By now, you’ve probably heard that many of the harsh chemicals that we spray, wipe, and scrub our homes with are not so good–for us or the planet. But maybe you’re a little fuzzy about why or what you should do to protect yourself and maintain a modicum of cleanliness.
First, here are some reasons why many of the ingredients in conventional cleaners aren’t so good (for more information see Healthy Child, Healthy World):
- Some (such as ammonium quaternary compounds and phthalates) are associated with asthma and allergies.
- Some (such as phthalates and llkyl phenol ethoxylats or APEs) are suspected or known endocrine disruptors.
- Some are suspected or known carcinogens (such as diethanolamine or DEA).
- Some form toxic byproducts when exposed to other compounds, or may be contaminated by toxic byproducts (for example, chlorine reacts with organic matter in drinking water to produce trihalomethanes, which may cause cancer and possibly developmental effects).
- Some pollute are water ways and are harmful to acquatic life (such as phosphates and EDTA).
- And some have been associated with more than one health and/or environmental concern.
Unfortunately, full ingredient disclosure is neither required nor common practice for household cleaning products, making it very difficult to find out exactly what is in these products. Adding insult to injury, many manufacturers have rushed to fill the growing market for green cleaners with products whose credentials are questionable and/or difficult to vet and verify.
In the face of this, The Natural Products Association has just stepped in with a voluntary standard and certification for natural home care products. The NPA standard is a vast improvement over the current state of affairs, providing a guaranteed level of protection against exposure to toxins.
But it does not–surprise, surpise–provide everything that a health and environmentally-conscious consumer would want. For example, the antibacterial triclosan is allowable under the standard even though it has been linked to a host of health and environmental concerns including endocrine disruption and the development of antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Of course, no standard is perfect, and I suspect that an imperfect standard is better than none at all.
In addition, there is a lot that an educated consumer can do to protect herself from chemicals in cleaning goods without relying on a standard. Advocates for local and sustainable food often advise consumers to “know your farmer.” Well I’d like to give the same advice for cleaning products. It is possible to “know your cleaning product manufacturer.” Of course it probably won’t be as personal but you can find out a lot of dependable information from conscientious, environmentally responsible companies that fully disclose all ingredients, like Seventh Generation and Ecover. In the absence of full ingredient disclosure you can generally trust specific claims, like “chlorine free” or “no petrochemical ingredients.”
Perhaps even easier and much less costly, you can also make your own cleaning products from natural & non-toxic household staples such as lemon, baking soda, vinegar and salt. In my house we use a mix of packaged and homemade cleaning products. There’s been some trial and error as we’ve tried to find and make products that we like. We started with Seventh Generation laundry detergent but have since switched to Ecover. We made our own floor cleaner from vinegar and water but we’ve since added a little Ecover floor soap to the mix. We have had only moderate success using baking soda and vinegar to open clogged drains but refuse to use chemical drain opener. So there’s a learning curve and an adjustment process–but I’d rather this than breathing in allergens, carcinogens and endocrine disruptors.
If you’d like to give DIY cleaners a try here are some resources to get your started
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Now, here’s a good flexitarian/vegetarian, one-pot dish that’s truly a complete meal (not to mention that it’s loaded with nutrients). Pasta with greens and beans. I use a little bacon for (probably 1 oz/person) and grated parmesan for flavor but the rest is pure plant matter (unless you use chicken broth; see below).
The question is: can you get your kids to eat it? But first the recipe:
- (Optional) Fry 4 strips of bacon (nitrite/nitrate free; I use either Stillmans or Applegate Farm reduced fat). Remove from pan and mince. Wipe out pan.
- (Optional) Saute 1 cup of bread crumbs (I make my own bread crumbs by grinding a slice or two bread in the cuisinart) in the same pan until golden brown. Remove and wipe out pan.
- Saute 2-4 chopped cloves of garlic in the same pan (you can add 1 Tbs of olive oil is you need it).
- Add 1-2 bunches of kale (leaves stripped from the stems and coarsely torn and rinsed; I like more kale rather than less). Stir for a few seconds then add 1/4-1/2 cup of chicken or vegetable broth (I use Better than Boulion). Cover and cook on low heat 3-5 minutes.
- Add 1 can of white beans (I use Eden because they are BPA free)–I like navy or great northern. Mix into kale and cook on low heat until warmed through.
- Meanwhile, cook pasta (I like Bionature whole wheat) according to instructions.
- When pasta is done, save 1/2 cup of pasta water, and drain the rest. Add pasta to the kale and beans. Toss in a little olive oil and pasta water as needed (to moisten).
- Salt and peper to taste.
- Optional: sprinkle bacon bits, grated parmesan cheese and/or bread crumbs on top to taste.
Sounds delicious, right? It is. It’s one of my husband’s favorites right now. But to get my 4 year old to eat it I have to separate all the parts. So she gets a pile of white beans (rinsed but otherwise straight from the can), a little pile of kale (with no big chunks of garlic sticking to it), and some pasta with olive oil and parmesan. But she eats it and that’s the important thing.
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There are many reasons why we should eat less meat, especially less industrially produced meat. First, there are the environmental impacts: factory farms produce 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions (more than transportation) and occupy 30% of global landmass (among other things). Then there are the public health impacts: antiobiotic resistance; exposure to toxins including arsenic, hormones, dioxins and PCBs; association with a host of health problems including obesity and heart disease (click here and here to learn more). Finally there are the impacts on the animals themselves, which are enough to turn your stomach.
What’s a carnivore to do? First, switch to sustainably produced animal products. Organic certification provides a step in the right direction by guaranteeing that the animals were not given hormones or antiobiotics (for non-medical purposes) and that their feed did not contain animal products, or vegetable products grown with pesticides, chemical fertilizers, sewage sludge or gmo.
