to call it “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Preschool,” as kindergarten has changed. The half day devoted to fair play and nice manners officially began its demise in 1983, when the National Commission on Excellence in Education published “A Nation at Risk,” warning that the country faced a “rising tide of mediocrity” unless we increased school achievement and expectations. No Child Left Behind, in 2002, exacerbated the trend, pushing phonics and pattern-recognition worksheets even further down the learning chain. As a result, many parents, legislatures and teachers find the current curriculum too challenging for many older 4- and young 5-year-olds, which makes sense, because it’s largely the same curriculum taught to first graders less than a generation ago. Andersen’s kindergartners are supposed to be able to not just read but also write two sentences by the time they graduate from her classroom. It’s no wonder that nationwide, teachers now report that 48 percent of incoming kindergartners have difficulty handling the demands of school.

Friedrich Froebel, the romantic motherless son who started the first kindergarten in Germany in 1840, would be horrified by what’s called kindergarten today. He conceived the early learning experience as a homage to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who believed that “reading is the plague of childhood. . . . Books are good only for learning to babble about what one does not know.” Letters and numbers were officially banned from Froebel’s kindergartens; the teaching materials consisted of handmade blocks and games that he referred to as “gifts.” By the late 1800s, kindergarten had jumped to the United States, with Boston transcendentalists like Elizabeth Peabody popularizing the concept. Fairly quickly, letters and numbers appeared on the wooden blocks, yet Peabody cautioned that a “genuine” kindergarten is “a company of children under 7 years old, who do not learn to read, write and cipher” and a “false” kindergarten is one that accommodates parents who want their children studying academics instead of just playing.

That the social skills and exploration of one’s immediate world have been squeezed out of kindergarten is less the result of a pedagogical shift than of the accountability movement and the literal-minded reverse-engineering process it has brought to the schools. Curriculum planners no longer ask, What does a 5-year-old need? Instead they ask, If a student is to pass reading and math tests in third grade, what does that student need to be doing in the prior grades? Whether kindergarten students actually need to be older is a question of readiness, a concept that itself raises the question: Ready for what? The skill set required to succeed in Fulgham’s kindergarten — openness, creativity — is well matched to the capabilities of most 5-year-olds but also substantially different from what Andersen’s students need. In early 2000, the National Center for Education Statistics assessed 22,000 kindergartners individually and found, in general, that yes, the older children are better prepared to start an academic kindergarten than the younger ones. The older kids are four times as likely to be reading, and two to three times as likely to be able to decipher two-digit numerals. Twice as many older kids have the advanced fine motor skills necessary for writing. The older kids also have important noncognitive advantages, like being more persistent and more socially adept. Nonetheless, child advocacy groups say it’s the schools’ responsibility to be ready for the children, no matter their age, not the children’s to be prepared for the advanced curriculum. In a report on kindergarten, the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education wrote, “Most of the questionable entry and placement practices that have emerged in recent years have their genesis in concerns over children’s capacities to cope with the increasingly inappropriate curriculum in kindergarten.”

Furthermore, as Elizabeth Graue, a former kindergarten teacher who now studies school-readiness and redshirting at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, points out, “Readiness is a relative issue.” Studies of early-childhood teachers show they always complain about the youngest students, no matter their absolute age. ‘In Illinois it will be the March-April-May kids; in California, it will be October-November-December,” Graue says. “It’s really natural as a teacher to gravitate toward the kids who are easy to teach, especially when there’s academic pressure and the younger kids are rolling around the floor and sticking pencils in their ears.”

But perhaps those kids with the pencils in their ears — at least the less-affluent ones — don’t need “the gift of time” but rather to be brought into the schools. Forty-two years after Lyndon Johnson inaugurated Head Start, access to quality early education still highly correlates with class; and one serious side effect of pushing back the cutoffs is that while well-off kids with delayed enrollment will spend another year in preschool, probably doing what kindergartners did a generation ago, less-well-off children may, as the literacy specialist Katie Eller put it, spend “another year watching TV in the basement with Grandma.” What’s more, given the socioeconomics of redshirting — and the luxury involved in delaying for a year the free day care that is public school — the oldest child in any given class is more likely to be well off and the youngest child is more likely to be poor. “You almost have a double advantage coming to the well-off kids,” says Samuel J. Meisels, president of Erikson Institute, a graduate school in child development in Chicago. “From a public-policy point of view I find this very distressing.”

Nobody has exact numbers on what percentage of the children eligible for publicly financed preschool are actually enrolled — the individual programs are legion, and the eligibility requirements are complicated and varied — but the best guess from the National Institute for Early Education Research puts the proportion at only 25 percent. In California, for instance, 76 percent of publicly financed preschool programs have waiting lists, which include over 30,000 children. In Pennsylvania, 35 percent of children eligible for Head Start are not served. A few states do have universal preschool, and among Hillary Clinton’s first broad domestic policy proposals as a Democratic presidential candidate was to call for universal pre-kindergarten classes. But at the moment, free high-quality preschool for less-well-to-do children is spotty, and what exists often is aimed at extremely low-income parents, leaving out the children of the merely strapped working or lower-middle class. Nor, as a rule, do publicly financed programs take kids who are old enough to be eligible for kindergarten, meaning redshirting is not a realistic option for many.

One morning, when I was sitting in Elizabeth Levett Fortier’s kindergarten classroom in the Peabody School in San Francisco — among a group of students that included some children who had never been to preschool, some who were just learning English and some who were already reading — a father dropped by to discuss whether or not to enroll his fall-birthday daughter or give her one more year at her private preschool. Demographically speaking, any child with a father willing to call on a teacher to discuss if it’s best for that child to spend a third year at a $10,000-a-year preschool is going to be fine. Andersen told me, “I’ve had parents tell me that the preschool did not recommend sending their children on to kindergarten yet, but they had no choice,” as they couldn’t afford not to. In 49 out of 50 states, the average annual cost of day care for a 4-year-old in an urban area is more than the average annual public college tuition. A RAND Corporation position paper suggests policy makers may need to view “entrance-age policies and child-care polices as a package.”

Labor economists, too, make a strong case that resources should be directed at disadvantaged children as early as possible, both for the sake of improving each child’s life and because of economic return. Among the leaders in this field is James Heckman, a University of Chicago economist who won the Nobel in economic science in 2000. In many papers and lectures on poor kids, he now includes a simple graph that plots the return on investment in human capital across age. You can think of the accumulation of human capital much like the accumulation of financial capital in an account bearing compound interest: if you add your resources as soon as possible, they’ll be worth more down the line. Heckman’s graph looks like a skateboard quarter-pipe, sloping precipitously from a high point during the preschool years, when the return on investment in human capital is very high, down the ramp and into the flat line after a person is no longer in school, when the return on investment is minimal. According to Heckman’s analysis, if you have limited funds to spend it makes the most economic sense to spend them early. The implication is that if poor children aren’t in adequate preschool programs, rolling back the age of kindergarten is a bad idea economically, as it pushes farther down the ramp the point at which we start investing funds and thus how productive those funds will be.

