Toxic Household Quiz

If you're interested in the effect of toxins in the home, and what you can do about them, you probably want to try the Toxic Household Quiz to see how much you know about what we're doing to our bodies, our family and our planet.

The fact is that we need to change what we're doing. Toxic cleaning product companies started reaching out to consumers with mass advertising in the 1950s and we bought into it. Now nearly every home has products with chemicals that are not tested for human safety, especially 1-3 generations down the road. Now we're seeing the effects of these chemicals on our children & children's children, and watching the decline of human health in the U.S. and other so-called advanced nations. And with the expansion of modernization programs into third-world countries we are ensuring that those giant chemical companies will bring their toxic products into all countries, to their benefit and the global environment's expense.

If you're already ready to change what you're doing, see: The Price of Clean-- and just answer that one question in the quiz.

Namaste!

Eat Local Perishables or Perish

Check out what's going on with food imports, and buyer beware. Please locate and frequent your local small farms and food sources. What's happened to our spinach, our cat food, our melons, our children's toys, etc. needs to stop. Visit http://www.notinmyfood.org/ to send a letter to your representatives asking that food is traceable to point of manufacture, and labeled with country of origin, and that we start inspections before foods are even sent.

And for people in the area who want good local food & produce that doesn't come from other countries, please check out http://abundantlifefarm.com/ for the Virtual Online Farmstand -- 100mile radius foods delivered to your neighborhood.

How's the shampoo?

Mom said "If the hand wash is this good, I wonder how good their shampoo is!" or something to that effect, and I had tried samples of the shampoo. Now I own the shampoo, and used the first combo -- the smaller bottles are for occasional use to remove the residue of products from the hair and do a deep-conditioning.

My hair the next day feels great. Soft, healthy and clean. There's a scalp nutrient that comes separately. I didn't bother with the hairspray, I don't use hairspray often enough to warrant owning it.

My scalp had been itching, and I think I may have been developing an allergic reaction to the normal shampoo. Today, after 2 days of using the scalp nutrient, no itches, flaking, etc.

I'm trying out all types of products, having a lot of fun with it. I hope you're having fun too!

Dishwasher concentrate powder is like a hundred tiny hands in the machine!

I'm not a big fan of electric dishwashers. Energy-star-water-conserving or not, if they don't clean the dishes, you have to hand-wash the dishes yourself.

We got a dishwasher when we moved in. My partner hates hand-washing the dishes. I don't like hand-washing dishes, but I like hand-washing them after wasting water and electricity in the dishwasher even more. So after 1-2 years of using the dishwasher it started to leave a film of icky white stuff on the dishes, especially the top of cups, and hardly cleaning the silverware. Nothing I wanted touching my or my children's food. So I end up hand-washing the dishes. Bummer.

My roommate, the anal one who does most of the cleaning and hand dish-washing, is of basically the same opinion I am. If you have to re-wash, pre-wash, soak, spit, rinse and shine by hand, why the heck are you using the electronic dishwasher in the first place?

My partner doggedly insists on using the dishwasher. Me and my roommate wash by hand. It's a neverending battle. He's probably right that the residue and water sitting in the machine does it no good, but running it just for the sake of running it isn't good either.

That experience was with typical bulk-store-bought Members' Mark (Sam's Club) detergent -- your results may vary, mine stank. I bought it figuring that at least if I had to buy evil chemical waste producing dishwashing detergent, I would buy it in bulk and save waste on the garbage end of the cycle. Does anyone want a nearly-full container of conventional powdered dishwashing detergent? I didn't think so.

I may have a complete change of heart about the electronic dish washer. You see, I got the terrific starter kit for the green household cleaning products (and blogged about said green cleaning kit), and it came with automatic dishwasher concentrate powder. My partner had the conventional stuff out ready to use it, but he didn't run the dishwasher last night. I thought to run it this morning, and looked at the detergent sitting on top of the dishwasher. No Way, I thought. I put that box of detergent away, and I ran the load of dishes with the new eco-friendly dishwasher powder. One scoop in each cup -- it's a small scoop -- 2 teaspoon scoop. So 4 teaspoons of concentrate went into the machine.



And nothing's wrong with the dishes. They're mostly dry, we air dry the dishes -- there's a couple drops of CLEAR water on the rim of the bowl.

They don't smell like a dirty swimming pool.

They shine.

There are no spots -- I'm not a spot hawk, so don't quote me on this one, but I don't see the streaks and spots I've been seeing from the conventional detergent.

Everything is clean.

Everything smells safe.

I'm amazed. It's like a hundred tiny fairies were at work in my dishwasher making everything perfect. I had to blog about it immediately and let you know. I'm tempted to wake said partner and roommate and rush them into the kitchen to show them. That's why I have to blog. :) They'd kill me.

I hate having to say it, but your results may vary. Maybe we didn't have oatmeal this week. I don't know, but I know this load of dishes came out exactly the way I want them to!

Getting Greener & Cleaner

My big green cleaning kit finally arrived. I've been waiting on the edge of my seat. I now have a 2nd bottle of the all-purpose concentrated cleaning solution -- and the hand "soap" is on back-order, but I already bought a bottle several months ago. Since these products last for quite some time, I better batten the hatches and go all out for spring cleaning.

Now my cleaning contingent is complete (see photo) with laundry products on the far left, general cleaning product wipes, then dish products in the center and the general cleaning solution, with all the bottles to fill on the right. In the forefront on the right is the heaviest duty oven cleaning non-toxic stuff, and microfiber towels with measuring instruments in the forefront.

