How did you find all this stuff? I didn't realize you are so into the whole anti chemical thing! A girl after my own heart!
You started it!!
Both of you ladies played a huge part in encouraging me to live what I already knew and to learn more!! (Thank you!)
These are resources listed in the back of an awesome book I picked up at Fred Meyers (grocery store) called The Hundred Year Lie by Randall Fitzgerald. I've been into the organic/anti-synthetics/natural living idea for a long time, but have only learned the multitude of additional reasons to actually implement the knowledge into lifestyle in the last year or 2. I'm convinced now.
I've always known (because it's harped on so much) about 'all those chemicals' causing cancer, and I stopped eating anything w/ the words "hydrogenated" or "partially hydorgenated" (except probably in sweets!) quite a few years back when a friend in South-central AK enlightened me on the whole thing. But I just kind of dismissed the push to switch everything to organic b/c it costs so much more, and you know, the whole "Well everything causes cancer nowdays" attitude.
Only recently have I begun digging so much deeper that it sickens me to cook in my Teflon-coated pans (I need to order some iron ones! <-- mental note to self), it sickens me to feed regular Yoplait yogurt to my kids, to let them microwave food instead of just heating it up in the oven (although we still do it and that's not the worst) - but especially now I don't let them heat anything in plastic containers. My ultimate goal is to rid my kitchen of as much plastic as possible and replace w/ glass, stonewear, iron, etc. I got some little glass Pyrex bowls for their lunches but the lids are plastic so every morning I'm very clear in reminding them "Take the plastic OFF before heating!". I still don't know what to do about Ziplock bags and many other things we think we 'need'.
Once I'm out of these mainstream dishwasher tablets I'm buying organic ones b/c of the chemical steam it puts off into the house. We do organic shampoos and toothpastes, and most house cleaners now. I still have some disinfectant but it's reserved for when someone has a bad flu w/ gunk I have to clean up Sick.
I'm only putting all this info out there to show anyone reading that it is possible to avoid some toxins w/o too much hassle. 5 years ago if anyone told me I needed to make all these changes, like I said above - I would have dismissed it. But the more I find out (by digging out the info - nowhere in mainstream society will it be handed to you on a convenient platter), the more I see the importance of it. It's very much about our health - not just physical but mental! It's about our earth too, and while that does connect back it's harder to make the immediate connection when I see the $$ going out of my wallet. Things you don't think would affect your health, like say nonorganic paper towels, really do. The toxins from those factories are polluting up the nice clean organic fruit/veggies I'm paying so much for.
I think my recent discovery of the connection between mental health disorders and food additives (artificial preservatives, colorings, and flavorings) and modern medicine is my newest and biggest motivation to stay away from the icky stuff. It baffles me that "They" knew for decades (!) that certain medicines and chemical food additives were causing very serious health implications but they just kept quiet. Some of the more recent recalls on medicine are ones that they've known about like forever. For ex. Vioxx was ordered off the market by the FDA in 2004 but the British medical journal "The Lancet" says the FDA should have done it way earlier based on the negative results in TWENTY-NINE clinical trials. That's just one example. They said Paxil was safe during pregnancy and now they're changing their tune on that one too, but only after a number of babies have suffered. Thimersol, a mercury based additive in vaccines, is a known neurotoxin and is (at least partially) the cause of autism. The food additives I mentioned above increase negative social behaviour in humans, and they cause/aggrivate mental disorders such as ADD, ADHD, etc. There is so much more, the list is so long.
There are now all kinds of prescription drugs and steroids in our water supply b/c wastewater treatment & water purification plants just aren't sophisticated enough to get out the many chemicals, hormones, and medicines we deposit into the system.
When you line up the introduction of medicines and chemicals beside the increase or beginning of illness/disease, it's hard to ignore the obvious correlation between the two.
Ok, off my
! I am just trying to convince any readers still on the fence on this issue. Some of those sites, esp. the ones for laboratories that will test you for your chemical body burden (how much of all types of chemicals your body is forced to carry as residue), offer services only available w/ a Dr's referral, and it could be costly. I'm sure if anyone would like out of the catch 22 of "poison yourself w/ chemical foods, get sick from it, poison yourself w/ synthetic medicines to fix the 1st illness, get sick from that..." it would be worth it. The organic chemical-detox centers probably aren't cheap either, but the Dr's listed on some of the sites would easily give referrals for the testing or those centers (then maybe someone's ins. would pay part of it). I don't know if I'll ever get those things done, but maybe their sites have helpful info anyhow.
