Toss the Toxins
Start small and take charge of your environment for a healthier you
I began my Ageosophy journey well over two decades ago when my husband and I decided to start a family. (I relayed the story in My Journey to Ageosophy if you are interested.) For several personal health reasons it was proving to be a challenge, so while we endeavored to resolve those issues, I decided to create a parallel path and take charge of what was in my control: my health.
Although I have strived to practice a healthy lifestyle since I was a teenager, I didn’t always follow my own advice. When I honestly assessed where I was, I wasn’t pleased with what I found. I had gotten very lazy and allowed a lot of unhealthy habits to take root. I was about 15 pounds over my comfortable weight, out of shape, and had an abundance of pernicious products in the house from Teflon pans (gasp!!) to Tupperware to dye-filled cleaners. An overhaul was in order.
Since then, I have been on a quest to learn as much as I can to create a healthy lifestyle and to implement what I can, when I can…which will be a lifelong process to be sure. Fortunately, there is a constant stream of new information, new products, and new modalities to utilize. Unfortunately, as time goes on, it seems as though the chasm between the healthy and unhealthy is widening. Unbelievably, for the first time in over 100 years, our life expectancy is declining and diseases, cancers, and disorders of all kinds are on the rise. Which, at first blush, doesn’t at all square with the copious amounts of information, products, and medical advances available to us.
A harbinger
In Eating Epiphanies, Part, 1 I wrote about the set of cats I grew up with. (Bear with me, it’s connected!) We picked up a mama kitty from the pound when I was one year old. Lady Sass. Beautiful silver long hair. She lived to the incredible age of 21. Tabby, her son, made it to 19, but as a neighborhood brawler, he was war-torn. Ono, my cat, although very healthy, died when he was 16 at the jaws of a dog. I introduce you to this trio because I never remember them having one ailment. Granted, we were in and out of the vet’s office with holes and abscesses from fights, especially Tabby. But nothing else. As far as their diet, they were on a combination of raw food and 1960s and 70s pet food.
Fast-forward to the cats in my adult life… and over the decades, we’ve spent our “house on a lake” budget at veterinary hospitals. Kidney failure. Chronic hypothyroidism. Glaucoma. Incurable allergies. I could go on. I was mystified until it dawned on me what these poor cats were coming in contact with, primarily outside. Poisons galore. Fences constructed of pressure-treated lumber, lawns (not ours) sprayed with chemicals to look green and pretty, brake dust and fluids from vehicles, herbicides to kill pests, upholstery fabric treated with flame retardants, odor-killing chemicals in their litterbox. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera. And what do cats do all day? Lick their paws to clean themselves. Horrible. That doesn’t even mention what was being snuck into their commercial food.
Clean sweep
After years of sitting in vet’s offices, it hit me like a ton of bricks: our cats were the canary in the coal mine and we were drowning in a toxic soup. By some accounts there are over 400 chemicals woven throughout our homes…chemicals that have proven toxic to humans on a variety of levels, ranging from mere skin irritants to full-blown cancer. And here I was trying to get healthy, trying to get pregnant. There was no one to throw me a life preserver but myself. The most immediate changes I could make were at my fingertips, in our home: our kitchenware, household cleaners, personal care products, and food.
I decided to start with what made the most impact: the items that we use day in and day out, and for the longest period of times. For instance, the containers we use for food, the detergents we use to clean, the clothes we wear, the lotions and potions we slather on our bodies. The clean sweep began. I literally put the non-stick pans in the garbage, and loaded up all the Tupperware, plastic spatulas and spoons in a giveaway box and replaced them with glass storage containers and stainless-steel utensils. I put all the cleaners out in the trash, and started using white vinegar and baking soda for cleaning. And so my journey began.
Household & kitchen
A recent experience illuminated the fruits of my labor to create a cleaner lifestyle. Andrea and I had the truly unfortunate experience of a four-day meeting in a room with no windows. A room that was “cleaned” by spraying the surfaces with some gawd-awful concoction overnight and again midday, so that an invisible, cloyingly sweet cloud started the day strong and lingered all afternoon. It was miserable. After the second day, I noticed I wasn’t feeling so good. By the end of the fourth day, I felt awful. My throat was unusually sore. I had a dull headache from both the noxious air that was part poor ventilation, part chemical cloud, and the glare and flicker of fluorescent bulbs. Clearly, my body was hyper-sensitive to chemicals (and bad lighting) that I wasn’t accustomed to…and for a good reason.
Between all the cleaning, scrubbing, polishing, bleaching, and sanitizing products, there are close to 62 chemicals in common household cleaners alone. Chemicals that are poisonous…just read the alarming warnings right there on the labels. Yet it doesn’t have to be that way. Honestly, over the years, I’ve marveled at the power of white vinegar, baking soda, and lemon juice. It’s amazing the messes these three simple ingredients can dispatch. I use white vinegar so much, I buy it by the 2-gallon jugs and feel a bit panicked if I get low. And no, our home doesn’t smell like easter egg dye...I use a diluted solution and any slight odor quickly dissipates.
We have no neon blue, electric green, or chartreuse yellow dish soap, only all natural clear liquids. My personal favorite is Mrs. Meyers lavender dish soap. Regular Ageosophy readers know how much I love eCloths, which I use on all the counters and surfaces, but if I need a stronger grease cutter I alternate between white vinegar in a spray bottle and Branch Basics. There are also a variety of non-toxic cleaners available from brands like Mrs. Meyers Clean Day, Method, and Grove Collaborative…just to name a few. Nearly every market carries some clean alternative brands.