I'm eager to run around my house, do laundry, a load of dishes, fill all the bottles, and generally make a menace of myself cleaning stuff. I spot-cleaned only a part of the oven so I could go "See, it works!" when my partner gets home. I have to do my car windows with the window-strength (2 drops in 16oz water) of the general cleaner. Oh, yeah, the degreaser.... on (part of) the range hood. Yep, that works. One pane of the 2-pane bathroom mirror.... oh yeah, I didn't really want to see myself that clearly yet. Shoot.

I better stop cleaning and go back to work. This way my partner and roommate will get tired of all the half-clean stuff and maybe they'll finish it off -- mu-ha-ha-ha!

It's not REALLY clean if it makes your family sick

I guess I can say it until I'm blue in the face, but I'll say it again. We're intimately connected to our environment. Everything we put into our body, we are putting into our environment. Everything we put into our environment, we're putting into our body.

There's no way to escape this basic fact of nature.

It's true of toxic chemicals, from chemotherapy and household cleaning products (link to Household Products Database by the US National Institutes of Health) to the jet fuel used to get an airplane from one place to another. No matter how far away something is, it's in your environment -- indoor or outdoor -- and it will find you.

The flip side of this is that it doesn't matter who puts it into the environment. If industry does it, it still ends up in our bodies and homes. Neighbors. Friends, parents, children, government, someone on the other side of the planet. We are directly and indirectly responsible for each other's health and well-being.


So, let's start with an easy example. You use toxic household cleaners, and you clean your house. You wash some tile and bathroom cleaner down the sink, toilet, tub drain. It ends up in your cesspool, septic tank, etc. It leaches into the ground, even though it goes through a filtration process and could theoretically biodegrade. These toxic cleansers are not biodegradable, so they leech into the ground, and into the groundwater.

Many of us drink from this groundwater. Or at the very least, we wash our bodies with it. Our skin is our largest organ, and it DOES absorb chemicals. We think of it as a barrier, but it's a barrier that will allow things in. The same chemicals from cleaners with huge warnings on their labels are now in our bathwater. Maybe we drink that water. Maybe we cook with it. It probably isn't the chemicals I put into the water that I wash with. It's probably the neighbor's chemicals. Or someone across town. Or someone in the mountains. The basic point is that it's now in my water supply.

If we can convince our neighbors to change to natural biodegradable cleaning fluids, this wouldn't happen, or, assuming we can't convert everyone, at the very least it would be possible to lessen the impact of these chemicals on our bodies.


But what if we're cleaning with those chemicals. We may be poisoning our neighbors' groundwater, and we're certainly poisoning ourselves (link to a page by the National Organization for Women Foundation - stay at home moms & dads, and babies, beware!). Every spray, sprits, stream or the use of any product with fumes adds to the air pollutants in our homes. We breathe that air. Opening windows only helps a little, the fumes are there, we breathe them in, and it causes us to become sick -- either quickly, or a little at a time over a span of years.

What if we could change it? And still be clean and sanitary? Please join me in changing this. Once you've made the switch, tell your neighbors -- the life you may be saving could be your own. By purchasing environmentally-friendly, biodegradable, so safe you can let your baby and pets crawl on the floor, cleaning products you'll be making a change that makes sense (and cents, but I'll talk about packaging another time).

What's all the fuss about?

Our planet is in trouble.  I'm trying desperately to get this point across, without sounding like someone shouting about doomsday on a soapbox.  I'll be heading out to Abundant Life Farm later in the month for the 2% Solution, but this is not the type of thing I wait to do.  I just get up (or in my case, sit on my fat duff) and do something about it.  Whether it's something to help the planet, or something to change my own life.

Picture this:  Lex Luthor (symbolic of all the multinational conglomerates and large industry -- and nations -- run by greedy barbarians disguised as men-about-town in their 3-piece suits) has our planet by the horns, and is driving humanity into extinction.  But what if there's no Superman to fly backwards and reverse time for us?  Oh, yeah, there isn't!  So what do we do?  Like proverbial lemmings we increase the rat race, head straight for a cliff and into our doom?  Well, yeah, as a species that's exactly what we do.  Am I the only person who finds that frustrating?

But as individuals we can each make a difference.  Change your shampoo.  Change your deodorant.  Bring shopping bags when you buy groceries.  Change a lightbulb.  That's all a good start.  Keep it up.  It's not just doing one thing each, try one thing a month -- then one thing a week.  Before you know it, you'll be doing one new GREEN thing a day.  Blog about it.  Shout about it.  Call your mom and have her join you on your mini crusade.  Feel good about it.  Celebrate it.  Wear it on your sleeve.  Brag about it.  Make being GREEN the next big IN thing (it is anyway, so get a head start before the runway models and supermarket rags realize it!).

Let's make being green a no-brainer.  Make it so easy to be green, it gets to be CHEAP to be green.  Yeah, it would take a few months, maybe a year, but take it to the point where NOT being green is like smoking in New York State.  People look at you like you've got 3 heads.  Where you used to stand outside puffing with the "In" crowd, now you're outside in the cold alone with your stained fingers and bad breath wondering when you missed the new health wave.

I want you to join me in Your Green Club.  It's about all of us.

So, I want to be a guinea pig for a bit.  I've been doing things different for a while, now I'm going to do thing differently and loudly.  I have the right lightbulbs, but maybe they're not in every socket in the house.  I have a box of ecologically friendly cleaning products on their way -- maybe I'll clean and blog and clean and blog and videotape and blog and you can see what I'm up to.  I'm going on an eco-friendly weight loss program.  I'll blog about it to you.  I'll let you know how it feels.  My next post will be a benchmark for my house.  Later, I'll benchmark about my weight.  Right now, I want to benchmark my state of mind.  More later.  Ciao, bella!