From the Outside, In

I am currently reading Slow Death by Rubber Duck, a great Canadian-written non-fiction book about the toxins present in the food we eat and products we use in everyday day. I also recently attended a talk given at our local library about hormone disrupting chemicals present in our everyday lives. There is no way to put this lightly: I am alarmed!!

I consider myself pretty ‘aware’ of environmental issues and my husband and I do our best to keep our home as chemical-free as possible. We clean with natural and home-made cleaning products, threw out the Teflon and all the soft plastic kids toys and hope that the mattress we bought for a small fortune two years ago isn’t making us sick. I can imagine many of you out there are in the same boat! This newly acquired information ripped the cover off the illusion that we had created a safe home for ourselves and our twin toddlers. This raised a new question for us: If so many things should be avoided, then what IS SAFE? Certainly not parabens (often disguised as ‘fragrance’ on labels), or the highly irritating triclosan (think non-alcohol hand-sanitizer, yup the same stuff found in some schools), or oxybenzone (found in children’s sunscreens, and acts as a hormone disruptor among other horrible things). The skin is not an impermeable membrane, and though I am no doctor or scientist, I know that it WILL logically absorb some or all of what I put on it. I often use this website to check any product’s ingredients for toxicity: SkinDeep . 

Because even the smallest change can make a difference, every time we switch out an unsafe product with a new one we are taking a step to create a healthier living situation for ourselves and for our children, who after all, have to live longer with the consequences of our choices. In the end, it is about empowerment and choice and it empowers me to know that I have the ability to choose what we put on our bodies as well as what we use in our home.

What about you? What are you choosing to keep (or not!) in your home and on yourselves?

Gen