and Going Green or preventing the otherwise inevitable through proper nutrition and environmental awareness, I guess. Over the past probably 3 years I've read a number of books and watched a number of documentaries on the health of humans as a result of environmental contaminants and poor diet. These are my thoughts along with some facts:
The number 1 killer in America is heart disease. Most people die before they even know they have it. The second cause of death is cancer. 2/3 people in America will now get cancer, which has raised from 1/3 in the 1990's. They then take more cancer causing drugs, chemo/radiation, which prolong life a few years but that kill them anyway. Why? We eat too much crap. What is crap? Crap is simply the wrong stuff. Human digestive systems aren't meant to eat as much meat, processed carbohydrates, or dairy as we do . . . not to mention sweets. We are constructed to be primarily vegetarians. So, for those who already eat a lot of vegetables, why are they still getting sick? Unless the vegetables and fruits and nuts you eat are grown by you organically or are purchased at the grocery with 5 digits beginning with the number 9, they are full of harmful chemicals that are difficult for the body to process not to mention damaging to normal necessary-to-stay-healthy cellular processes.
It's not just the food we have to worry about. Having little kids around, I first became interested in understanding the chemicals that are in my house that are known to be harmful to youngsters, found in breastmilk, etc. There is a good overview of this in "The Slow Death by Rubber Duck" by Smith and Lourie. The flame retardants in cushioned furniture and mattresses. We had already purchased all new, but luckily our beds are clean of them but our furniture is not. I don't let the kids suck on the furniture and I vacuum with a Dyson (known to contain chemicals instead of a broom or most vaccums that blow them around) regularly in the furnished areas. Carpet, and especially the padding under it, is a sewer of chemicals that I won't even start to list. Thankfully, we don't have any permanent carpets and the rugs I have purchased I have read the labels to be sure they are pure wool or olefin, etc. Appliances such as TV's and computers also are sources for a bunch of contaminants: brominated flame retardants, florinated too. Luckily, we don't spend a lot of time in the den and I know that there are guides that I can view when I go to purchase a new appliance from companies who are conscience about these issues and have used alternative chemicals. It's hard to stay away from dust from drywall, paint, varnish, everything that accumulates daily. The best thing to do is keep it cleaned up so the kids don't eat it and so you don't inhale it (it's always in the air) ingest it (like if you don't wash your hands before you eat) or simply absorb it. Yes, these things are absorbed right through the skin! Shocker? It shouldn't be. Btw, what's in your lotion?
What else? Toys: stick with unpainted, unvarnished wood and metal. The kids tend to like them better anyway and they last forever. There are also flame retardants in your 9 month and up children's pajamas . . . only if they are polyester, which almost all are these days; read the tag! Pthalates (labeled parfum or fragrance) in shampoo, deoderant, lotion, toothpaste . . . and that's just the least of it in those products; check out the labels--yikes. None of these items you have to buy very often so in my opinion it's best to pay double and absorb the extra $50 a year and buy them from the "Health Foods" section of the grocery or store. Hmm, more and more I realize why these international chemical companies are making so much money. I don't care if they make money--that's great, especially for my retirement plan--but personally I'd rather live well into my retirement than have a decent return on investment now. Disposable diapers (dyed paper, absorbers, ink). Any mom who has diapered a butt in organic cotton will tell you that when you put a disposable on that same bum it will turn red. If you put chemical paper on your wet bum, that also isn't used to it, it'd have a rashy immune response too. Formula . . . it's processed food. It's no wonder kids raised on it have lower IQ and all sorts of other disadvantages. And that brings me to the main point: food.
First, let's look at what comes in contact with food. It's hard to get around some things. You can buy your organic ketchup in glass, sometimes. You can buy a lot of things in glass. It's pretty common knowledge these days that you should never eat food from a tin can unless you have to not only because there aren't really any nutrients left after the canning process but also because of the plastic that lines the tin and because of the preservatives required. But, what about milk? You really have 2 options: plastic, and paper that is lined with plastic. So, you can't make a lot of improvement there. But, when there is an option, choose glass or a stainless steel metal. If you make juice, make it in a glass pitcher. Drink well water or spring water if you can from a metal bottle or in a glass. Use pyrex for freezer and fridge and lunch storage containers. Get rid of those cheap teflon or any coated pans and go with stainless. The same goes for "non-stick" baking sheets and plastic "non-stick" utinsels. None of these things are very large investments, the healthy products actually last longer, and will decrease the contaminants in your food dramatically. And, please, do yourself and your kids a favor and don't microwave in plastic. If you can smell the plastic, like in the case of old tupperware, it is for sure time to toss it. And you should always purge the water from your hot and cold water lines, both copper and pex (plastic) or pvc (plastic) when you take it for consumption so you are getting clean water that has not been sitting in the lines for several hours or all night or whatever.
Back to the food itself. Do you have a fruit and vegetable brush? If you "think" it is too expensive to buy organic food and you are a friend of mine who is reading this blog, I will be honest and say you're 1) crazy or lazy and 2) at least wash the pesticides, herbicides, and growth chemicals off of the outside of the food with a brush. Different foods incorporate the chemicals applied to them for growth and protection from pests to varying degrees. To start, you can try to buy organic only the foods that are known to be highly contaminated such as apples or celery, but I think if you follow the news what you will find is that this doesn't work very well because contamination of certain whole food types varies from field to field and from year to year within a certain farm. The only way to truly know you are ingesting the least amount is to buy organic. And I'm not just talking fruits and veggies, I'm talking milk, eggs, butter, and meat too (because the fatty stuff tends to bioaccumulate a lot more scary things: PCBs, DDT, antibiotics, growth hormones, just to name very few).
If you can't visualize how these chemicals disrupt normal body function or just plain don't buy it, you can probably buy this. The fields that grow the non-organic food we buy in the store year after year can only grow that food with the help of fertilizer: N, P, K. These 3 minerals will give you a fruit or a veggie with "meat," that is to say shape, color, and texture, but it is highly nutrient deficient. The soil was deficient and therefore so is the food that comes from it. When you are not buying organic (not to mention buying processed food or fast food) you really are getting what you are paying for. You are getting fewer nutrients. You are getting a food with empty calories, and what it does is it make you feel more hungry than you should and you end up eating more and more nutrient-deficient food. This, in combination with cheap corn-based processed foods and snacks and fatty fast food is making us fat and making us sick.
It took us a few years, but we are finally on board. I guess I had to see a few family members pass away and take notice of many more who are in deteriorating health due to poor lifestyle choices or diet to realize that what all the experts are publishing is fact. Maybe not eloquently put, I am super short on time, but these are some of the basic ways to prevent chronic illness. I didn't link anything, because a quick google search will give you hoards of information on anything I mentioned. Ask me. The Environemntal Working Group (www.ewg.org) has a lot of good, easy to understand information for keeping your home, yourself, your kids healthy and also for making healthy purchases of food, cell-phones, cosmetics, body care-products, mattresses, anything. It is one of many good places to start.