Food preparation
I grew up with aluminum cookware, which is now in a box stored in our attic. Even our first set of pans were the uber-popular and chic anodized aluminum Calphalon. But I’ve slowly replaced those with stainless steel and cast iron. I still have two huge stock pots to go, I’m working on it. I use my mom’s wooden spoons and stainless-steel cooking utensils. Cut and chop on wood cutting boards. And as I mentioned before, only glass storage dishes, no plastic. I’m also going to phase out plastic baggies for reusable silicone pouches such as Durbl, Homelux Theory, or Zip Top—I just haven’t decided yet which ones. More research.
Also on my phase-out list are aluminum foil and plastic wrap, replaced with parchment bags, reusable beeswax cloths, cheese bags, and silicone bowl covers—which I have one of and love, love, love. I’m also researching mesh produce bags to empty all the produce into before storing it in the fridge—I think vegetables would last longer if they could breathe and, of course, be free from plastic. I’ll let you know what I settle on.
Laundry
Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I feel like I have lived through at least a couple of the chapters of household modernization. I remember when dryer sheets bounced into the market in the mid-1970s. Wow! The convenience of not having to pour sticky liquid into the rinse cycle. That smell of springtime embedded in our clothes! Imagine how grand life will be! Ooooohhhhh no. That “fresh” smell (that you catch a whiff of all day) is made from endocrine-disrupting chemicals that not only gum up the fabric but can wreak havoc on the delicately balanced hormonal system that controls every function in our body. They also can be allergy and asthma triggers. Now, I use white vinegar in the rinse cycle and wool balls in the dryer. I don’t miss the scent one bit.
Fragrances aside, the mind-boggling array of chemicals in the big brands including phosphates, optical brighteners, and formaldehyde, among many other unpronounceable chemicals, are irritating to the skin. My concern is they seep into the skin and, over time, build up in the body. Year after year, this could be troublesome.
I rotate between a couple of fragrance-free, all-natural detergents by Seventh Generation, Molly's Suds, and Biokleen, and add a bit of baking soda for an added boost. After trying various technical detergents for our smelly workout clothes, I have reverted back to my staple: white vinegar. I soak them in a diluted vinegar bath, then wash with regular detergent and they come out odor-free. Yes, the magic of white vinegar strikes again!
Speaking of clothes
I’m not a clothes horse, so I don’t buy many clothes, but when I do I aim for all-natural fibers. Even clothes—especially the convenient “wrinkle free” variety—can have a host of chemicals permanently infused in the fabric. Over time, these formaldehydes, flame retardants, perfluorinated chemicals, and pesticides—just to name a few—join all the other chemicals we are exposed to and add up to overload.
Personal Care
The skin is our body’s largest organ, although we don’t often think of it in those terms. In Lightbulbs & Pearls | 004, I wrote about chemicals from sunscreens being detected in blood tests, demonstrating that what we put on our skin, makes its way into our bodies. It’s a very disconcerting thought.
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), the EU bans over 1,600 chemicals from cosmetics and personal care products. Depending on your state, the number of forbidden compounds in the U.S. is—drumroll please—11 to 24. Shameful.
I’m now reading that even tissues and toilet paper can contain “forever chemicals”— highly toxic fluorinated chemicals called PFAS that build up in our bodies and never break down in the environment. Oh geez. I haven’t yet joined the bidet bandwagon, but looking at it from that perspective is giving me pause.
I’ll do a dedicated post on this subject in the future so we can go deep, but please know there are plenty of highly effective, clean, plant-based skincare, cosmetics, and personal care (including deodorants, toothpaste and antiseptics—I’m happy to share, send me a note) alternatives available, with new brands emerging every month. Look for EWG-verified products at your favorite skincare store, online at Credo Beauty, at professional spas such as Art of Skincare, or in Sephora. Nearly every store has a “clean section.” Seek and you shall find!
Food and water
This is way too big of a subject to tackle here, but suffice to say there are libraries filled with information on the myriad of health problems that our current food supply of highly processed foods is creating. It’s honestly overwhelming. Here is my mantra: less is more. The best thing to do is eat only whole foods or food with ingredients that you can use in a recipe. Done.
Water is another crazy, bottomless subject I can’t do justice here. However, if you care to dip your toes in, Dr. Huberman has a good solo episode—How to Optimize Your Water Quality & Intake for Health—in which he thoroughly explored the subject. We have a whole-house water system and keep water in our fridge in glass bottles. (I know, some people say cold water is bad for you. I still like it.) I’m careful not to drink water from plastic bottles because of the chemicals that can leach into the water, so I have a stainless-steel water bottle that is my constant companion and goes everywhere with me.
The hidden toxins
I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but there are so many other suspect sources that are surrounding us. Building materials, stain-resistant and fire-retardant fabrics, synthetic surfaces, and paints are all laced with chemicals. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’m not even touching on environmental toxins which are estimated to kill millions of people globally each year. Clearly, much of this is out of our control unless we live deep in the forest and live off the land. But we can be aware and when we are able to make choices—make informed ones.
The first step: Be aware and choose wisely
Progress and convenience come with a price. The bottom line is this: little by little, the minuscule amounts of chemicals from nearly everything we come in contact with will add up over time, with known and unknown consequences, affecting our physical and mental health from immunity to mood, and everything in between.
We can’t entirely escape this toxic soup we are swimming in, but I believe we can mitigate its impact. The human body is remarkable and resilient with the proper tools. The first step is to simply be aware, take control, and start making better, wiser choices to help us live well, and age great.