Tag: chemical burden

From Chains to Change

Posted on by Rebecca

leaves of change

Breaking free from beliefs that prevent Safer choices at home

What if it were discovered that arsenic was being used to clean your house or corrosive acid was added to your favorite perfume or lotion? What would you do to protect your family from it?  My guess is that all of us would immediately stop using it and remove it from our homes.  We’d want to protect ourselves from what we know causes harm.

Current knowledge of the everyday products used in our homes that are manufactured with chemicals tells us that these products are harmful to human life. You can learn more about this here, here and here. While they don’t necessarily contain arsenic and corrosive acid, they do corrode and poison us, especially when they exist together. Hundreds of unknown and unstudied chemicals are in the air you breathe, the surfaces you touch and the things you put on your body at home.  The only person with the power and authority to remove them is you. 

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Good News: There is a Toxin Solution

Posted on by Rebecca

A review of Dr. Joseph Pizzorno’s book The Toxin Solution

The world is full of news. And at times it seems as if it is all bad news.  The world is also full of toxins. Toxins released into the environment by human activity.  But there is good news. Today’s good news is all about The Toxin Solution. 

Dr. Pizzorno, the founder of Bastyr University, is the man I’ve been searching for for a long long time.  His book, The Toxin Solution, How Hidden Poisons in the Air, Water, Food and Products We Use Are Destroying Our Health- And What We Can Do To Fix It, brings together all the learning I needed to overcome chronic ill health.  I did it the hard way with blood, sweat and tears (literally).  The knowledge and experience shared in this book is the solution most people are looking for and can be a safe and effective shortcut to healing. (Hooray!)

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Clean Clothes for Back to School

Posted on by Rebecca

Photo by Andrej Lišakov on Unsplash

Put non-toxic clothing on your back-to-school list

Toxins come at us from a variety of consumer products, most of which we can’t see or smell.  One type of consumer product that contains many toxic chemicals that we use daily is clothing.  Most people know to wash new clothing before it is worn.  This is because there are manufacturing chemicals still on the clothing when we bring it home.  Yes, the “new clothing” smell, due to manufacturing chemicals, is often perceptible. Have you ever wondered how much of it gets washed off? How are the remaining chemicals affecting my children’s bodies? And once the clothing is washed, what happens to all those chemicals?

Let me tell you.  They don’t just disappear, they get washed down the drain.  We get to wash it and forget it, but those chemicals still exist and now they are dissolved in water.  As it’s hard to know exactly what and how much, I’ve decided to exit out of this consumer loop of using toxic chemicals for my clothing and washing them down the drain – for health of the planet and for my family.

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Sunscreen and Swimming Pools

Posted on by Rebecca

How to Protect Skin Safely During Summer Fun

What's in your sunscreen and swimming pool?

Be aware that sunscreen and swimming pools can contain hazardous chemicals

Sunscreen and swimming pools go hand-in-hand for summer fun, for sure! At the risk of raining on your parade (or at least on your sunny summer day), I caution you to pay attention to what’s in your sunscreen and swimming pool!

I get lots of questions about sunscreen. It’s a tall order to find something that protects kids (and adults!) from sunburn and lasts a long time, even after repeated exposure to water and toweling. Yet it’s becoming more well known that most sunscreens contain hazardous ingredients.

Pools too use chemicals to reduce exposure to harmful bacteria that grow.  I’ve evacuated a few pools in my lifetime that had an unfortunate dose of poop in them. So some kind of anti-bacterial action is really important!

Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be complicated to reduce health risks associated with sunscreen and pool chemicals. In order to get you back out there in the fun, I’ll keep it short and sweet for you.

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Fragrance Sensitivity is a Good Thing. Really.

Posted on by Rebecca

For the Love of Lilac

Some people think that I’m super sensitive to fragrance.  And it’s easy to understand why. I can sniff out anyone’s laundry detergent floating on the breeze or scented hand soap on my daughter after school.

The word sensitive in our society denotes that something is wrong. Being sensitive to anything is usually considered a fault or weakness.

But when it comes to fragrance, the fragrance of a flower or a chemically made fragrance, being sensitive is a very good thing.

Lilacs have been in bloom here recently.  My neighbor and I swoon over the scent of them wafting between our houses. Lilacs remind us of special times in our childhoods. When cut and placed in the kitchen, their scent in the morning lifts my spirit. And catching the sweet scent of lilac during story time in the hammock makes the moment even more magical.  I’m delighted that I can smell even the faintest hint of lilac.

Benefits of the Olfactory Sense

Our olfactory sense, or sense of smell, is for enjoyment, health and protection (among other benefits).  I enjoy the scent of real lilac, the salty ocean and chocolate.  When I smell dinner cooking it begins the process of digestion. And when a scent is added to natural gas, it can warn us of a dangerous natural gas leak because we associate that added scent with a gas leak.

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Be the Change: Child Health

Posted on by Rebecca

Child Health Begins at Home

Simple changes can have big impact
Photo by Tina Floersch on Unsplash

I’m a bit passionate about children’s health. Well, actually, I’m a lot passionate about kids’ health. I have 2 daughters. Both had a rough entry into life, putting them at greater risk for chronic illness and adverse effects related to chemicals in their environment. 

Fortunately, because I am a proactive seeker of health (necessitated by an autoimmune diagnosis in my childhood), my girls caught a break.  Our home and personal care routine is relatively low in toxic man-made chemicals. The benefit of that can be seen in these Beauties’ health today.

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Be the Change: Healthcare Costs

Posted on by Rebecca

There’s More to the National Surge of Obesity and Healthcare Costs Than You Think

 

Photo by Jennifer Burk on Unsplash
Obesity and healthCare costs Linked to toxic chemicals

So you want to lose weight.  Or you’re concerned about the effects of the ever growing crisis of obesity and the rising healthcare costs that each one of us face as a result.  Whether we like it or not, we are beginning to understand that other people’s health affects each one of us now like never before. 

The Obesity epidemic is “astronomical,” according to WebMD. Can you even get your mind around that? What does that look like? And with obesity associated with heart disease, cancer and diabetes, healthcare costs are predicted to continue to surge.  Not just go up, but SURGE, according to WebMD.

Obesity itself accounts for 21% of annual medical spending.  Obesity: Overview of an Epidemic at NCBI confirms that “[obesity] is linked to the most prevalent and costly medical problems seen in our country, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, many forms of cancer, and cognitive dysfunction.” And it affects every level of society.

Can you and I do anything about that? Yes.

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Lighter, Brighter Wellness for the New Year

Posted on by Rebecca

 

Many New Year’s resolutions begin with a desire for wellness.  And wellness comes from within.  For me, wellness is energy, life and vitality – the freedom to be more of who I am created to be.  Nothing drains that vitality faster than toxins that interfere with hormones, brain and immune function.  Unfortunately, we don’t have to look far at all to find toxins.  They are in products that we use every day in our homes and on our bodies.  The worst kind of toxin is the kind that you administer to yourself, thinking that you are actually helping yourself when in fact you may very well be causing yourself harm. 

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