Is Your Home Making You Sick?

Did you ever wonder why our country seems to be getting sicker by the year?

Given the huge leaps in medical technology and the scientific discoveries made over the past decades, doesn’t it seem as though people in civilized countries would be leading longer, healthier lives?

In reality, it’s just the opposite.

Everyone is either sick themselves or knows someone who is sick. People are living sicker and dying younger right here in the Land of Opportunity. Chronic illness is now the norm instead of an oddity. A report from Johns Hopkins provides these alarming statistics:

Today, 133 million people, almost half of all Americans, live with a chronic condition. By 2020, as the population ages, the number will increase to 157 million. These people represent all segments of our society – they are of all ages, races, and economic status. Many have multiple chronic conditions, including functional limitations and disabilities. Data show that in the general population, people with five or more chronic conditions have an average of almost 15 physician visits and fill over 50 prescriptions in a year. In the Medicare population, the average beneficiary sees seven different physicians and fills upwards of 20 prescriptions in a year.

According to JHU’s study, the top chronic illnesses are:

But it gets even worse than this. The numbers above don’t even include cancer. These days, every other person…literally every other person…in America will have cancer in their lifetime.

• Nearly half of all Americans will develop cancer in their lifetime. (source) Quick math tells us that is an astonishing 157 million victims.
• Over half a million people in America died of cancer in 2012. (source)
• In 2011, cancer was the #1 cause of death in the Western world, and #2 in developing countries. (source) might occur over a long period of time.”  (Keep in mind, however, that despite this warning, the EPA just RAISED the acceptable limit of glysophate at the behest of Monsanto.) Especially at risk of harm from pesticides are children. Infants and children may be especially sensitive to health risks posed by pesticides for several reasons:

• their internal organs are still developing and maturing,
• in relation to their body weight, infants and children eat and drink more than adults, possibly increasing their exposure to pesticides in food and water.
• certain behaviors–such as playing on floors or lawns or putting objects in their mouths–increase a child’s exposure to pesticides used in homes and yards.

Pesticides may harm a developing child by blocking the absorption of important food nutrients necessary for normal healthy growth. Another way pesticides may cause harm is if a child’s excretory system is not fully developed, the body may not fully remove pesticides. Also, there are “critical periods” in human development when exposure to a toxin can permanently alter the way an individual’s biological system operates. (source)

The website What’s On My Food takes a stronger stance than the EPA regarding the risks of pesticides.

The human health impacts linked to pesticide exposure range from birth defects and childhood brain cancer in the very young, to Parkinsons’ Disease in the elderly. In between are a variety of other cancers, developmental and neurological disorders, reproductive and hormonal system disruptions, and more.

• Autism
• Breast Cancer
• Children’s diseases
• Endosulfan
• Gestational diabetes
• Parkinson’s Disease

• Growth Hormones: Our meat and dairy supplies are not safe either –livestock and dairy cattle are injected with genetically modified growth hormone, tainting the milk produced or the meat that is butchered.

“ Increasing cancer risk, milk from cows injected with genetically modified growth hormone contains “up to ten times the amount of insulin growth factor-1.” The growth factor has been shown to cause breast, prostrate, and colon cancer (Miller). When humans consume this milk, it puts them at risk for these cancers. This is not the only danger to reproductive health. Rats fed genetically modified potatoes grew smaller brains, testicles, and livers, and male rats fed only genetically modified soy had their testicles change from “from the normal pink to dark blue””

Source

Cleaning products, hygiene products, plastic containers, even tainted air

This is only a small portion of the toxins that we are ingesting, breathing in, and soaking up every single day.  We are lathering our skin with petrochemicals. BPA is leaching into our food and beverages.  Questionable farming methods are tainting the air that we breathe…it’s enough for a book, not merely an article.  Additives like MSG and unpronounceable non-food ingredients are killing off our brain cells and triggering the growth of cancerous cells in our bodies. We’re facing an antibiotic apocalypse because much of the meat and dairy products available at the store was preemptively treated with antibiotics due to horrible farming conditions.

