Do you ever get overwhelmed with this whole “HEALTHY LIFESTYLE” thing? Well I have many times. In my journey for better health, I have learned that it’s a process. One step at a time! Seriously, I started with switching from white to wheat. I did the best I knew to do at the time. Then we eliminated soda from our diet and replaced it with water. Big step! Fast forward 13 years and I am now growing my own scoby to make Kombucha – weird. Anyway, America has gotten so far away from living healthy. Don’t get me wrong: I am so thankful for our human advances and I love living in this time in history! I am often thankful that I was not born in Ancient Egypt! Seriously! In fact, that was my biggest takeaway as I taught the course to my daughter a few years ago. I am SO THANKFUL for heat and air conditioning, for electricity, for my car and my iPhone. It’s hard to imagine life without my computer, social media which makes my business possible, my UGGS (on my feet as we speak), and Starbucks – the place where these blogs and ideas come together 🙂 Oh, I need to mention my contacts, my Clarisonic, the variety in my closet, and HGTV! Ok, I could go on and on and on…………………………………………………..!
Ok, so in 1989, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did a 5 year study and found that chemical levels in the home were 70% higher than outdoors. They found that housewives have a 55% higher risk of cancer than women working outside the home! And get this: Children are more susceptible to air born toxins. Kids respiratory rates are 3x higher than adults, therefore they inhale and absorb 3x more the amount of contaminates!
I began paying attention to the chemicals in my house a few years ago when my son, Iver, was sick with asthma and allergies. He was really sick for a year of his life: 3 ER visits, MANY sleepless nights involving the nebulizer, and a week long hospital stay. After 9 months of praying and searching, we found a wonderful allergy doctor, DR. WOLF, who found the cause to be a sinus infection! We could not have found a better doctor. Iver had to battle that infection with antibiotics for a period, and now he is doing great! I have been Iver’s “nurse” long enough now to see the effect his diet and his environment plays on his body. It’s very real, very powerful, and very controllable! During that sick year, as we call it, my eyes began to open to the fact that our home was not helping him at all! I started taking measures to rid his environment of anything that could trigger his asthma… dairy, gluten, dust mites (yuck! by the way), and MY CLEANERS. How ironic… I was doing my best to keep our home germ free and clean, when in reality, my efforts were making him worse. Uggggg
I am still in the process of eliminating (the best I can) chemicals and toxins from my house. I want my home to be a safe, healthy environment for my family. After switching some of our cleaners to chemical free brands, I noticed 2 things: 1. Our budget was hit. 2. I missed the smell of “clean”. I associated “clean” with the smell of chemicals. Hhhmmmm, let’s think about that for a minute. If I am smelling it, it is being absorbed into my body via my lungs! Oh great :/ And if it touches my skin, it is being absorbed into my blood stream (and I’m not one to wear gloves).
So, the EPA analyzed 2,983 chemicals we use and found that:
- 884 are toxic
- 146 can cause tumors
- 218 can cause reproductive complications
- 778 cause acute toxicity
- 314 can cause biological mutations
- 376 can cause skin and eye irritations
Not good.
One example: more and more people are developing asthma. The number of people diagnosed with asthma has grown by 4.3 million from 2001-2009. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention So sad.
During our “sick” year, I switched out my cleaners to non-toxic brands, but I am taking the NEXT STEP in my JOURNEY FOR HEALTH. I will be making my own products. This will save us lots of $$$ and teach me more about the tools God, Himself, has given us to use from the earth… not only are they not harmful, but they are HEALTHY!!!
A few months after the hospital stay, Iver was back to normal. I realized that he had not been himself in a year. I spent one rainy weekend looking at old video footage and boo-hoooing as I made this video. I was, and still am so thankful to have this boy back!