Bedard and other economists cite Heckman’s theories of how people acquire skills to help explain the persistence of relative age on school performance. Heckman writes: “Skill begets skill; motivation begets motivation. Early failure begets later failure.” Reading experts know that it’s easier for a child to learn the meaning of a new word if he knows the meaning of a related word and that a good vocabulary at age 3 predicts a child’s reading well in third grade. Skills like persistence snowball, too. One can easily see how the skill-begets-skill, motivation-begets-motivation dynamic plays out in a kindergarten setting: a child who comes in with a good vocabulary listens to a story, learns more words, feels great about himself and has an even better vocabulary at the end of the day. Another child arrives with a poor vocabulary, listens to the story, has a hard time following, picks up fewer words, retreats into insecurity and leaves the classroom even further behind.

How to address the influence of age effects is unclear. After all, being on the older or younger side of one’s classmates is mostly the luck of the birthday draw, and no single birthday cutoff can prevent a 12-month gap in age. States could try to prevent parents from gaming the age effects by outlawing redshirting — specifically by closing the yearlong window that now exists in most states between the birthday cutoffs and compulsory schooling. But forcing families to enroll children in kindergarten as soon as they are eligible seems too authoritarian for America’s tastes. States could also decide to learn from Finland — start children in school at age 7 and devote the first year to play — but that would require a major reversal, making second grade the old kindergarten, instead of kindergarten the new first grade. States could also emulate Denmark, forbidding ability groupings until late in high school, but unless very serious efforts are made to close the achievement gap before children arrive at kindergarten, that seems unlikely, too.

Of course there’s also the reality that individual children will always mature at different rates, and back in Andersen’s classroom, on a Thursday when this year’s kindergartners stayed home and next year’s kindergartners came in for pre-enrollment assessments, the developmental differences between one future student and the next were readily apparent. To gauge kindergarten readiness, Andersen and another kindergarten teacher each sat the children down one by one for a 20-minute test. The teachers asked the children, among other things, to: skip; jump; walk backward; cut out a diamond on a dotted line; copy the word cat; draw a person; listen to a story; and answer simple vocabulary questions like what melts, what explodes and what flies. Some of the kids were dynamos. When asked to explain the person he had drawn, one boy said: “That’s Miss Maple. She’s my preschool teacher, and she’s crying because she’s going to miss me so much next year.” Another girl said at one point, “Oh, you want me to write the word cat?” Midmorning, however, a little boy who will not turn 5 until this summer arrived. His little feet dangled off the kindergarten chair, as his legs were not long enough to reach the floor. The teacher asked him to draw a person. To pass that portion of the test, his figure needed seven different body parts.

“Is that all he needs?” she asked a few minutes later.

The boy said, “Oh, I forgot the head.”

A minute later the boy submitted his drawing again. “Are you sure he doesn’t need anything else?” the teacher asked.

The boy stared at his work. “I forgot the legs. Those are important, aren’t they?”

The most difficult portion of the test for many of the children was a paper-folding exercise. “Watch how I fold my paper,” the teacher told the little boy. She first folded her 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper in half the long way, to create a narrow rectangle, and then she folded the rectangle in thirds, to make something close to a square.

“Can you do it?” she asked the boy.

He took the paper eagerly, but folded it in half the wrong way. Depending on the boy’s family’s finances, circumstances and mind-set, his parents may decide to hold him out a year so he’ll be one of the oldest and, presumably, most confident. Or they may decide to enroll him in school as planned. He may go to college or he may not. He may be a leader or a follower. Those things will ultimately depend more on the education level achieved by his mother, whether he lives in a two-parent household and the other assets and obstacles he brings with him to school each day. Still, the last thing any child needs is to be outmaneuvered by other kids’ parents as they cut to the back of the birthday line to manipulate age effects. Eventually, the boy put his head down on the table. His first fold had set a course, and even after trying gamely to fold the paper again in thirds, he couldn’t create the right shape.

Correction: June 17, 2007

An article on June 3 about the age that children start kindergarten omitted the name of an author of a seminal paper that analyzed the topic. The co-author (with Kelly Bedard) of “The Persistence of Early Childhood Maturity: International Evidence of Long-Run Age Effects” is Elizabeth Dhuey.

Yesterdays swim was great! We had two parents along and it made the swim fun and easy, but the pool was really crowded. Although it was hard at times to keep track of everyone, the children didn’t seem to notice and they had a lot of fun.

Swimming is really good for kids, and we’ve already had some graduates to the deeper end. Jasmin can now swim in the deep end, and that’s great. Adyson is on his way. It won’t be long before the kids begin to disappear from the safety of the ramp and get into the main body of the pool, and that’s what it’s all about.

We had a nice lunch at the picnic area and the kids played on both playgrounds. At 1:00, there is an adult swim, and we rest our lunches until then, and then it’s back to the pool until the bus arrives.

I can’t tell you how manageable this group of children are. I’m so proud of them.

I got this letter from my daughter Katy about her cat. I thought it was funny and wanted to share it with you. I think, at times, we all feel like this with those we care for!

Mom,

Here are the new steps in making a bed after I’ve washed sheets:

Pull sheets out of dryer. Then pull cat out of dryer.

Move down the hallway as quickly as possible with sheets–because cat sees sheets and ankles as moving targets. Sometimes the “back into the room” method works so you know when the biting is coming instead of going in “blind.”

Once in bedroom drop sheets on the floor and clear off bed. Cat is now on bed and must be “cleared.”

Cat has taken up residency on the fitted sheet on the floor. Pull fitted sheet up and slide cat along floor with fitted sheet because cat will not move.

Once cat is “extracated” from fitted sheet, place on bed. Cat has now taken up residency in the middle of the bed and must be encouraged to relocate.

Cat has now relocated to flat sheet that is still lying on the floor. Again, slide cat along the floor while on the flat sheet because cat is happy and will not move.

Once “freed” of the cat, the fitted sheet can now be placed on the bed. Cat is now on the bed and is trying to attack the flat sheet because it recalls moments ago the flat sheet being pulled from the dryer and is still pissed that it didn’t get to attack it earlier.

Cat has now found ideal nap space on corner of the bed that is half made because attempting to tuck in the flat sheet is futile and who wants to get blood stains from being attacked on clean sheets?

Grab pillows and cases. Cat has decided the corner of the bed is no longer amusing and as pillow is tucked under the chin to place case on the end, cat decides to throw itself at the pillow. Cat thinks that wiggling the case like that is paramount to play time.

Toss everything back onto bed and realize that cat decides when bed will be made….and now isn’t the time.

I love you….

Kate

Comment: with all the stumbling blocks we have today in our lives, a lot of us face periodic depression and unhappiness. Here’s an article from my favorite site – Women to Women – it’s good for men too – about depression that’s worth reading.

Antidepressants and alternative treatments for depression

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

Topics addressed in this article:

• How are antidepressants designed to work?
• The depressing truth about antidepressants
• Why antidepressant use is so widespread
• Side effects of antidepressants — known and unknown
• Women to Women’s approach to dealing with depression
• Do you really need an antidepressant?
• Serotonin, nutrition and stress
• How to restore healthy serotonin levels naturally

Jackie was just 42 when she came to Women to Women for help. She had gone to her prior healthcare provider complaining of fatigue and “feeling low” two weeks out of every month. She had two active children, kept house, helped her husband with his business, and cared for her aging parents. No wonder Jackie was tired. But her doctor put her on Prozac.

Almost 75% of the new patients at our medical practice come to us on antidepressants prescribed by their prior healthcare provider. There are often other underlying issues needing to be balanced, and few of them suffer from major depression, the one diagnosis that clearly justifies their use.