However, I do not believe that organic certification goes far enough, especially in regards to animal welfare. Organic certification does not require that animals be fed their natural diet, nor does it allow them sufficient access to the outdoors. Just to take one example, organically certified beef can come from cattle who are not pastured and who primarily eat grain (cattle are ruminants and have evolved to eat grass not corn). Thus, the bulk of the meat that my family eats comes from Stillman’s, a local farm that surpasses organic standards and practices truly sustainable animal husbandry.
The second step, of course, is to eat fewer animal products. This can be a challenge for carnivores and vegetarians alike for whom meat and/or dairy is an essential part of the diet. It has certainly been a challenge in our house–especially for our kids who (naturally?) crave meat and dairy. But it’s a challenge we’ve taken on, working to integrate more meatless and almost meatless meals into our diet.
In other words, we are striving to be flexitarians–people who eat very little meat but do not cut it out from their diet completely. I first learned this term from Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. Explaining why he advises eating mostly plants, Pollan refers to studies showing that a diet rich in fruits at vegetables lowers the risk for “Western diseases” (including heart disease, obesity, and certain cancers). But he goes on to note that this health benefit is not restricted to vegans. In fact, people who eat less than 3 ounces of meat a day do not suffer the increased health risks associated with higher levels of meat consumption.
So it turns out that you can have your meat (sustainably raised and in very small amounts) and eat it too. If you care to join us, stay tuned for regular posts (including recipes) on our adventures in preparing meatless (and almost meatless) meals.
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The other day while having lunch with a friend, I got it again–the perennial question that dogs the green movement. Why does green cost more? In this case the question was about green building products (such as FSC certified wood and no-VOC paint). But I’ve been asked this question about everything from CFLs to carpet, from food to furniture.
Whenever I’m asked this question, my first response is always to concede the point. I acknowledge that green products often do cost more than conventional products for a variety of reasons (including the logic of supply and demand, existing financial and legal structures that favor the status quo, costs associated with certifications, etc.). And I explain that a big part of my job is to help people see the value of choosing green even when it’s more expensive:
- Sometimes choosing a more expensive but greener product up front will save you money down the road.
- Other times, going green provides a health benefit, or obviates a health risk associated with a conventional product.
- Finally there are times when the value that a greener choice provides is primarily moral or altruistic.
But at lunch the other day, I went beyond my typical response to suggest that making green choices involves a holistic reorientation towards a given practice or project (whether it’s grocery shopping or remodeling your home) that transforms the question with which we began. OK I didn’t say this exactly. I gave an example that I hoped would make this point more practically.
Say, for example, you undertook a home renovation with the objective of not expanding capacity but of fulfilling functional requirements, ensuring high performance, and supporting the needs and well-being of your family over the long-term. Starting from here, you may find it possible to fulfill functional requirements within the existing footprint; instead of adding on a family room, you may redesign your existing living room so it can serve as both an entertaining space and an everyday, family space. In so doing, you would save an enormous amount of money that you could use to invest in maximally durable and efficient materials that will in turn save you money over the long term.
In this scenario, a green renovation costs less than a conventional renovation not because the components in question cost less but because the project is conceptualized differently–and let’s face it, because the homeowner is willing to forgo the conventional, upper-middle class desire for a bigger home. This is what I mean when I say that going green involves a holistic reorientation that transforms the question of costs.
When you step back from an individual choice (such as do I spec FSC certified wood, or do I buy these organic apples) and look at the bigger picture (such as how can I provide healthy, environmentally-friendly food for my family on a budget), going green does not cost more. But it does challenge us to think differently about what we want. It requires mindfulness and a willingness to buck conventional wisdom and practice. Finally, it takes time, persistence and patience–something that doesn’t come naturally to contemporary Americans (myself included). But here’s the thing: it’s worth it. And, no, it doesn’t (have to) cost more.
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Here’s the bad news: Almost every day there are new studies linking exposure to toxic substances to health risks–from autism to asthma to infertility to cancer (You can keep up-to-date with the latest science by subscribing to Environmental Health News). The continual onslaught is especially depressing when coupled with the results of biomonitoring studies (like the CDC’s National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals) that identify widespread exposure.
But here’s the good news: Finally, Congress is moving to pass national legislation that will protect citizens from toxins in consumer products. Recognizing that the Toxic Substances Control Act is woefully outdated, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has introduced a bill to radically reform the existing law and put the onus on manufacturers to prove safety before they bring products to market.
You can stay abreast of what’s happening on the national level by following the Safer Chemials Blog. In the meantime, continue to do what you can to reduce your own exposure. There are some great resources out there that can help including
- Healthy Child, Healthy World, a non-profit working to help parents protect their children from environmental health hazards.
- Healthy Stuff, an organization that tests consumer goods for chemical components and publishes the results online.
- Skin Deep, a cosmetics database that rates the safety of personal care products based on testing and research done by The Environmental Working Group.
- Smart Guides published by the Institute on Agriculture and Trade Policy on topics such as plastic safety and hormones in the food system.
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Remember the old-fashioned system known are bartering? I know, it’s kind of fallen off our radar screens. But now there’s a great online resource to help you barter–or swap–books, CDs, DVDs, and video games you don’t want for those that you do.
It’s called Swaptree.com and the possibilities it opens up to reduce and reuse are so great, it almost make me giddy. Remember that series of books your child just had to have in first grade but has now outgrown? List them on swap tree and you could find yourself with the must-have series for third graders. Or how about those videos that your children watched endlessly as toddlers? Trade them for the Wii games they have been nagging you for. Or how about all those thrillers you buy at the airport? Trade them for ones you haven’t read.
So don’t shop, swap!
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