Household Chemicals

Household Chemicals

Home is where your heart is. If you’re anything like me, your home is also one place aside from gyms, roads and parks whereby you probably spend a significant amount of time sweating and sculpting your body. But wouldn’t it be a real pity if you were turning your body into a chemical wasteland in the process? The fact is, you can’t do much about the diesel exhaust getting piped out the backside of the trucks that drive besides the roads you run or bicycle on, the chemical-laden disinfectants that gets sprayed on the treadmills, exercise equipment at the gym, or the pesticides and herbicides that litter the grass at a public park. However, in the same way that you have complete control of what kind of foods and chemicals you put into your body, you do have control over how healthy or unhealthy your home is. You also have control over how well equipped your body is to handle potentially toxic environments, such as gyms, roads and parks.

Why You Need To Protect Your Body

How much consideration have you given to the toxins, pollutants, chemicals, heavy metals and hidden killers that aren’t inside your body, but are outside your body? In other words, when you’re cranking out push-ups in your living room, have you ever thought about what kind of carpet you’re shoving your nose into? When you’re doing the cold thermogenesis showers have you ever considered what compounds your skin might be soaking up from the water? And as you’re sitting here right now reading this article, do you know how many spectrums of electromagnetic frequencies are bombarding and radiating your body from smartphones, e-readers, and computers? The fact is, the average home contains 500-1,000 chemicals, ten times more electrical pollution than 40 years ago and an untold number of mould, mites, fungi, spores, pollen and other “bioaerosols”. Most of this stuff you are completely unable to see, smell or taste, but just because you can’t sense it doesn’t mean it won’t leave you struggling with brain fog, an afternoon headache, a crappy night’s sleep, or a horrible workout.

1) Household Cleaning Chemicals

From toilet bowl cleaners to laundry detergent, synthetic, chemical-based cleaners are an enormous source of health issues and and environmental pollution (8). For example:

• Some laundry detergents have high levels of 1,4-Dioxane, a carcinogenic contaminant
• Most fabric softeners are filled with synthetic fragrances that cause acute effects such as respiratory irritation, headaches and auto-immune reaction.
• All-purpose cleaners contain the sudsing agents diethanolamine (DEA) and triethanolamine (TEA). When these substances come into contact with nitrites in the environment or your body and mouth, they react to form nitrosamines carcinogens.

In contrast, take a look at the photo below. You’ll see three basic ingredients lemons, baking soda, and white vinegar, for disinfectants to window cleaners.

There are many inexpensive, easy-to-use natural alternatives which can safely be used in place of commercial household products. Here’s list of common, natural and safe products which can be used alone or in combination for a variety of household cleaning applications.

• Baking Soda – cleans and deodorises.
• Soap – unscented natural soap in liquid form, flakes, powders or bars is biodegradable and will clean just about anything.
• Lemon – a natural acid that is effective against most household bacteria.
• Borax – Despite it’s “scary” name, Borax is simply sodium borate. It cleans, deodorises, disinfects, softens water, cleans wallpaper, and is good for cleaning painted walls and floors.
• Washing Soda – also known as “SAL Soda”, this is sodium carbonate decahydrate, a natural mineral. It cuts grease, removes stains, softens water, cleans wall, tiles, sinks and tubs.
• White Vinegar – cuts grease, removes mildew, odours, some stains and removes wax build-up.
• Cornstarch – can be used to clean windows, polish furniture, shampoo carpets and rugs.
• Essential oils – where do I start? There are dozens of options but stick to three when you need to kill bacteria or clean the body or kitchen counters, oregano, thieves and lemon.

So how can you use the natural ingredients above? Here are a few examples and you can find many more thorough instructions for anything you’d ever need at EarthEasy.com

• Disinfectant – Mix 2 teaspoons borax, 4 tablespoons vinegar and 3 cups hot water.
• Carpet Stains – Mix equal parts white vinegar and water in a spray bottle. Spray directly on stain, let sit for several minutes, and clean with a brush or sponge using warm soapy
  water.
• Laundry Detergent – Mix 1 cup Ivory soap, with 1/2 cup washing soda and 1/2 cup borax.