Some of these women went to their primary care provider’s office with situational mood disorders like seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or post partum depression. Others were in a minor depressive state brought on by emotional or physical stress. Many had common symptoms of hormonal imbalance such as PMS or hot flashes. Like Jackie, many suffered from fatigue, insomnia, or simple aches and pains. But all left their doctor’s office with a prescription for antidepressants.

If you go to a conventional healthcare provider, the odds are pretty high that you will be prescribed antidepressants at some point in your life. Should you take them? And if you’re on them now, what are your alternatives?

Antidepressants: a brief overview

Chances are, either you or someone you know has a prescription for an antidepressant. They have become conventional medicine’s default drug of choice: when in doubt, you’re probably depressed.

There are three different families of antidepressants, each with a different chemical mechanism. (Here’s a list of common antidepressants.) All of these drugs work with your neurotransmitters — the brain chemicals that regulate mood, sleep, and appetite, among other things.

In the 1960’s and 1970’s it was thought that norepinephrine, epinephrine and dopamine were the primary affectors of mood. The first two families of antidepressants, MAOI’s and tricyclics, were developed to increase available levels in the brain, but it turns out that they can burn out the brain’s receptors within several weeks. They also have very strong side effects. As a result, physicians have come to prescribe them with care just to people who really need them.

At about the same time, some scientists began to view another neurotransmitter — serotonin — as the missing link in treating mood disorders. In the 1980’s a new family of antidepressants — SSRI’s, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors — was developed, and appeared to deliver results in regulating mood without the more serious side effects of its predecessors.

Due to the seemingly attractive risk/benefit ratio of SSRI’s, physicians expanded antidepressant use exponentially: in the 1990’s, spending on antidepressants grew by 600%! Today the various classes of antidepressants under such tradenames as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Cymbalta, and Sarafem are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the world. And while we know now that diminished serotonin reuptake does factor heavily into the mood regulation equation, SSRI’s and their pharmaceutical cousins are not the magic bullet pharmaceutical companies would have us believe.

The depressing truth about antidepressants

Can so many of us have the major form of depression that warrants such rampant drug use? Of course not.

This doesn’t mean that a lot of you don’t feel depressed, or have symptoms that could be related to depression. Such symptoms are usually related to some kind of stress — emotional and/or physical — that can be resolved without pharmaceutical drugs. This is especially true when it comes to subclinical forms of mood disorders such as SAD, PMS, or post partum depression. It’s also true for many situational or reactive depressions.

Some studies have shown that antidepressants are no more effective in treating this kind of mild to moderate depression than a placebo. (In a clinical trial half the participants are given the real drug; the other half are given an inactive pill called a placebo.) Furthermore, depending on how one defines depression, as many as one-third to a half of depressed patients do not show significant improvement with prescription medication, while as many as half of those who receive no such treatment improve anyway.

Numerous recent studies also tell us that regular exercise — 20–30 minutes, three to six times a week — can be a powerful antidote to mild or moderate depression. Even small amounts of exercise can make all the difference in the world (though we will generally benefit more from a higher amount). Most of us have heard of the mood lift that accompanies the endorphin surge or “runner’s high” that occurs with exercise. These studies show that sticking to a regular workout provides long-term mood stabilization, especially when combined with other antidepression measures, such as talk therapy.

In fact, antidepressants are contraindicated for short-term treatment of minor depression — something the drug companies don’t want publicized. Clinical practice guidelines indicate that SSRI’s need to be prescribed for at least six months for minimal treatment of major depression — longer than most episodes of minor depression last.

So with such doubt about their efficacy, why are so many doctors (most antidepressants are prescribed by PCP’s, not psychiatrists) handing out prescriptions for an ever-growing list of symptoms — such as headaches, insomnia, PMS, menopausal symptoms — that are not exclusively linked with severe depression?

Managed care and antidepressants

To get a clearer picture, it’s important to understand how the healthcare system works. Under managed care, when you feel unwell your first stop is your primary care physician (PCP), not a specialist. To figure out the real issues requires a lot of time. One must look at the person’s unique history and presentation. PCP’s have very little time to spend with you and they are usually not experts on mental health or natural methods.

PCP’s are well-intentioned, but antidepressants may be the best option they have for you. They may believe that antidepressants, particularly SSRI’s, provide an adequate solution with relatively little risk (at least in the short term). And antidepressants often will help you feel better — if you don’t mind the side effects.

Certain chronic pain conditions that primarily affect women, such as fibromyalgia, endometriosis and rheumatoid arthritis, can cause mild depression and multiple trips to the doctor’s office. While your primary care doctor may be unable to resolve your chronic pain, he or she can help make you happier about living with it. If they can satisfy you and the HMO with a prescription, they feel they’ve done their job.

Off-label use of antidepressants

While doctors are under pressure from the managed care system on the one hand, the influence of the pharmaceutical companies who make antidepressants is truly pervasive.

Drug companies typically get a new product approved by the FDA for a specific diagnosis for a limited period of use based on the results of clinical trials. The companies then use a range of tactics to support the use of that drug for other diagnoses and for longer periods of time. This is referred to as off-label use, and it is an enormous source of sales and profits for Big Pharma, as the pharmaceutical industry is sometimes called.

Years ago a tactic used to promote off-label use of antidepressants was to suggest to doctors that women’s complaints have no medical basis — i.e., “it’s all in her head” — and won’t go away without a mood-altering drug.

Today Big Pharma’s tactics are subtler. They fund research, conferences, and speakers and direct free samples and sales efforts toward physicians in support of off-label use of their products, including antidepressants. Not to mention the multimillion-dollar direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns. A 2003 study found that over 70% of surveyed patients reported exposure to these persuasive advertising efforts.

One specific recent tactic in recent use is the widespread promotion of antidepressants as a “safe” substitute for synthetic HRT. When the WHI studies on the dangers of HRT were published in 2001, about 13 million women were taking those drugs. Many of these women were put into a panic by the news about the health risks of HRT.

The drug companies seized this opportunity to promote antidepressants for menopausal symptoms, especially hot flashes. Millions of women were switched directly from Prempro to Prozac or other SSRI’s. Unfortunately, in our clinical experience, they don’t work for very long, particularly in their use for hormonal, inflammatory issues, and women aren’t being told enough about their health risks and side effects.

Side effects of antidepressants, known and unknown

We must not forget that these products are drugs — very powerful, significant chemicals that alter your hormonal balance and perhaps permanently change your brain’s biochemistry. No one knows what the long-term effects of antidepressants are because most clinical trials to date study 3– to 5–year outcomes of a single drug at a time — never a combination.

There is evidence now that SSRI’s actually decrease levels of serotonin over time. Some kind of disruption of the neurotransmitter pathways occurs, because SSRI’s don’t create a new equilibrium: at some point in time the patient must be moved to a new drug to maintain the same effect.

The side effects of SSRI’s include weight gain or loss, intense restlessness, insomnia, fatigue, sexual dysfunction, panic attacks, and anxiety. And these are not rare side effects: for example, studies indicate that 18–50% of patients experience sexual dysfunction.

Other studies show an increased risk of bleeding disorders, such as GI bleeding, bruising and nosebleeds, with use of SSRI’s. Although recent studies and anecdotal evidence strongly suggest an increase in suicidal behavior in children and adolescents, the data do not present a clear picture. Despite years of analysis, this link remains highly complex and not well understood. SSRI’s also carry strong potential for drug interactions. Clearly, more research needs to be done on all fronts.

