No doubt you’ve heard of the movie Arsenic and Old Lace where the dashing Cary Grant plays a character, who discovers that his delusional elderly aunts have been poisoning old lonely bachelors with Arsenic to put them out of their misery!
Clearly, Arsenic in the wrong hands can be used as a deadly poison! But did you know that it’s one of four heavy metals that we ingest, inhale or otherwise are exposed to every day? Scary huh? The other three are Cadmium, Lead and Mercury. I call them the Fearsome Four. When you learn just how much damage they can do to our bodies and our health, you will understand why!
First off, it helps to know why they’re called heavy metals. A metal is considered “heavy” if its gravity is at least 5 times heavier than water. The density of heavy metals increases the probability that they will end up in soil and water, which is why we’re so readily exposed to them. Several factors determine a person’s susceptibility to heavy metal toxicity. Three of the biggest include diet, exposure to pollution and genetic make-up. Although a large percent of metals are excreted from the body through sweat, urine, and the bowels, whatever your body can’t eliminate gets socked away in places that aren’t vital to maintaining life –mainly body fat, teeth, and bones. When heavy metals build up faster than the body can eliminate them you have what’s known as “bioaccumulation”.
There are two types of Arsenic –organic and inorganic. The former occurs naturally in the earth and small amounts are actually necessary for proper bodily function. The latter is a known carcinogen released into the air by burning fuels and coal as well as through widespread use of weed killers and pesticides. The wood industry is one of the biggest contributors to arsenic pollution and has used arsenic to preserve wood since the 1940s. An estimated 90% of wooden play structures, decks and picnic tables are made from arsenic-laced wood. Adults and children can absorb arsenic simply by touching wood treated with it. Other sources of arsenic exposure include herbicides and many foods, including meat, poultry and even wine (arsenic-containing pesticides are often sprayed on wine grapes).
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the Environmental Working Groups Skin Deep cosmetics database identified Arsenic as a contaminant in about 641 beauty products –approximately 2.5% of all the products listed in the database.
The average person’s body contains about 10 to 20 mg of Arsenic. The good news is that the body efficiently rids itself of this metal. The bad news is that chronic exposure to low levels of arsenic can create problems for all your organ systems and is strongly linked to lung and skin cancer.
To lower your exposure to Arsenic:
- Eat organic, pesticide-free fruits and vegetables
- Avoid insecticides and weed-killers (if you have to spray avoid products containing lead arsenate)
- Keep children away from wood treated with chemicals
- Avoid eating food directly off picnic tables or food that has come in direct contact with picnic tables Consider replacing treated wood in and around your home with newer, non-toxic alternatives like bamboo.
And as an added measure for protection, add more Vitamin C to your diet.
As I promised in my last post, here are the other 3 of 6 suggestions for using commonly found ingredients in your kitchen to create your own green and natural cleaning products and solutions. These were excerpted from an article in the April 2009 issue of Real Simple magazine. Be sure to check out some of the books in the resource section at the end, including a room-by-room guide from Real Simple and continue to share your real-life experiences with these solutions, if you’ve used any of them.
Sometimes I wonder if the effort it takes to find a good green cleaner or variety of cleaners is worth the investment of time and money when there are so many safe and natural ingredients that are probably already in your kitchen (or certainly widely available for a low cost) you could use to make your own green cleaning solutions. Below 3 of 6 suggestions taken from an article in the April 2009 issue of Real Simple magazine. Check back in a few days for the other three as well as additional resources.
If you happen to own an LCD television or a computer monitor, you’ve probably discovered that cleaners like Windex are useless for getting your screen streak free. However, did you know that a simple solution of one part white vinegar and one part water will get your screen looking as good as new? If you add in one part rubbing alcohol to that solution, then you have a safe and effective cleaner for your windows and mirrors. Not only does this solution work just as well as chemical-based cleaners, it’s simple to make and costs a fraction of store-bought cleaners.
This is the most common and the most nebulous of claims on personal care products. Since there are no regulatory standards here, you have to educate yourself as much as possible on the difference between natural and not-so-natural ingredients to decipher the claims. The main things to consider are a company or brand’s track record, and hidden trade-offs with respect to the product’s ingredients.
The term, “Greenwashing” refers to a widely used practice of misleading consumers with deliberately vague or even false claims about the environmental benefits of a product or the environmental practices of the company who produces it. This trend stretches across a variety of industries, but is prominent in the Health and Beauty (HABA) category, where the potential for confusion regarding product claims is probably greatest.
I recently came across some startling and revealing market research on how American consumers view natural and organic claims on personal care products. It seems that many consumers believe that the term “Natural” is more reliable than the term “Organic.” In fact just over half the participants in this study believed that the terms “100% Natural” or “All Natural Ingredients” were better than “100% Organic” or even “Certified Organic Ingredients.”
So what are these vendors selling that people are clamoring for? Mainly clothes made from renewable resources and natural fibers like hemp and organic cotton, silk, and soy; clothes made from fabrics whose color comes from natural pigments (non-chemical dyes); and clothes that Fair-Trade source.
Read the labels and familiarize yourself with the ingredients. Start with the products you use daily – toothpaste, mouthwash, antiperspirants or deodorants, talcum powder, face creams, lotions, and cleansers, over-the-counter cold and pain medications, “anti-bacterial” soaps, and traditional cosmetics. After all, these are products you routinely apply to your skin or your teeth and gums – both the fastest routes for substances to be absorbed into the bloodstream. When substances are absorbed into the body this way they often by-pass the liver – your body’s principle detoxifying organ or worse, clog and congest it. That means many toxic substances aren’t properly eliminated and often take up residence in the fatty tissue of our organs where they build up over time, turning into a virtual “thorn in your side” that can compromise your immune system and leave you susceptible to a host of health problems. A congested liver is also one of the fastest routes to inflammation in the body.