And the result of all of these toxins in our environment?

• Cancer
• Obesity
• Chronic illness
• Lowered immune systems
• Lethargy
• Lower IQs
• Heart disease
• Lung disease
• Infertility and other reproductive ailments
• Hormonal imbalances
• Shorter lifespans

What about moderation?

In my opinion, moderation is not an option.  We need to learn to avoid these toxins that are all around us, whenever possible.

Here are some examples that aren’t really that different, if you think about them.

• Would you willingly feed your child just a “little bit of cyanide”?
• Would you let them have a serving of strychnine “once in a while”?
• Would you purposely give them a cigarette just because you “happened to be out and that is what was offered”?
• Would you let them drink bleach from the laundry room as long as it wasn’t in an amount that would be immediately deadly?
• What if it was diluted so that it didn’t burn their throats when they swallowed it?

It sounds pretty outrageous when you look at it that way, but by some of the choices we make, aren’t we doing just that?

Does your home need a detox?

Detox is a catchy buzzword these days that brings to mind drinking nothing but lemon water for a week and rejoicing over the inevitable weight loss. (Duh, you fasted for 7 days. You’re starving.) Because of this, I really hesitated to use it, but no other word seemed to encompass exactly what I wanted to convey.

de·tox·i·fi·ca·tion

dēˌtäksəfəˈkāSH(ə)n/

noun

noun: detoxification

1. the process of removing toxic substances or qualities.

See?

This is what we want to do. We want to remove the toxic substances from our homes. We want to perform a whole home detox so that our environments nurture health, instead of damaging it.

Without even knowing it, most people bring toxic substances into their homes with every bag from the store. It sneaks in with the groceries, the cleaning products, the personal care products we apply to our bodies, our home decor items, the tools in our kitchens, and the products in our OTC medicine cabinets. Harmful chemicals are in nearly everything you purchase these days, and it takes dedicated effort to weed these out and make your home a less toxic environment.

It actually takes more than just effort. Can you imagine the expense if you tossed everything in your home that contained chemicals you want to avoid and started over all at once? That’s not an inexpensive prospect. Have you ever looked at any of those crunchy granola people with their bento box lunches, their health-food store toothpaste and sunscreen, and their glass water bottles and thought, “Holy cow, it would be nice but that stuff costs a fortune.”

Depending how you go about it, living a healthy lifestyle can be far more expensive than picking up the standard household items from Wal-Mart that everyone else uses. But don’t despair. Even on a budget, you can make a change if you take things a step at a time. Removing the artificial, chemical-laden, harmful products from your home doesn’t have to be outrageously expensive. In fact, there are many DIY projects you can do to make your own versions of toxic store-bought products like cleaners, personal care items, and quick meals.

And best of all? Over the next year, I’m going to show you how.

Introducing The Whole Home Detox Series

This series is about arming yourself with knowledge and discovering why, in this age of medical miracles, people are living sicker and dying younger.

Over the next year, I’m going to show you how to remove the harmful chemicals from every facet of your home life. If you tried to do it all at once it would be completely overwhelming, so we’re going to break things down into categories and make small, meaningful changes each month. We’re going to talk about the following subjects this year:

1. Laundry Products
2. Kitchen Cookware and Storage Products
3. Food
4. Cleaning Products
5. Yard and Garden Products
6. Personal Care Products
7. Cosmetics
8. Pet Care Products
9. Air Quality Products
10. Water
11. Home Decor
12. Over the Counter Medications

We will spend the year exploring the options that are available, discussing the things to avoid going forward, and figuring out solutions that don’t include the artificially scented, chemical-laden products that nearly everyone else is buying.

I’m a single mom, so trust me, I’m on a budget too. But getting sick is more expensive than taking extra steps to ensure our wellness now. I’m going to offer suggestions in a variety of price ranges, DIY solutions, and simple lifestyle changes that don’t cost a penny.

Reprinted with permission from The Organic Prepper.

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