In short, for all but those suffering from major depression, antidepressant use carries the risk of serious side effects to address what is, in most cases, a temporary problem. SSRI’s were just introduced in 1988. Synthetic HRT was used for 60 years before government studies finally showed their health risks. Who knows what the next 50 years will reveal about the risks of extended use of antidepressants?

A new view of ordinary depression

What makes this all so frustrating is that many forms of depression are natural, normal and temporary — rather like menopause. Indeed, the philosophically minded might simply attribute many of these feelings to the human condition. Likewise, they can be relieved through safe, gradual methods using your body’s natural mechanisms.

As with other symptoms of imbalance, depression is your body’s way of sending you a signal that something is awry. Antidepressants don’t address the underlying problem; they drown it out with a booming Don’t worry—be happy! But for how long? What happens when you want or need to come off antidepressant medications?

Think for a moment about how SSRI’s work. The idea is that you don’t have enough serotonin, so the drug conserves the limited amount in your body, blocking it from being changed into the next substance on its metabolic pathway.

At Women to Women, we look at the problem differently. We ask, “Why isn’t your body making more serotonin? And what can we do about that?” Moreover, we question the simplistic view that depression is solely the result of low serotonin — the real biology is probably more complex, arguing for a holistic solution that supports the whole neurotransmitter cascade.

I’ve seen so many of my patients turn their lives around — naturally — who never thought they’d be free of depression. You can, too. But first you have to know what you’re dealing with.

How depressed are you?

I want to be clear about one thing. If you have major depression, you need to stay on your antidepressants. We are not recommending that anyone with this diagnosis quit their medication cold turkey (some patients have severe reactions when they get off SSRI’s too quickly). However, we want every woman who is on or thinking about taking an antidepressant to know what her choices are.

Depression includes a range of normal negative emotions. But clinical depression differs significantly from minor or situational depression or mood disorders, even though the symptoms can be the same. The difference is that in mild depression the symptoms ebb and flow and eventually lift, while in major depression they spiral down into a full-blown, entrenched mental health crisis.

Most forms of depression are characterized by overwhelming, persistent feelings of grief, anxiety, guilt or despair; a sense of numbness or hollowness; and a loss of interest or pleasure in activities that were once enjoyed, including sex. Dullness, decreased energy, difficulty concentrating or making decisions, and disrupted sleep patterns are also symptoms, as well as overeating and weight gain, or loss of appetite and weight loss. Suicidal thoughts or attempts and obsessing about death are serious warning signs that need to be addressed immediately.

If you’ve been feeling any of these symptoms consistently for over a month, you should immediately seek out medical advice, preferably from a trained psychiatrist, psychologist, or social worker.

Chronic physical symptoms that do not respond to treatment, such as headaches, digestive disorders, and pain can be an indication of depression, but may be symptoms of an underlying physical condition that warrants further testing. Before taking antidepressants you should get a second opinion. Integrative medical practices (those that combine alternative and conventional medicine) are very successful at finding the true source of mysterious ailments. (For more information see our article on how to make alternative medicine work for you.)

The social stigma of depression

If you think you may have minor depression, you’re in good company! Everyone has normal, sometimes extended bouts of melancholy or grief, particularly after a trauma or loss. But pain and anguish aren’t often talked about. Our culture doesn’t like “downers,” so many of us put on a brave face and perhaps wonder why we can’t be happy like everyone else.

The truth is that sadness and grief are normal, and psychotropic drugs may interfere with our grieving or mental processing. Before going to the pharmacy, think about the possible reasons why you’re feeling blue. In many cases, you have good reason: death, health crises, financial woes, divorce, break-ups, moves, and other big transitions are common causes of situational depression. Even joyful events like weddings and births can bring on depression by resurfacing unresolved emotional experiences from your past.

Minor depression may stem from individual physical stresses such as jet lag, poor nutrition, illness, insomnia, low carbohydrate levels, carbohydrate addiction (more on that below), hormone imbalance, yeast or wheat sensitivity, allergies, and environmental pollutants. Many suffer from a downward cycle of poor health that creates life problems that in turn are depressing.

Then there’s the cast of well documented subcategories of depression that affect millions of people, such as post partum depression (PPD), post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). They can be devastating while they last, making doctors quick to prescribe pharmacological solutions. Sometimes medications are needed and can be a useful bridge back to wellness, but it’s important to know that there are other, more natural options that work quickly, too.

And of course, there are those emotional issues we all grow up with. Sometimes we’re blissfully unaware of them until we run smack into them. I know a woman who at 47 had a sudden nervous breakdown. For a year she hid in her house, cried all the time, and stopped caring for her children. Today she’d be on antidepressants in a heartbeat. While they might have helped her get out of the house and to the therapist’s office (a good thing for sure), they would not have identified or resolved her underlying emotional issue: Her father had died tragically when he was 46. By outliving him, she fell unwittingly into a deep well of unconscious guilt and grief. With time she was able to work that through and her depression resolved.

The good news is that most forms of mild to moderate depression will respond very well to positive changes in diet, exercise and lifestyle habits and nutrient support. Why? The key is the connection between serotonin and cortisol levels, which are directly influenced by diet and stress.

Serotonin, melatonin, cortisol, and depression

While all of your neurotransmitters are important, serotonin is the star when it comes to your mood. When your serotonin receptors are in sync, you feel good: you sleep and eat well, and you awake refreshed and energized. Contrast this to an abnormal serotonin state in which you suffer all the symptoms of depression.

Serotonin is synthesized in the brain and the digestive tract, which is also the source of its precursors. This is yet another reason why what you eat and how well you digest are crucial to how you feel! L–tryptophan, an essential amino acid found in food and supplements, is converted in your body into 5–hydroxytryptophan (5–HTP), and then into 5–hydroxytryptamine ( 5–HT), which is the chemical name for serotonin.

Importantly, serotonin is the “parent” for the hormone melatonin, which regulates our circadian rhythm, or sleep cycles. If you have insufficient serotonin, your melatonin levels become imbalanced and your sleep gets disrupted. This can be a downward spiral, leading to further disruption of serotonin function.

Sudden changes in serotonin levels cause irritability, fuzzy thinking, and anxiety. Stimulants like coffee, sugar, simple carbohydrates, nicotine, and recreational drugs can release a flood of serotonin for a few hours, creating a pleasurable effect. When the stimulants wear off, serotonin levels plunge and we crave another “hit.” A reliance on stimulants puts your body and mind on a vicious up-and-down treadmill, resulting in chronic serotonin pathway dysfunction — not to mention weight gain.

Maybe you’ve heard the recommendation to eat a potato at night to help carbohydrate cravings and depression. This may sound silly, but potatoes and turkey contain L–tryptophan, that important building block of serotonin.

Stress is truly big here, too. When we are stressed, our body releases the hormone cortisol. A surge in cortisol is always accompanied by a surge in serotonin — and the inevitable dip a few hours later. Women who suffer from fatigue and cravings for carbohydrates in the late afternoon are probably on the high-cortisol/low-serotonin rollercoaster. And guess what? They usually feel depressed.

So what can you do?

Once you see the connection between nutrition, stress, and serotonin levels, it gets easier to understand how simple lifestyle and diet changes will make huge improvements in your mood — and overall health — without resorting to drugs. What you eat affects your brain chemistry. I can’t say it more simply.

