Earlier this week I had seen a surprising amount of people announce some serious health issues. Whenever someone announces a difficult diagnosis, my mind tends to end up wondering “how could this have potentially been prevented?”. Often, these medical misfortunes are due to a compilation of factors that have compounded over time. However, research is showing that maybe we can reverse or prevent these difficult diagnoses by proactively taking intentional steps as often as we can.
Earlier this week I also listened to a podcast featuring one of my favorite scientists in the field Dr. William Li that served as a great refresher of why the consistent choices we make, although seemingly small, can compound to improve our health and wellness over time. We have incredible medicine these days, but Dr. Li’s premise is “food as medicine”. In all the work I’ve consumed from Dr. Li, he always mentions how we can be proactive in changing our health without medications by making some healthier choices more consistently. So, in today’s post my goal is to be a messenger and lead by example of how I’m trying to incorporate what I’m learning into my own life.
Quick Refresher
I’ve written about this before in my other “better for me, better for the environment” posts, but we can always use a refresher.
Ever heard the saying “the dose makes the poison”? When it comes to chemical exposure and consumption, essentially our body is overburdened by the vast array of chemicals it has to process and clear out. We’ve introduced so many chemicals into our world that it takes a minute for our body to process them. As a result, things can get backed up and accumulate causing the dose to grow. If toxic chemicals accumulate for too long, disease and illness tend to manifest.
Our bodies are quite marvelous at healing itself and keeping us safe and healthy. However, we can help ourselves out by limiting the work our body has to do and supporting our body to function at its best. Today I want to focus on how we can proactively help our body’s burden by reducing our exposure and consumption of chemicals.
3 Ways I’m Reducing My Chemicals this Summer
Unfortunately, we can’t always escape the toxicity in our world. However, if we can be prudent to do our best to intentionally avoid toxicity when we can we will be better off for it.
Choosing Organic
If you think about it, pesticides are “a substance used for destroying insects or other organisms harmful to cultivated plants or to animals.” Following that logic, although we are significantly larger than the insects that these pesticides are intended to destroy, it makes sense that eventually if we consume enough the pesticides could destroy us as well. The dose makes the poison.
Going organic can be costly. As a rule of thumb, any fruit/vegetable with a “thin skin” like an apple or berry should be where your organic dollars go. Thicker skinned fruits/vegetables like bananas and pineapple have a naturally more protective barrier and tend to have less pesticides as a result. EWG has a Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen list for the items you should really go organic for and items where it’s less pertinent to go organic.
Another pro-tip is to wash your produce with baking soda to help remove pesticides!
Switching to Glass and Safer Cookware
This one is a very gradual step for me, but this summer I’ve been feeling the urge to really limit my plastic use and exposure. I’ve been super excited to switch to glassware for drinking and switching to non-toxic cookware. Maybe it’s a mental bias I now have, but I swear I feel a difference in switching.
The mechanisms at play when it comes to plastics and non-toxic cookware give off BPAs and PFAs, which are considered “forever chemicals” meaning they don’t break down in your body or our environment. I touched on these in previous posts of mine, but one of the key ways “forever chemicals” affect us is by disrupting our hormones which leads to a host of negative health outcomes like cancer.
Using “Green” Cleaning and Body Products
I wrote about my favorite “better for me, better for the environment” cleaning swaps and products here, but whether it’s sunscreen or a soap, we want to be mindful of the products we’re using. Our skin is transdermal meaning that we absorb a lot of chemicals via our skin. Besides consuming chemicals in the foods we eat and absorbing chemicals that make contact with our skin, we can also inhale chemicals. So please include trying to limit harmful fragrances whether from air fresheners or any other sprays and candles you may be using.
Essentially, the same principles and mechanisms of toxic chemicals apply whether the exposure to the chemicals is through consuming food, inhaling harsh fragrances, or coming in contact via our skin. If you don’t want to toss all of your current products you’re currently using, the recommended way we go about transitioning to better products is by going non-toxic with “the next purchase” after we use up what we currently have.
Final Thoughts
The more I dive deep into wellness, the more non-toxic living just makes sense. The more I learn and study, the more I personally try to make choices that are “better for me, better for the environment”. Especially when you consider how ‘real’ the circle of life is and everything we put out comes right back to us.
However, I will say that this transition to living a more non-toxic lifestyle has been gradual. It’s a continual work in progress for me. Furthermore, it involves a little more effort and intention than I had been previously going about living my life. I’m not always able to diligently stick with non-toxic choices, but I do believe making the better choice will compound. As with so many things in life, small steps compound into big results.