Of course, if you don’t have time, you don’t have to create your own cleaning supplies. A growing number of commercial non-toxic home cleaning products are also available. There are many safe products you can find on websites such as OrganicConsumers.org.

No discussion of cleaning chemicals would be complete without warning you about carpets, furniture, mattresses flooring, and other surfaces. When any of these items (especially carpet or area rugs) give off that new carpet smell, that means they’re offgassing. Off-gassing is the evaporation of chemicals from any material (23). Furniture, plastics, vinyl products, paint, new cars, clothing, cosmetics, water bottles, carpet, and mattresses do it. Off-gassing materials emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and small particulate substances throughout the entire life of the material – and carpet is a major offender. Synthetic carpets are made from nylon fibres with a polypropylene backing. Of the chemicals released from carpet, most notable are styrene and 4-phenylcyclohexane (4-PC), both of which come from the latex backing used on 95% of all carpets. So that “new carpet” smell is the odour of 4-PC, which is an eye and respiratory-tract irritant that can seriously mess up your central nervous system. If that’s not bad enough, the adhesive used to attached the carpet to the floor typically contains benzene and toluene, some of the most harmful VOCs (29). Ideally, a new carpet should be aired before installation, but if that’s not possible, keep any carpeted room extremely well ventilated. Besides headaches, nausea, dizziness, shortness of breath, and asthmatic reactions, here’s how he tells if carpet is giving off gas:

• 1. Take a clean, fragrance-free paper towel and fold it in half twice.
• 2. Place it on a section on the carpet and cover it with aluminium foil secured with tape.
• 3. After 24 hours, fold the towel inside the foil quickly.
• 4. Then go outside and unwrap it just enough to take a whiff.
• 5. If it stinks, your carpet is giving off gas.

You should also avoid stain-guarded clothing, furniture and carpets and be conscious of toxins in carpeting and other flooring, especially anything made from synthetic materials. Use natural fibre wool & cotton carpets, rugs, mattresses and furniture when possible.

2) Plastics

I go out of my way to avoid plastic by investing in items such as Pyrex BPA-free glass containers and glass canning jars. I also only use PCB-free water bottles when cycling or hydrating during a workout and avoid heating, microwaving or even letting sit in a hot car. The chart below shows how plastics, even many society consider to be “safe plastics”, are not really that safe at all:

In this post-industrial era, I understand it can be nearly impossible to completely eliminate plastic from your life. So I recommend you simply limit your exposure to the worse offenders, which are typically plastic numbers “3”, “6” and “7”, and follow these simple rules.

• 1.Limit use of plastic bottles. Bottled water is not extremely harmful in small amounts, but BPA exposure can be an issue with frequent or prolonged use. BPA, or Bisphenol A, is linked to cancer and phtalates, both of which can cause hormonal and neural damage. One report from the CDC found BPA in 92.6% of adults (4), but the good news is that another study found that when you remove BPA containing items from your diet for just three days, you can reduce your BPA levels by around 66%. Use glass bottles, BPA-free bottles, or glass jars to transport and drink your water (21).
• 2.Be aware of other common sources of BPA. Besides plastic bottles, canned food and shopping receipts are also significant sources of BPA. You should also avoid plastic food packaging and plastic containers when you can, and never heat foods near these items. Choose baby bottles made from glass or BPA-free plastic. If you have children, avoid vinyl pacifiers for your baby and especially stay away from children’s toys marked with a “3” or “PVC.”
• 3.Replace your plastic shower curtains. Use natural cotton or nylon curtains.
• 4.You should avoid non stick pans, pots, bakeware and utensils, since the Teflon coating contains perfluorinated chemicals (PFC’s) very similar to the chemicals leached from plastic. Whatever you cook on, you wind up eating. I primarily use cast iron cookware
• 5.Rather than dry cleaning, use wet cleaning if that’s an option near your home. Tell your dry cleaner not to use the plastic wrap or remove it as soon as possible, since the plastic traps the dry cleaning chemicals on clothes and in your closet. Let your dry cleaning air out (preferably outside) before you put it away.

Once you become aware of the dangers of plastics, you’ll begin to notice them all over your home. But through awareness and gradual removal, it can be simple to get most of them out of your life.

