What you can do about chemicals in our environment?
Get involved: Each person does make a difference. The purchasing choices you make can affect the way big business works. They won’t make dangerous products if no one will buy them.
Join the Environmental Working Group! They are a small group but get a lot of political action accomplished. www.ewg.org has lots of information and help
Write or Call your Congressman. You can get his or her address and phone number at 202-224-3121 (in U.S.) Tell him or her that you want him to support safer food and water legislation.
Vote Green: no matter what your party affiliation, vote for candidates who will make big business comply with ethical standards. Most people think there is someone looking out for our health and well-being. Unfortunately, this is not really true. The EPA has been down-sized and their research libraries have been closed by the Bush administration. Even their own employees do not agree with many of the decisions of higher ups in the EPA. The FDA is not doing the job it was originally intended to do. They recently approved cloned-cow milk without labeling! We need to stop being used us as guinea pigs and to take back control of our food and water sources. We need leaders that will not cater to the needs of wealthy big business groups like the Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Petroleum Industries. We need the EPA and FDA to start protecting the public.
Invest Green: Don’t support unethical Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Petroleum companies that are polluting our rivers, bullying other countries into purchasing their “chemical-ready” sterile seeds, producing plastics and sometimes even committing atrocities in other countries. (This is one reason that some other countries don’t like Americans) I can’t mention company names, but you would recognize them if I did. Invest in ethical companies like the Calvert funds group or visit www.socialinvest.org Albert Svent Georgie, who isolated vitamin C, invested his Nobel Prize winnings into socially responsible funds and said, “I lost money, but I saved my soul”. Today most of these funds do very well. Ask your investment counselor how you can switch over without creating a lot of capital gains.
Use your buying power. Don’t buy products that contain dangerous or unknown chemicals. Remember, you are what you eat and drink. Remember that whatever you put on your skin such as lotion or sunscreen (most of which are full of dangerous chemicals) is absorbed into your body. Never put anything on your skin that you wouldn't drink.
Boycott GMO’s foods: This includes all processed foods that contain High Fructose corn syrup which is made from genetically altered corn and any form of sucrose. This constitutes 70% of the foods available in your local chain grocery store! Tell your store manager that you only purchase real food. There have been no long term tests done on GMO’d foods and 13 other countries have banned them. High fructose corn syrup causes Obesity and is quite possibly responsible for the huge spike in Diabetes (especially in young people) that has occurred since it replaced sugar in soft drinks.
In fact I would avoid any corn or corn products altogether unless they are Organic. Corn and Canola are now mostly all genetically altered. (See my letters to editor “What You Need to Know About GMO’s”)
Read the labels! Call the company and ask what is in their product. Send the message that you care what you eat and drink
Boycott cloned cow milk: Since the FDA has not required the labeling of cloned cow milk, I would not drink anything but Organic. (As if the bovine growth hormone weren’t reason enough!) There has been no long-term testing done on the consumption of this genetic frankenmilk, and in fact most genetically cloned animals have a much shorter life-span than normal animals. Many companies already own patents on other animal and human cloning Techniques. A large chemical company got our U.S. Constitution changed to get past the law that states that no one can own “life” If they can own cloned animals and plants now,will they own cloned humans in the future? (see my letters to Editors page for more)
Boycott Plastic Avoid drinking and eating out of plastic which can leach chemicals. Buy glass and recycle! Plastics, like diamonds, are forever. They never biodegrade. They leach chemicals into our food and drinks and they collect other chemicals like sponges. fish eat them and then we eat the fish. these chemicals are now in all of our bodies and even found in fetuses. between 1965 and 1995 the amount of plastic produced in the world went from two million tons a year to more than twenty four million tons. Now we are producing more than 100 million tons of plastic each year! Remember NEVER to microwave plastic.
Boycott Chewing Gum: Unfortunately, chewing gum today is made with aspartame (which had a former life as nerve gas) and other synthetic Chemicals and Dyes. (And we wonder why our kids have ADD and are going on killing sprees?)
Cloth grocery bags: Consumers use a million plastic bags per minute!
It takes 1000 years for plastic to break down and they leach deadly toxins that kill fish and wildlife and pollute our water sources. Paper bags aren’t much better since they use a lot of water, trees and energy. Only 3% of plastic bags are recycled. Reusable cloth bags are the answer! Keep them in your car and use them.
Treat dead batteries as hazardous waste
Use Safe cosmetics: cosmetics are full of dangerous chemicals that are linked to Neurological diseases ,Allergies and Cancers all hidden under the label "frangrance"
to check out how safe your cosmetics are, go to the cosmetic safety database at www.EWG.Org
Click Here For Shally's Safe Cosmetics List
Avoid Fabric Softeners: They contain dangerous Nonylphenol’s and other stuff. White vinegar in the rinse cycle will soften clothes and take out odors.
You can put it right on the underarms and in tennis shoes before washing to kill odor. To discourage ants: use distilled White Vinegar around the exterior of you home.
Apple cider vinegar: Your mom was right; an apple a day keeps the doctor away! A spoonful of apple cider vinegar in a cup of hot water is healthful tonic to take occasionally and will kill parasites as well. It is also a good athlete’s foot soak.
Avoid mercury dental fillings
Don’t rinse recyclables: They get rinsed at the plant and it just wastes more precious water.
Avoid Hair Dyes they contain PPD, a petroleum chemical linked to lymphoma and bladder cancer. contact me for tips on "growing out the gray" like I have recently done. proper diet and exercise will do much more to make you look young than hair dye ever could!
Avoid super strength cleaners and strong fragrances. Opt for natural cleaners. White vinegar will clean almost anything for pennies and it softens clothes in the washing machine as well. a gentile scrub with baking soda will whiten your teeth naturally (avoid plastic dental materials though) and makes a wonderful cleanser that deodorizes as it cleans. 20 mule team borax will clean almost anything in your home including the laundry and all of these items are not only SAFE but CHEAP as well!
There is no better fragrance than simply clean can give. In fact no fragrance, is the best and healthiest.
We all, rich and poor alike, have a right to safe food. Manufacturers have a responsibility to provide that. It shouldn’t cost MORE to get food that is safe to eat. But until manufacturers get the message, buy Certified Organic . Support your organic farmer. The chemical industry makes it hard for him to survive.
Skip the Margarine: Just read the label; it is full of bad stuff! Use real organic butter (not from cows that are cloned or given antibiotics or growth hormones) or try Earth Balance non-hydrogenated buttery spread.
Drink vegetable Juice: Knudsen’s brand is a natural choice and an easy way to get more veggies. It’s good too!
Coexist: Don’t run for the Pesticide Spray every time you see an ant! Every creature has a place and a purpose in our world. We are only renters of this Earth. We are one with every living creature and plant species. We all breathe the same air and have the same carbon flowing through our veins. Even a fly has a right to live, so if you can, pick him up and put him outside. Let him enjoy his short life to the fullest.
Thank you for visiting my site and listening to my thoughts. Click here for a few of my letters to the editor.
*This information is offered for educational purposes only. While I do alot of research and reading on environmental issues, I am not a doctor. If you have any health issues, you are urged to see a licensed physician, herbalist or holistic practitioner.