Many women with mild to moderate depression don’t feel they have the energy to make dietary or other changes in their health habits. They’re discouraged and tired. I tell them to just give it two weeks: you can do that for yourself. And the lift you’ll feel in your energy will be remarkable. You’ll have the strength to keep going with other changes. Here’s how to get started:

• Limit consumption of carbohydrates, especially simple carbohydrates, including alcohol. (Don’t eliminate all complex carbohydrates, however. Too few carbohydrates will cause serotonin levels to plummet because the brain is not being fed properly.)
• Eat a balanced diet and take a rich nutritional supplement. Many factors that contribute to low serotonin production are created by nutritional deficiencies. Similarly, if you suffer from digestive problems, find an alternative practitioner to help you. We put all our patients on a pharmaceutical–grade nutritional supplement, like those we offer in our Personal Program. (Click here to read more about Essential Nutrients.)
• Reduce stimulant use and known physical stressors to help balance out serotonin levels.
• Exercise is a good way to reduce stress and enhance mood. It releases endorphins — which create a natural euphoria — and reduces cortisol levels. You don’t have to join a gym, even a daily walk to the mailbox is a good place to start. Experts recommend beginning slowly, working up to 30 minutes, six times a week. Or just start with burst training — one minute four times a day, three times weekly. Combining some weight-bearing exercise with aerobic activity (like walking or biking) provides the most relief.
• Get moderate sun or full-spectrum light exposure year-round. A real connection exists between vitamin D deficiency and depression. It’s commonly known that light exposure, especially sunlight (which stimulates vitamin D production), is a very effective treatment for SAD. Same with supplements of vitamin D. Future research will tell us more about this link (as well as low vitamin E levels). I am now testing my patients regularly for vitamin D deficiency. This is yet another good reason to take a medical-grade daily nutritional supplement every day: to prevent or compensate for vitamin D deficiencies.

If these steps don’t help, find a practitioner who’s experienced with neurotransmitter testing and have your serotonin levels checked. While this is controversial, we have found it helpful to gain a picture of your levels at a moment in time. At Women to Women I provide a customized combination of 5–HTP or St. John’s wort, tyrosine, other amino acids, vitamins, and minerals for such patients, based on their test results and response over time.

St. John’s wort works by inhibiting the reuptake of not only serotonin, but also dopamine and norepinephrine. Supplemental 5–HTP, which is more easily converted into serotonin than L–tryptophan, can be especially effective (but it should be used with caution as it can cause increased anxiety in patients with high cortisol levels).

These support measures are useful whether or not you are taking an antidepressant. Many of my patients use our protocol to help wean slowly off their meds. Remember, it’s wise to seek guidance from an experienced professional when it comes to weaning off antidepressant medications.

Last, but definitely not least…

The natural remedies outlined above are remarkably effective, but won’t work for long without dealing with the emotional experience that lies behind depression. That requires work on the emotional factors that affect you: childhood trauma, relationships, work, memories, fears.

Patterns of behavior and negative reactions that trigger bouts of depression are usually so deeply ingrained — and hidden — that it takes professional help to weaken them.

We always recommend that our patients talk about their emotional issues and combine any physical treatment with counseling. We’ve found Gestalt–type therapy to be especially effective in connecting your current emotional state to past experience and thereby getting at a fundamental cure. So much depends on the skill of the therapist, so we recommend you keep looking until you find a therapy and therapist that are effective for you.

If this sounds more complicated than popping a pill — it is! But taking a pill involves complications, too. It is my hope that you can use this knowledge and perspective to rediscover and sustain your capacity for joy safely, effectively, and without a lifetime of powerful drugs.

If you have about five minutes, you might want to see this. It’s a little movie about a performance by a horse. Makes me think about teaching and learning…

just click here.

Comment: I’ve always been a naturalist when it comes to dirt. As a child, I lived on an island and played in the mud flats and loved it. I learned a lot about the world from the beaches and the abandoned tuna factory. As an adult, I bought an 1830’s old barn to live in and no matter what kind of cleaning you do, it always looks old and dirty. “Bath before bed” was my only insistence for my kids, because I felt they should not get into bed dirty. Otherwise, I didn’t care how dirty they got. As a result, they never got sick; they rarely get sick now.

I associate illness with poor immune systems that have been encouraged because of a too sterile life. Children’s lives should match children. Children are not part of the decor – they’re lives, and lives are not sterile. Keeping children spic and span seems a little like Jenetta Michaels. Jenetta lived up the street from me on the island. She was overweight from a failure to play vigorously like the rest of us. She sat all day in her spotless house playing the piano in her light pink organdy dress and tell tale mary janes. Her butler even answered the door for her. My mother got mad at me for being the town tramp, so she sent me up to play with Jenetta. It was terrible. It was like being chained to the neck by the piano. Luckily, Jenetta was sick all the time, so I didn’t have to go back very often.

At school, we insist the children wash their hands to the elbows with soap and running water. On picnics after swimming, I don’t care. On field trips – depends. What about hand sanitizer? Well, I can tell you it does not meet the state requirements for washing hands. Is it better than nothing? You tell me… here’s a story:

Yesterday, My youngest daughter Halle who is 4, was rushed to the emergency
room by her father for being severely lethargic and incoherent. He was
called to her school by the school secretary for being very VERY sick.’ He
told me that when he arrived that Halle was barely sitting in the chair.
She couldn’t hold her own head up and when he looked into her eyes, she
couldn’t focus them.

He immediately called me after he scooped her up and rushed her to the ER.

When we got there, they ran blood test after blood test and did x-rays,
every test imaginable. Her white blood cell count was normal, nothing was
out of the ordinary. The ER doctor told us that he had done everything that
he could do so he was sending her to Saint Francis for further tests.

Right when we were leaving in the ambulance, her teacher had come to the ER
and after questioning Halle’s classmates, we found out that she had licked
hand sanitizer off her hand. Hand sanitizer, of all things. But it makes
sense. These days they have all kinds of different scents and when you have
a curious child, they are going to put all kinds of things in their mouths.

When we arrived at Saint Francis, we told the ER doctor there to check her
blood alcohol level, which, yes we did get weird looks from it but they did
it. The results were her blood alcohol level was .8 and this was 6 hours
after we first took her. There’s no telling what it would have been if we
would have tested it at the first ER.

Since then, her school and a few surrounding schools have taken this out of
the classrooms of all the lower grade classes but what’s to stop middle and
high schoolers too? After doing research off the internet, we have found
out that it only takes 3 squirts of the stuff to be fatal in a toddler. For
her blood alcohol level to be so high was to compare someone her size to
drinking something 120 proof.

So please PLEASE don’t disregard this because I don’t ever want anyone to
go through what my family and I have gone through. Today was a little better but
not much. Please send this to everyone you know that has children or are
having children. It doesn’t matter what age.

I just want people to know the dangers of this.

Thank you

Today is a catch up day from the weekend. Getting children organized on Monday is really hard. We used to go swimming on Monday, but there were so many children tired out from weekends of go, go, go, we decided to use this day as a rest up day.

Today, we’re going to talk about “olden times” and make gingerbread cookies and work on the concept of mazes because on Friday we’re going to New Harmony and will run through the maze there.

It should be a really pleasant day today – not too hot.

It’s time to work in the garden again and water. The absence of rain is not helping!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

The George Mateljan Foundation is a non-profit organization free of commercial influence, which provides this website for you free of charge. Our purpose is to provide you with unbiased scientific information about how nutrient-rich World’s Healthiest Foods can promote vibrant health and energy and fit your personal needs and busy lifestyle.