3) Mould and Mycotoxins

Mycotoxins are toxic compounds produced by various species of mould. Among a variety of other health issues, they can cause asthma and breathing issues, cancer, cardiovascular disease, altered kidney and liver function, disrupted sleep, stunted muscle recovery, miscarriage, and a bad case of “fuzzy brain”(27). By getting a test such an ERMI (Environmental Relative Mouldiness Index) from a licensed contractor (I don’t recommend this as a DIY project), you may find that your house has toxic mould which produces bacteria which can often be more deadly than that you find in food. Within 24-48 hours of development of moisture in an area of your house, mould can form, chomp down and multiply on just about any part of your home which mould considers to be a food source, including dust, wood, paint, paper, cotton or oil, and modern building materials like drywall. To avoid mould formation and exposure, I recommend you:

• Keep house dust to a minimum. Mop all surfaces at least once a week. Use a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter for your carpets. HEPA-filter vacuums capture the widest range of particles and potential allergens. Also consider installing a Hepa air filter in your home and office.
• Use a dehumidifier to keep the humidity in mould-prone rooms such as basement bathrooms low.
• Operate an oscillating fan in the bathroom after showering and fix or caulk any leaks as soon as possible.
• Regularly clean surfaces where mould usually grows – around showers, tubs and beneath sinks.
• Be conscious of toxins in carpeting, especially in products made from synthetic materials. Use natural fibre wool & cotton rugs.
• Seal or replace particleboard walls, floors or cabinets, which often contain formaldehyde, which emits unhealthy fumes. Avoid any synthetic, strong-smelling plywood, fibreglass, fibreboard and paneling.

So let’s say you want to know if you actually have been exposed to mould?

You can get tests from a company called “EHAP Labs“ or you can simply pay attention to symptoms. If you move into a new house or apartment or you don’t change anything in your diet but you suddenly begin to experience allergy-like symptoms such as asthma and congestion, frequent sickness, headaches, joint pain, brain fog and other issues, you should suspect mould (18). You can also get tested for mould allergies to everything from candida to penicillin using a skin prick test, which uses watered-down extracts of mould allergens to check your reactions. A little drop of the allergen-containing liquid is applied to the skin of your arm or back and is then pushed into your skin with a little puncture or scratch. If a bump develops on any of the spots, it indicates a likely allergy to that substance. One simple test you can order at home from a company such as DirectLabs is a blood mould profile. For this test, blood and sends it to the lab where it’s exposed to various mould allergens. Then the blood is checked for the presence of the antibody immunoglobulin E, which is what your immune system produces in an allergic reaction. If it’s there, you could be allergic to the mould you’re being tested for.

4) EMF

The country is wired with half a million miles of high voltage power lines, and for wireless communication we depend on over a half million microwave links. We also have tens of millions of broadcasting transmitters flood our airwaves, use over 35 million electromagnetic devices (increasing at an exponential rate) and plant ourselves in front of hundreds of millions of video and television screens. EMF (electromagnetic frequency) radiation is the by-product of this explosion of electronic technology, and is basically a form of environmental pollution from this radiation emitted by millions of domestic appliances, military installations, industrial machines, computers, broadcast and communications transmitters and all other electrically powered devices (28). This radiation can cause headaches, vision problems, anxiety, irritability, depression, nausea, fatigue, disturbed sleep, poor physical performance and loss of drive. Even worse, all metallic objects, including electrical circuits, telephone wiring, water and gas pipes, and even the metal objects we carry on our bodies such as keys, watches, and jewellery can act as antennae which collect and magnify these energy waves, creating a compounding effect that significantly alters the natural balance of our body’s biochemical energy patterns. When you’re constantly bombarded in this manner by EMF waves, it can not only distort your internal cellular communications, but it can also “entrain” your body. Entrainment, also known as sympathetic resonance, is the tendency of an object to vibrate at the same frequency as an external stimulus. But although the frequencies used in earthing or grounding take advantage of the natural frequency of the planet earth, when you become entrained to any disruptive external frequency – such as the frequency emitted by your wireless router – you can lose the integrity of your intrinsic frequencies (eg. the natural vibration of your cells), which can degrade physical and mental performance and create huge potential for some serious downstream health issues (15).

