If you eat or breathe, you are introducing toxins into your body.
The toxins we are ingesting and inhaling relate mostly to our diet, lifestyle, and the quality of air we breathe. Ridding our bodies of toxins requires, above all, avoidance of them. It’s much easier, more effective, and much more efficient to decrease your toxic load by avoidance than by trying to rev up detoxification with supplements, saunas, and chelation therapy (treatment for heavy metal toxicity). You can reduce your toxic load by up to 85% if you clean up your diet, don’t smoke, and purify the air in your home. A study done on non-exposed people (i.e. people not known to have been exposed to a particular toxin through their work, etc) showed an average of 91 toxins in their bodies, at least 50 of which that are carcinogenic, and others that cause birth defects and/or are toxic to the nervous system, endocrine (hormone) system, and immune system. Scary, huh !?
The Basic Toxins we carry:
• DDT (a pesticide banned in 1972 that persists in the environment): Sources include fish from the great lakes, and plants grown in contaminated soil.
• PCBs (eg. dioxins): Sources include fish (especially farmed salmon), butter, meat, fluorescent light fixtures, coolants and lubricants for electronic transformers
• Parabens: Sources include shampoos and conditioners, moisturizers, hair care products, shave gels, cosmetics, personal lubricants, sunscreen and tanning lotions, deodorants, toothpastes, food additives, and topical and parenteral pharmaceuticals
• Phthalates: Sources include adhesives, plastics, detergents, flooring, cleaning products, cosmetics, shampoos, perfumes, aerosols, paints, lotions, air fresheners, lubricants, medications, medical bags and tubing, nail polish, and false fingernails.
• BPAs: Sources include air, dust, water, food and beverage containers, canned vegetables, toothpastes
• Solvents: Sources include, oil, gas, paints, nail polish, adhesives, cleaning agents
• Chlordanes (pesticides): Has been banned for 20+ years, but are still found in contaminated soil (and therefore whatever is grown in it), and homes treated for termites
• Organophosphates (pesticides): Sources include food crops, livestock, pet collars, grass, stored grains
• Heavy metals (e.g. mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium): Sources include fish, shrimp, cigarette smoke, amalgam dental fillings, contaminated air we breathe
Visit Environmental Working Group www.ewg.org to learn about environmental toxins in your community, and get news updates on politics, farming, etc as it pertains to your health. EWG staff experts scrutinize government data, legal documents, scientific studies and their own laboratory tests to expose threats to your health and the environment, and to find solutions. Their research brings to light unsettling facts that you have a right to know. http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ is a database where you can discover what toxic chemicals are in your cosmetics, lotions, and sunscreen products. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov is a federal public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ATSDR serves the public by using the best science, taking responsive public health actions, and providing trusted health information to prevent harmful exposures and diseases related to toxic substances. This is an excellent database to research various toxins, including sources and health effects. You can also search on this site to find out how close you are to toxic sites, such as chemical companies, dump sites, and chemical spills, for example. www.scorecard.org Get an in-depth pollution report for your county, covering air, water, chemicals, and more. Just enter your zip code and voila!
Another great resource is a book called Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things by authors Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie. So how do you get toxins out of the body? Well, some chemicals have a very short half-life and are out of the body within 24 hours, while others hang around in your body for several decades.
The following are items that will help you rid toxins from your body:
White or green tea
• Brown rice
• Green vegetables
• Seaweed
Remember that avoidance is KEY! See Nancy’s nutritional nugget below about which NON-organic produce to avoid. There are 2 specific foods I’d like to discuss in this article that I think you should know about.
SALMON: It’s very important to distinguish the different species of salmon because Pacific (Alaskan) salmon is acceptable, whereas Atlantic (farmed) salmon is ONE OF THE MOST TOXIC FOODS YOU CAN EAT! Atlantic salmon is hearty and, therefore, easily farmed. Pacific salmon, however, is a different genus with 3 different species known as king salmon (aka Chinook), silver salmon (aka coho), and red salmon (aka sock-eye). The great majority of salmon at markets and restaurants is farmed Atlantic salmon. This is HIGHLY toxic due to the salmon being fed pesticide-laden grains. Don’t be fooled by fancy names. “Scottish Salmon” is Atlantic salmon farmed in Scotland. “Norwegian Salmon” is Atlantic salmon farmed in Norway.
BUTTER: Butter is ubiquitous in the diet, so I felt that this is another food to be addressed. Toxins are stored in fat cells. Butter is cow fat extracted from the cows’ milk. When you eat butter, you are eating a heavy load of toxins (e.g. pesticides sprayed on the grains that cows are fed). The only butter that’s fit for human consumption, in my opinion, is Irish butter that’s made from grass fed cows. You can find this at most grocery stores. The brand I use is KerryGold.