Comment: another good article from World’s Healthiest Foods

Garlic

Although garlic may not always bring good luck, protect against evil or ward off vampires, it is guaranteed to transform any meal into a bold, aromatic and healthy culinary experience.

Fresh, dried and powdered garlic are available in markets throughout the year, however, fresh varieties from California are in season from June through December.

Garlic is arranged in a head, called the “bulb,” averaging about 2 inches in height and diameter consisting of numerous small separate cloves. Both the cloves and the entire bulb are encased in paper-like sheathes that can be white, off-white or pinkish. Although garlic cloves have a firm texture, they can be easily cut or crushed. The taste of garlic is like no other-it hits the palate with a hot pungency that is shadowed by a very subtle background sweetness. While elephant garlic has larger cloves, it is more closely related to the leek and therefore does not offer the full health benefits of regular garlic.

• Health Benefits
• Description
• History
• How to Select and Store
• How to Enjoy
• Safety
• Nutritional Profile
• References

Health Benefits

Whole books have been written about garlic, an herb affectionately called “the stinking rose” in light of its numerous therapeutic benefits. A member of the lily or Allium family, which also includes onions, garlic is rich in a variety of powerful sulfur-containing compounds including thiosulfinates (of which the best known compound is allicin), sulfoxides (among which the best known compound is alliin), and dithiins (in which the most researched compound is ajoene). While these compounds are responsible for garlic’s characteristically pungent odor, they are also the source of many of its health-promoting effects. In addition, garlic is an excellent source of manganese, a very good source of vitamin B6 and vitamin C and a good source of selenium.

Cardiovascular Benefits

Numerous studies have demonstrated potential benefits of regular garlic consumption on blood pressure, platelet aggregation, serum triglyceride level, and cholesterol levels. Routine eating of garlic may also help stimulate the production of nitric oxide in the lining of blood vessel walls, which may help to relax them. As a result of these beneficial actions, garlic can be described as a food that may help prevent atherosclerosis and diabetic heart disease, as well as reducing the risk of heart attack or stroke. However, exactly which individuals are most benefitted from garlic consumption remains a matter of some debate. A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that garlic did not help lower LDL cholesterol in adults with moderately high (versus very high) levels when consumed at approximately one clove per day, six days per week, for 6 months. However, these researchers simulateously concluded that garlic might still have cardiovascular benefits for these same individuals, even though it did not help lower their LDL levels. While more large-scale research studies are needed to determine the exact nature of garlic’s benefits, this food can definitely be considered a potential ally in heart health.

A study published in Preventive Medicine shows that garlic inhibits coronary artery calcification, a process that serves as a marker for plaque formation since the body lays down calcium in areas that have been damaged. In this year-long study, patients given aged garlic extract daily showed an average increase in their calcium score of 7.5%, while those in the placebo group had an average increase in calcium score of 22.2%.

One reason for garlic’s beneficial effects may be its ability to lessen the amount of free radicals present in the bloodstream. According to a study published in Life Sciences, a daily dose of 1 ml/kg body weight of garlic extract for six months resulted in a significant reduction in oxidant (free radical) stress in the blood of patients with atherosclerosis.

Since atherosclerotic plaques develop when cholesterol circulating in the bloodstream is damaged or oxidized, garlic’s ability to prevent these oxidation reactions may explain some of its beneficial effects in atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. A German study published in Toxicology Letters indicates that garlic also greatly reduces plaque deposition and size by preventing the formation of the initial complex that develops into an atherosclerotic plaque. Called “nanoplaque,” it is formed when calcium binds to proteoheparan sulfate and then to LDL cholesterol. Garlic prevents the binding of calcium to proteoheparan sulfate, thus decisively inhibiting plaque generation.

Research presented at the 6th Annual Conference on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology held by the American Heart Association in Washington, D.C., suggests that garlic can help prevent and potentially reverse atherosclerotic plaque formation. The laboratory studies, conducted by well-known German scientist Professor Güautnter Siegel, M.D., from the University of Medicine in Berlin, Germany, found that powdered garlic (Kwai ® garlic) reduced the formation of nanoplaque (the first building blocks of atherosclerotic plaque) by up to 40% and reduced the size of the nanoplaque that did form by up to 20%.

Dr. Siegel’s research shows that garlic acts in a manner similar to HDL (“good”) cholesterol, which prevents the build-up of nanoplaques by hindering the docking of LDL (“bad” cholesterol) to its receptor sites in blood vessels or existing plaques.

Both garlic and HDL were able to reduce plaque formation and size within 30 minutes of incubation in these experiments. Existing plaques were dissolved by up to 25% within 15 minutes after the garlic was introduced, indicating a reversal of existing problems related to build-up of arterial plaque. In addition, calcification of the cholesterol docking sites in the arteries was reduced by up to 50% in the presence of the garlic extracts.

New Research More Fully Explains Garlic’s Cardiovascular Benefits

Laboratory research by US and Swedish scientists published in the August 2005 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals the mechanism behind garlic’s cardiovascular benefits.

The compounds in garlic responsible for its pungency also excite a neuron pathway providing cardiovascular benefits. Garlic’s pungency-and that of the other members of the Alliumgenus of plants, such as onions, leeks and chives-results from its organosulphur compounds, allicin and diallyl disulphide (DADS). In this current in vitro study, allicin and DADS were found to activate perivascular sensory nerve endings, inducing the relaxation and enlargement of blood vessels, lowering blood pressure and improving blood flow throughout the body.

Garlic’s numerous beneficial cardiovascular effects are due to not only its sulfur compounds, but also to its vitamin C, vitamin B6, selenium and manganese:

Garlic is a very good source of vitamin C, the body’s primary antioxidant defender in all aqueous (water-soluble) areas, such as the bloodstream, where it protects LDL cholesterol from oxidation. Since it is the oxidized form of LDL cholesterol that initiates damage to blood vessel walls, reducing levels of oxidizing free radicals in the bloodstream can have a profound effect on preventing cardiovascular disease.

Garlic’s vitamin B6 helps prevent heart disease via another mechanism: lowering levels of homocysteine. An intermediate product of an important cellular biochemical process called the methylation cycle, homocysteine can directly damage blood vessel walls.

The selenium in garlic not only helps prevent heart disease, but also provides protection against cancer and heavy metal toxicity. A cofactor of glutathione peroxidase (one of the body’s most important internally produced antioxidants), selenium also works with vitamin E in a number of vital antioxidant systems. Since vitamin E is one of the body’s top defenders in all fat-soluble areas, while vitamin C protects the water-soluble areas, garlic, which contains both nutrients, does a good job of covering all the bases. Garlic is rich not only in selenium, but also in another trace mineral, manganese, which also functions as a cofactor in a number of other important antioxidant defense enzymes, for example, superoxide dismutase. Studies have found that in adults deficient in manganese, the level of HDL (the “good form” of cholesterol) is decreased.