I’ll admit that a direct cause:effect relationship between electromagnetic radiation and illness has been difficult to prove, but the number of supportive studies continues to increase. To jumpstart your grasp of the seriousness of this issue, and to get the nittygritty details on protecting your home and body against the ravages of EMF, I recommend you read the book ”Zapped: Why Your Cell Phone Shouldn’t Be Your Alarm Clock and 1,268 Ways to Outsmart the Hazards of Electronic Pollution” and the book ”Disconnect: Truth About Cell Phone Radiation“.

Here’s a quick, practical guide to jump-start your EMF radiation protection.

• Unplug your wireless router or switch it off wireless mode when you’re not using it.
• Limit artificial light radiation by installing low blue light bulbs in your home, putting a blue light blocker screen on your computer and using blue-light blocking glasses such
  as Swannies.
• Use dirty electricity filters in main rooms of house.
• Use an airtube headset on phone and/or only use the speaker setting when talking on your phone.
• Keep your cell phone or laptop several inches away from your skin whenever possible, and put your cell phone on airplane mode if you need to put it in your pocket or near your head while sleeping or exercising.
• If you need to place an electronic device in your lap, use an EMF blocking pad.
• Avoid using your cell phone when the signal is weak (this amplifies EMF) and use an anti-EMF case for your smartphone.

5) Water

Flouride is certainly a crucial compound, in pesticides. That’s right, sodium fluoride is a registered insecticide and rodenticide that is used in rat and roach poisons. It is a toxic waste byproduct derived straight from the manufacture of phosphate fertilisers and from the aluminium refining industry, which means it also has a lot of lead as well as other toxic substances in it. But it’s cheaper to simply dump fluoride into our water supply than to pay toxic waste disposal fees (1). Unfortunately, this can cause cancer, hip fracture, dental fluorosis, stained teeth, neurological impairment, lower IQ in children, and learning disorders. Sure, fluoride certainly has a good anti-decay effect when you apply it directly to the tooth itself – but you don’t have to swallow the stuff, and frankly when it comes to tooth decay, there is little to no difference between countries with fluoridated water and countries with un-fluoridated water. If you really want to dig into the issue with fluoride read book “The Case Against Fluoride“.

Of course, fluoride isn’t the only issue. Since 2004, testing by water utilities has consistently found thousands of pollutants in the tap water we drink on a daily basis. More than half of the chemicals detected are not subject to health or safety regulations and can legally be present in any amount.

So what can you do to ensure you’re protecting yourself from fluoride and other chemicals in your drinking water, shower water, bathing water and cooking water? When it comes to filtering your water, you can install a reverse osmosis system for the drinking water in your home. Make sure it has one or more charcoal filters in the system as that will help remove other unwanted substances like chlorine. Unfortunately, when you use a reverse osmosis system, the good minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium are filtered out along with the bad minerals like fluoride. Demineralised water is also more acidic. So to make your water healthy with good minerals once again, and to increase alkalinity, you can remineralise the water with or take a daily shot of a trace liquid minerals supplement. You can also purchase reverse osmosis water filters that come with a built in re-mineraliser.

If you choose is not a whole house filtration system, but simply an “under-the-kitchencounter” unit or a simple drinking water filter like a Britta, then I highly recommend you also install a KDF showerhead/bathhead filter in your bath and shower. A single 20-minute shower will expose you to a greater absorption of chlorine, fluoride, and any other chemicals that are in your water than 5 days’ worth of your drinking water!

6) Chlorine

Of course, some of us don’t just drink chlorine in our water – we also soak it up through our skin during workouts while we also breathe in chloramines, the nasty byproducts that form when chlorine reacts with organic matter such as dead skin cells. How much chlorine are you personally exposed to? If you’re a swimmer or triathlete or someone who hits the pool or hot tub at your gym often, then it’s probably quite a bit. If you’re not a swimmer, you’re still getting significant chlorination from simply showering or bathing in your city’s water if you’re not using a filtration method I just described. The cell wall damage and internal soft tissue damage that chlorine creates, along with the auto-immune and allergy issues that are commonly aggravated by breathing and soaking in chlorinated water (19). The recommendations to mitigate the damages of chlorine are to get the following into your body:

• 1) 2-5 daily grams of Vitamin C
• 2) 2000-4000IU of Vitamin D/Vitamin K blend
• 3) 10-20iu of a natural source of Vitamin E such as d-alpha-tocopherol

7) A serving of antioxidants

Unfortunately, most soaps and shampoos that are designed to strip chlorine from your skin and hair are laden with many of the endocrine disruptors and dangerous personal care product chemicals you’ll learn about later in this chapter. There is one product called SwimSpray, which is a natural, Vitamin-C based spray that will remove chlorine odour, but it’s not going to stop chlorine from getting absorbed into your body. So the best thing you can do is equip yourself internally to handle the ravages of chlorine. Finally, if you have the luxury of a home pool, then treat it with a healthy alternative to chlorine, such as a combination of natural pool minerals combined with structured water.

8) Pesticides & Herbicides

Many people seem to feel just fine when they eat pesticide-laden produce. This is because unlike highly noticeable issues such as mould and carpet, you won’t necessarily feel like crap immediately after pesticide exposure. In fact, the biggest danger from pesticides is not from the immediate effects, but the harm that comes long after exposure or from repeated, low-dose exposure. Recent data collected by the EPA reports that in the U.S. alone, approximately 5 billion pounds of active pesticide ingredients are applied to foods annually. That’s a tremendous amount of poisons entering our bodies, and sure enough, a 2002 University of Washington study found that 109 out of 110 urban and suburban children had pesticides in their urine samples. As you would probably guess, food grown on certified organic farms contains significantly less pesticide residue than food grown with synthetic pesticides. That may seem obvious, but the evidence for this fact has only been available since 2002, when research proved that children fed organic food have lower residues of certain pesticides in their bodies than children fed conventionally grown food. So buy certified organic produce, and if you really want to make an educated decision and fill your body with the most nourishing and least damaging produce, I recommend you go buy the book Rich Food, Poor Food. In this grocery shopping guide, Mira and Jayson Calton have an excellent list of the “Fab 14” and the “Terrible 20” – which are simple resources to show which produce items tend to be most laden with not only harmful pesticides, but also GMOs, chemical fertilisers, various synthetic substances, sewage and irradiation. I’d highly recommend you buy their book to get into the nitty-gritty details, or to get a handy wallet guide like the one below, which allows you to reduce your pesticide exposure by 80% and avoid GMO produce 100% of the time.

And for that simple vinegar trick I mentioned for non-organic produce? Any basic white vinegar will do, and you already plan on having that around for a natural cleaning supply, right? Simply mix a solution of 10 percent vinegar to 90 percent water as a bath in your kitchen sink, and then briefly place your non-organic vegetables or fruit in the solution, swish them around, and rinse thoroughly in plain water. Of course, you also need to watch out for the pesticides and herbicides hanging around in your yard. After all, the average suburban lawn soaks up 10 times as much chemical pesticide per acre than conventional farmland, with over 70 million tons of fertilisers and pesticides are applied to residential lawns and gardens annually!

9) Metals

Many people seem to feel just fine when they eat pesticide-laden produce. This is because unlike highly noticeable issues such as mould and carpet, you won’t necessarily feel like crap immediately after pesticide exposure. In fact, the biggest danger from pesticides is not from the immediate effects, but the harm that comes long after exposure or from repeated, low-dose exposure. Recent data collected by the EPA reports that in the U.S. alone, approximately 5 billion pounds of active pesticide ingredients are applied to foods annually. That’s a tremendous amount of poisons entering our bodies, and sure enough, a 2002 University of Washington study found that 109 out of 110 urban and suburban children had pesticides in their urine samples. As you would probably guess, food grown on certified organic farms contains significantly less pesticide residue than food grown with synthetic pesticides. That may seem obvious, but the evidence for this fact has only been available since 2002, when research proved that children fed organic food have lower residues of certain pesticides in their bodies than children fed conventionally grown food. So buy certified organic produce, and if you really want to make an educated decision and fill your body with the most nourishing and least damaging produce, I recommend you go buy the book Rich Food, Poor Food. In this grocery shopping guide, Mira and Jayson Calton have an excellent list of the “Fab 14” and the “Terrible 20” – which are simple resources to show which produce items tend to be most laden with not only harmful pesticides, but also GMOs, chemical fertilisers, various synthetic substances, sewage and irradiation. I’d highly recommend you buy their book to get into the nitty-gritty details, or to get a handy wallet guide like the one below, which allows you to reduce your pesticide exposure by 80% and avoid GMO produce 100% of the time.

