How to Detoxify Your Home

How to Detoxify Your Home
The products you use every day could be impacting your family's health.
By TVOParents.com

We’ve talked a lot about taking care of our external environment, but there are things you can do for your internal environment as well.

Take a closer look at the chemicals you use every day to make your life hassle-free. The recent decision to pull plastic baby bottles off the shelves frightened many parents and showed all of us that the products we rely on to make our lives easier may not be healthy for our families.

If they're available on the market, don’t assume they’re safe:

What’s the big deal, we wouldn’t be allowed to use these if the government didn’t think they were safe, right? Wrong.

The Toronto-based group Environmental Defence tested five families across the country for 68 chemicals. They found 46 known toxic chemicals in the blood of these families. In many cases, the toxins were higher in children than in adults.

They found 38 carcinogens, 23 hormone disruptors, 12 respiratory toxins, 38 reproductive/developmental toxins, and 19 neurotoxins in their volunteers. Read the report.

Fe de Leon from the Canadian Environmental Law Association, says, “We don’t know what’s in the various products that we are being exposed to on a daily basis. We’re getting evidence that there are problems and certainly the way that the regulations are implemented doesn’t adequately deal with toxic chemicals that we already know about.”

So where should you start to detoxify your home?

Get rid of the worst offenders:

PFOA (pentadecafluorooctanoic acid), PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene), and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate) have been linked to cancer and hormone disruption. Some of these chemicals do not break down at all, ever. They are in the air we breathe, our food, our homes and our workplaces. Major lawsuits have been won against the manufacturers using these chemicals in other countries and some companies in the U.S. have been forced to phase out their use in the next decade. They are found in:

* Non-stick pans (brands such as Teflon, Dupont, T-Fal, Silverstone)*
* Stain-resistant clothes
* GORE-TEX
* Microwave popcorn bags
* Fast food containers
* Fire fighting foam
* Candy wrappers
* Pizza boxes

The solution? Chuck your non-stick pans and buy stainless steel or cast iron ones that require elbow grease to keep clean. Buy cotton, hemp or bamboo fabrics that are not treated with stain-resistant chemicals.

* Many people believe that if their non-stick pan is not scratched, it’s safe. Not true. Toxic cancer-causing fumes are released into the air when the pan is heated at high temperatures.

Pitch the plastic:

Bisphenol A is the real baddy here and it’s not just found in baby bottles. Take a look at the hard plastic bottle you might use when you work out. If it has the recycling # 7 on the bottom, it may contain bisphenol A. Throw it out.

Bisphenol A is also found in the lining of metal food cans, plastic wrap and dental sealants. It is a hormone disruptor that has been linked to birth defects, reproductive problems, breast cancer and prostate cancer.

What should you do?

* Do not heat plastic if you must use it.
* Do not put plastic in the dishwasher.
* Microwave food in non-plastic, microwave-safe containers.
* When microwaving, cover food in paper towel rather than plastic wrap.
* Use glass baby bottles.

Clean green:

You may have a shiny, clean, germ-free home but the cleaners you are using to get it that way could be dangerous. Why not try some greener solutions?

Here is a list of products that you can use:

* Good old vinegar is a great all-purpose cleaner. Mix one cup with one cup of water and clean away.
* Baking soda is great for getting rid of odours. Leave an open box out and it will absorb odours.
* Castile soap is soap made with vegetable oil and can be mixed with vinegar and water to clean wood floors.
* Instead of bleach, use a ½ cup of borax in the wash to get those whites whiter
* Check out more recipes to clean green.
~~
Conclusion:

The bottom line is we need to be more aware of the products our families use every day. If you're unsure about the safety of products in your home, try greener alternatives. Also, call on the government to take action.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For a link to this article, go to:

http://ca.lifestyle.yahoo.com/family-relationships/articles/parenting/tvo/4019


To find out more about the products that I prefer:

http://www.saferisbetter.com/formyfamily

Every Parent Should know.............

Every parent should know...

Did you know that synthetic chemicals, including the ones we commonly use around our homes, day care centers, schools, libraries, shops, and restaurants have never been tested or proven to be safe, especially when combinations of exposures occur. No one knows the danger of the combination of chemicals that the average man, woman, child and pet comes into contact with, until WE show the symptoms. And how many decades have our symptoms been ignored for the sake of selling these harmful chemicals?

Chemicals Combine in Our Bodies...
From the Center for Children's Health and the Environment (CCHE). Bookmark this site and use it for a resource if you are concerned about children's environments.


http://web.archive.org/web/20070404040038/http://www.childenvironment.org/pdfs/NYT+Ads/6-00077+FINAL_Toxics_Mult_Exp_NYT.pdf