Practical Tip: National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Level III-3 evidence shows that consuming a half to one clove of garlic daily may have a cholesterol-lowering effect of up to 9%.(Tapsell LC, Hemphill I, et al. Med J Aust)

Anti-Inflammatory, Antibacterial and Antiviral Activity

Garlic, like onions, contains compounds that inhibit lipoxygenase and cyclooxygenase, (the enzymes that generate inflammatory prostaglandins and thromboxanes), thus markedly reducing inflammation. These anti-inflammatory compounds along with the vitamin C in garlic, especially fresh garlic, make it useful for helping to protect against severe attacks in some cases of asthma and may also help reduce the pain and inflammation of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

In addition, allicin, one of the sulfur-compounds responsible for garlic’s characteristic odor, is a powerful antibacterial and antiviral agent that joins forces with vitamin C to help kill harmful microbes. In research studies, allicin has been shown to be effective not only against common infections like colds, flu, stomach viruses, and Candida yeast, but also against powerful pathogenic microbes including tuberculosis and botulism.

Although garlic alone appears unable to prevent infection with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), the bacterium responsible for most peptic ulcers, as well as gastritis, frequently eating this richly flavored bulb may keep H. pylori from doing much damage. A study recently conducted at Faith University in Istanbul, Turkey, compared two groups of healthy individuals: one was selected from individuals who regularly ate lots of raw and/or cooked garlic, while the other group was composed of individuals who avoided it. For 19 months, blood samples were regularly collected from both groups and evaluated for the presence of H.pylori. While the incidence of H.pylori was pretty comparable-the bacterium was found in 79% of garlic eaters and 81% of those who avoided garlic-the garlic-consuming group had a clear advantage in that antibodies to H.pylori were much lower in their blood compared to those who ate no garlic. (Antibodies are formed when the immune system reacts to anything it considers a potential pathogen, so less antibodies to H.pylori means less of the bacterium was present.) Among those who ate garlic, those who ate both raw and cooked garlic had even lower levels of antibodies than those who ate their garlic only raw or only cooked.

Laboratory studies recently conducted at the University of Munich, Germany, help explain why garlic may be such a potent remedy against the common cold. In these studies, garlic was found to significantly reduce the activity of a chemical mediator of inflammation called nuclear transcription factor (NF) kappa-B.

NF kappa-B is itself activated as part of the immune system’s inflammatory response to invading organisms and damaged tissue. So, anything that sets off an inflammatory response (e.g. allergenic foods, a cold or other infection, physical trauma, excessive exercise, excessive consumption of foods containing high levels of omega-6 fatty acids-such as meat, corn or safflower oil) can trigger a surge in NF kappa-B, which in turn not only promotes inflammation but sets up ideal conditions for viruses, including HIV, to replicate. In the blood samples tested in these German studies, unfertilized garlic caused a 25% drop in NF kappa-B activity, while sulfur-fertilized garlic lowered NF kappa-B activity by a very robust 41%!

Garlic and Onions Protective against Many Cancers

Making garlic and onions a staple in your healthy way of eating may greatly lower your risk of several common cancers, suggests a large data set of case-control studies from Southern European populations (Galeone C, Pelucchi C et al, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition).

Study participants consuming the most garlic had a 39% reduced risk for cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx, 57% reduced risk for esophageal cancer, 26% reduced risk for colorectal cancer, 44% reduced risk for laryngeal cancer, 10% reduced risk for breast cancer, 22% reduced risk for ovarian cancer, 19% reduced risk for prostate cancer, and 31% reduced risk for renal cell cancer, compared to those eating the least garlic.

Similarly, those eating the most onions showed an 84% reduced risk for cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx, 88% reduced risk for esophageal cancer, 56% reduced risk for colorectal cancer, 83% reduced risk for laryngeal cancer, 25% reduced risk for breast cancer, 73% reduced risk for ovarian cancer, 71% reduced risk for prostate cancer, and 38% reduced risk for renal cell cancer, compared to those eating the least onions.

Potent, Even Against Drug-Resistant Strains of Bacteria

Results of two studies suggest that garlic is a potent antibiotic, even against strains that have become resistant to many drugs. One study conducted at the University of California Irvine Medical Center and published in the December 2003 issue of Nutrition showed that garlic juice, even when diluted up to 1:128 of the original juice, demonstrates significant antibacterial activity against a spectrum of pathogens including antibiotic-resistant strains such as methicillin- and ciprofloxacin-resistant staphylococci, vancomycin-resistant enterococci, and ciprofloxacin-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa. A second study found that garlic was able to inhibit methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSRA) from human patients that was injected into laboratory animals.(MSRA is one of the antibiotic resistant bacteria whose incidence has risen dramatically in recent years in hospitals.)

Promotes Optimal Health

The organosulfur compound found in garlic called ajoene may also be useful in the treatment of skin cancer. In a study published in the July 2003 Archives of Dermatological Research, researchers applied ajoene topically to the tumors of patients with either nodular or superficial basal cell carcinoma, and in 17 of the 21 patients, the tumors shrunk significantly. Lab tests of the tumors before and after the application of ajoene revealed a significant decrease in Bcl-2, an apoptosis-suppressing protein. (Apoptosis is the self-destruct sequence used by the body to eliminate cancerous cells.)

Other studies have shown that as few as two or more servings of garlic a week may help protect against colon cancer. Substances found in garlic, such as allicin, have been shown to not only protect colon cells from the toxic effects of cancer-causing chemicals, but also to stop the growth of cancer cells once they develop. While more research is needed to confirm, recent animal research has also suggested that garlic may confer protection against the development of stomach cancer through its potential ability to decrease H.pylori-induced gastritits.

Cooking garlic with meat appears to reduce the production of carcinogenic (cancer-causing) chemicals that can occur in meat as a result of cooking methods, such as grilling, that expose meat to high temperatures. Research presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting in Baltimore, MD, suggests that the phytonutrient responsible for garlic’s pungency may help prevent cancer by inhibiting the effects of one such carcinogen called PhIP.

A cancer-causing heterocyclic amine, PhIP is thought to be one reason for the increased incidence of breast cancer among women who eat large quantities of meat because it is rapidly transformed into DNA-damaging compounds.

Diallyl sulphide (DAS), an organosulfur compound that gives garlic its unique flavor, has been shown to inhibit the transformation of PhIP into carcinogens. DAS blocks this transformation by decreasing the production of the liver enzymes (the Phase I enzymes CYP1A1, CYP1A2 and CYP1B1) that transform PhIP into activated DNA-damaging compounds.

In addition, DAS signals the genes responsible for producing two protective antioxidant enzymes, (glutathione-S-transferase (GST) and superoxide dismutase (SOD), which help protect the body against harmful compounds such as those produced from PhIP. These findings suggest that making garlic, onion, chives and other Allium vegetables, all of which contain DAS, a staple part of your Healthiest Way of Eating may help in preventing breast cancer induced by PhIP in well-done meats. And enjoying these DAS-rich foods may help protect the men you love as well: Consumption of Allium vegetables has also been associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer.

Good intakes of vitamin C and selenium, with which fresh garlic is well-endowed, are also associated with a reduced risk of colon cancer, making garlic a smart addition to any colon cancer prevention plan. Cardiovascular disease is a well-known side-effect of diabetes, but garlic may provide some protection. When diabetic laboratory animals were given garlic extract for an 8-week period, the hyperreactivity of their blood vessels to noradrenaline (a vasoconstrictive hormone) and acetylcholine (a compound involved in nerve transmission) was significantly lessened. According to the researchers, their results suggest that garlic may help prevent the development of abnormal vascular contraction seen in diabetics.