Unfortunately, you can get heavy metal exposure in all sorts of sources that go way beyond metal in your mouth. These sources include:

• Smog
• Car keys
• Chinese toys
• Second hand cigarette smoke
• Pesticides and herbicides
• Protein powders and dietary supplements
• ”Pristine” water that in fact has high amounts of mining runoff
• Food stored in metal containers
• Big fish like tuna and dolphin
• Nuclear run-off from Japan

The list goes on and on. You can get tested for heavy metals through a company like DirectLabs, but if you’ve been exposed to any of the above, you can assume you’d benefit from pulling metals out of your body. Binding heavy metals and “pulling” them out of your body is called chelation, and many substances will bind heavy metals and remove them from your body (12). The metals generally exit your body via your stool, urine, hair, breath, and sweat. I recommend you use natural compounds that can gently draw heavy metals out of your body, 6mg of iodine per day, magnesium around 400-600mg/day, or until you get loose stool, and chlorella. Saunas have also been shown to be an excellent way to release metals through the skin.

7) Radiation

From the Fukushima disaster in Japan to the average airport security line to radioactive compounds ingested during medical screens, we’re constantly bombarded by radiation and it’s an unfortunate fact that a nuclear disaster which occurs thousands of miles away can have implications for you as you sit sipping iced tea in your own backyard. One problem with radiation is that certain glands and tissues with high amounts of iodine receptors, including your thyroid, prostate, and breast tissue, are extremely sensitive to oxidation and cell damage from radiation, especially when these tissues are low in the nutrient iodine (24). When radioactive iodine (found in most forms of radiation, including all the stuff that gets blown into the atmosphere after a disaster such as Fukushima) gets into areas of your body which have numerous iodine receptors, if these receptors are lacking iodine, then the radioactive iodine latches on and begins ionising, oxidising, and harming these tissues. As you can imagine, if the receptors have had adequate dietary exposure to iodine then they are already filled with iodine and do not readily grab the radioactive version of iodine.

The other issue with radiation, as I alluded to above, is that it is highly capable of causing oxidation in a similar manner that eating high levels of heated vegetable oils or sugars can cause free radical damage but to a much greater extent. And here is the basic fact: contrary to popular belief, you simply cannot stop ionising radiation from entering or actually passing through your body by taking some special nutritional supplement or drug. This is because radiation exposure is the equivalent of a bunch of tiny bullets passing through your tissues, so complete protection from radiation would basically involve you digging into an underground bunker and getting lead or concrete walls between you and the source of the radiation. Good luck with that. So rather than running from the radiation, I recommend you simply speed your body’s ability to repair damaged tissues and organs, and equip yourself with high amounts of the proper nutrients to counteract the effects of ionising, oxidising radiation.

High-dose vitamin C or high-dose iodine

• Oral magnesium in supplemental form (around 400-600mg/day, or until you get loose stool)
• Algae
• Full spectrum antioxidant
• Additional antioxidants from a high quality omega 3, Vitamin D and Vitamin A containing supplement.
• 6mg of nascent iodine per day in a glass of water.
• 1-2 servings edible clay per day. Clay can actually draw out stored radioactive compounds from your body, and yes, it literally tastes like eating dirt.

Summary

Perhaps your head is spinning with all your newfound knowledge about the dizzying array steps you can take to maximise your health and your performance. But don’t let that stress you out. Start with the small steps. Little things like:

• Replacing your regular water bottles with PCB-free bottles
• Gradually shifting to more natural personal care products
• Starting to become aware of when you’re exposing your body to EMF, and minimising exposure when you can
• Listening to your body and simply becoming aware of synthetic smelling or synthetic tasting items
• Equipping your body with what it needs internally to fight external stressors

Ultimately, you should think about how you can live in as simple and ancestral a manner while still taking advantage of post-industrial comforts such as computers, teeth whitening and swimming pools. You’re now well-equipped with the knowledge to make the right decisions.