Asbestos, a well-known carcinogen, is thought to cause cell mutations by generating reactive oxygen species (free radicals) and depleting one of the body’s most important internally produced antioxidants, glutathione. Garlic contains numerous sulfur compounds and glutathione precursors that act as antioxidants and also demonstrate anti-carcinogenic properties. In a laboratory study published in Toxicology Letters, garlic extract, when administered along with asbestos, so significantly reduced DNA mutations in human blood lymphocytes (a type of immune cell), that the researchers concluded: “garlic extract may be an efficient, physiologically tolerable quencher of asbestos-induced genotoxcity.”

Description

For a small vegetable, garlic (Allium sativum) sure has a big, and well deserved, reputation. This member of the Lily family, a cousin to onions, leeks and chives, can transform any meal into a bold, aromatic and healthy culinary experience.

Garlic is arranged in a head, called the “bulb,” which is made up of separate cloves. Both the cloves and the entire bulb are encased in paper-like sheathes that can be white, off-white or pinkish.

Garlic cloves are off-white in color, and although they have a firm texture, they can be easily cut or crushed. The taste of garlic is like no other; it hits the palate with a hot pungency that is shadowed by a very subtle background sweetness.

The teardrop-shaped garlic bulbs range in size; however, they usually average around two inches in height and two inches in width at their widest point. While elephant garlic has larger cloves, it is more closely related to the leek and therefore does not offer the full health benefits of regular garlic.

History

Native to central Asia, garlic is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world and has been grown for over 5000 years. Ancient Egyptians seem to have been the first to cultivate this plant that played an important role in their culture.

Garlic was not only bestowed with sacred qualities and placed in the tomb of Pharaohs, but it was given to the slaves that built the Pyramids to enhance their endurance and strength. This strength-enhancing quality was also honored by the ancient Greeks and Romans, civilizations whose athletes ate garlic before sporting events and whose soldiers consumed it before going off to war.

Garlic was introduced into various regions throughout the globe by migrating cultural tribes and explorers. By the 6th century BC, garlic was known in both China and India, the latter country using it for therapeutic purposes.

Throughout the millennia, garlic has been a beloved plant in many cultures for both its culinary and medicinal properties. Over the last few years, it has gained unprecedented popularity since researchers have been scientifically validating its numerous health benefits.

Currently, China, South Korea, India, Spain and the United States are among the top commercial producers of garlic.

How to Select and Store

For maximum flavor and nutritional benefits, always purchase fresh garlic. Although garlic in flake, powder or paste form may be more convenient, you will derive less culinary and health benefits from these forms.

Purchase garlic that is plump and has unbroken skin. Gently squeeze the garlic bulb between your fingers to check that it feels firm and is not damp.

Avoid garlic that is soft, shriveled and moldy or that has begun to sprout. These may be indications of decay that will cause inferior flavor and texture. Size is often not an indication of quality. If your recipe calls for a large amount of garlic, remember that it is always easier to peel and chop a few larger cloves than many smaller ones. Fresh garlic is available in the market throughout the year.

Store fresh garlic in either an uncovered or a loosely covered container in a cool, dark place away from exposure to heat and sunlight. This will help maintain its maximum freshness and help prevent sprouting, which reduces its flavor and causes excess waste. It is not necessary to refrigerate garlic. Some people freeze peeled garlic; however, this process reduces its flavor profile and changes its texture.

Depending upon its age and variety, whole garlic bulbs will keep fresh from two weeks to two months. Inspect the bulb frequently and remove any cloves that appear to be dried out or moldy. Once you break the head of garlic, it greatly reduces its shelf life to just a few days.

How to Enjoy

Tips for Preparing Garlic:

The first step to using garlic (unless you are roasting the entire bulb) is to separate the individual cloves. An easy way to do this is to place the bulb on a cutting board or hard surface and gently, but firmly, apply pressure with the palm of your hand at an angle. This will cause the layers of skin that hold the bulb together to separate.

To separate the skin from the individual cloves, place a clove with the smooth side down on a cutting board and gently tap it with the flat side of a wide knife. You can then remove the skin either with your fingers or with a small knife. If there is a green sprout in the clove’s center, gently remove it since it is difficult to digest.

Chopping or crushing stimulates the enzymatic process that converts the phytonutrient alliin into allicin, a compound to which many of garlic’s health benefits are attributed. In order to allow for maximal allicin production, wait several minutes before eating or cooking the garlic.

A Few Quick Serving Ideas:

Marinate pressed garlic in olive oil and use this flavored oil in dressings and marinades.

Purée fresh garlic, canned garbanzo beans, tahini, olive oil and lemon juice to make quick and easy hummus dip.

Healthy sauté steamed spinach, garlic, and fresh lemon juice.

Add garlic to sauces and soups.

Purée roasted garlic, cooked potatoes and olive oil together to make delicious garlic mashed potatoes. Season to taste.

Safety

Garlic is not a commonly allergenic food, is not known to contain measurable amounts of goitrogens, oxalates, or purines, and is also not included in the Environmental Working Group’s 2006 report “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce” as one of the 12 foods most frequently containing pesticide residues.

Do not store garlic in oil at room temperature. Garlic-in-oil mixtures stored at room temperature provide perfect conditions for producing botulism, regardless of whether the garlic is fresh or has been roasted.

Nutritional Profile

Garlic is an excellent source of manganese. . It is also a very good source of vitamin B6 and vitamin C. and . In addition, garlic is a good source of protein and thiamin (vitamin B1) as well as the minerals phosphorous, selenium, calcium, potassium, iron and copper.

For an in-depth nutritional profile click here: Garlic.

In-Depth Nutritional Profile

In addition to the nutrients highlighted in our ratings chart, an in-depth nutritional profile for Garlic is also available. This profile includes information on a full array of nutrients, including carbohydrates, sugar, soluble and insoluble fiber, sodium, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids and more.

Introduction to Food Rating System Chart

The following chart shows the nutrients for which this food is either an excellent, very good or good source. Next to the nutrient name you will find the following information: the amount of the nutrient that is included in the noted serving of this food; the %Daily Value (DV) that that amount represents; the nutrient density rating; and the food’s World’s Healthiest Foods Rating. Underneath the chart is a table that summarizes how the ratings were devised. Read detailed information on our Food and Recipe Rating System.

In Depth Nutritional Profile for Garlic

It’s been a wild summer so far. We have a lot of new kids this year and they’ve been really good. We had two days at the pool, and that was exciting for some who have never been swimming. It’s just wonderful to see the expression on some children’s faces when they experience the water for the first time. It’s about the best fun there is.

Taking 36 children to the pool is no easy chore. There is a lot of planning and some strategy to making it all run smoothly. First it’s getting everyone dressed, then slicked down with sun screen, then getting on the bus. They all seem to know where they are supposed to be, so that helps. We don’t have any running into the deep end.

Lunch has been very well received, so that helps too. On swim days, they will eat anything, but they want to eat it quickly and get back to play. “If I eat that, can I play?” Filling up after a long swim is important.

We went back to swim after lunch for another hour, and the kids loved it. That makes a full day of swimming. I’m sure some of the younger children were probably pooped. But being exhausted in summer because a child was out in the adventure is a good thing.

Tomorrow is our trip to the zoo. It’s going to be hot, and we will let them completely drench in the water play, so dress them in very very light clothes.

We will picnic at Price Park and then go back to school.

Thanks for writing Vonda. It was great seeing Abby too. I hope her summer is a great one!