Mom Goes Green

Valentine’s Day… the holiday of LOVE! There might be someone you would love to shower with romance and affection, but while you put together the lovey-est of treats, you want to be sure to make the best choices.

I’ve written about all of the ways to keep it eco-friendly – from chocolates and candles, to wining and dining (and you can read that entire post here).

But Valentine’s Day is a hugely popular holiday for flowers.  The problem?  About 70% of flowers sold in the U.S. are imported and grown using highly toxic chemicals, including pesticides, fertilizers and fungicides. It doesn’t sound so pleasant to take a big “whiff” now, does it?!  This is a danger to us as consumers, workers cultivating the flower crops and florists working with them daily.  It also pollutes the land and groundwater and creates an unhealthy environmental effect.

This Valentine’ Day consider organic flowers! These farms instead use environmental and sustainable practices (without toxins) to insure that everyone in the chain, including the environment, isn’t put at risk.  And it also simply supports local, domestic farming. Diamond Organics, California Organic Flowers and Organic Bouquet will help put you in the right direction to locate a florist that offers organic flowers or buy online if you want “green” blooms.

You can also look for the VeriFlora label or ask your florist if they are VeriFlora certified and you will know you are buying an organic and sustainable product.

Be assured you’re NOT bringing those toxins into your home or sending them to someone you actually love (or at least like a LOT!).

The scent of organic flowers is pure (non-toxic) sweetness!

By now, plans are likely well underway for your big holiday celebration. Maybe you’re hosting a party, celebrating Christmas Eve or Christmas Day at your house and (hopefully) pulling out all of your loveliest silverware and serving pieces (instead of all the throw-away stuff!).

Do those lovely pieces include silver?  Have you CHECKED your silver?  Maybe there are long periods between uses and you might want to check now to make sure they haven’t tarnish…

If they have, fear not! You can clean them without using any harsh chemical cleaners and concoctions.

Here are three easy and safe ways to get them sparkly and clean:

• Line your sink with aluminum foil.  Place the silver on the foil and add boiling water, one cup of baking soda and a dash of salt.  Let the silver sit and in a few minutes the tarnish will transfer to the foil!  Then just rinse and dry.  (Remember to recycle the foil!)

• You can polish and clean them by hand using a soft cloth and toothpaste.  Rinse them with warm water and dry.

• Another by-hand formula is 3 parts baking soda to 1 part water.  Clean them with a soft cloth with this solution… and again, rinse and dry.

So, shine ’em up, keep the chemicals at bay and let the party commence!…

So, imagine this scenario:  You find yourself shopping for a product and, among the array of choices, you notice “unscented” or “fragrance-free”.  You might opt to choose one of these over a scented variety because it implies that there is at least one less additive in the product.  But are these terms synonymous? And do YOU know the difference?

Until recently, I didn’t.  I mistakenly assumed they meant the same thing.  Guess what?  I was wrong.

“Fragrance-free” does mean that there is nothing added to the product, but unscented is a whole different ball game.  In fact, “unscented” is a fragrance additive, used to mask any other chemical smells, and it most likely contains phthalates.  What’s bothersome is that phthalates are known hormone disruptors and can affect fertility in both men and women.

Sure, some of us may not have family planning in our near future, and our brood may already be complete, but isn’t this a chemical we’d all simply like to leave out of our systems?

Stay “free” of the phthalates and, given the choice, always choose “fragrance-free”!

I am always, always an advocate of choosing the greenest way to clean our homes.  Sure it takes some getting used to, but really… do I want spray, pour and mist chemicals around my house?  Yea, not so much.

I buy some green cleaners and make some of my own, but I have a confession… I’m addicted to the Magic Eraser!

That would seem fairly harmless (being the only choice out of the “green realm”) but I can’t seem to find any credible information about this amazing little cleaning sponge.

I’ve seen “supposed” information that they’re made of formaldehyde (augh!) but I’ve also seen it debunked even more.  I read that it is made of melamine (the same stuff kids’ plates and cups are often made of, so essentially plastic) but while it disintegrates as it’s used, I wonder what this really “means”.  Does using green cleaners, kinda, I don’t know… cancel it out? Hmm?

I have also heard that the most active and prevalent ingredient is salt…supposedly that’s the magic abrasive that gives it its cleaning power … problem is, there is nothing on the package that tells you a THING about what it’s made of.

Honestly, I’m addicted… arm me with some green cleaners and a Magic Eraser and I will have anything spic and span in no time.  It can magically erase any stain, grim and dirt, but I also want to get to the bottom of it.

Do you know? Have you heard anything?  Any resources for CREDIBLE information?  If YOU know, I’d love to know…

Please, please just don’t tell me I need to break my addiction…

Whenever my husband is away on business my kids also “relocate”… into our bed, that is.  Each night I find myself planted in the middle of our king-sized bed snuggled between my “hot water bottle” kids.

During his recent trip, I could feel myself sleeping on what has become a hump in the middle of the bed and literally worried about rolling onto one of the kids.  It became quite obvious that our mattress has seen better days since we’ve both apparently made our “impression”.

The choice of a new mattress is a simple one for me, especially after researching the purchase of our son’s mattress not so long ago, but I realized it’s also an opportunity to again share some pretty serious information.

Here is the concern:  Beginning July 1, 2007, Federal Fire Retardant Regulations mandated mattress manufacturers to INCREASE the levels of toxic fire retardants, but DO NOT require them to list the ingredients in the contents!

And what do these fire retardants contain?… boric acid, melamine, antimony and formaldehyde… all chemicals linked to cancer.  Antimony alone causes heart muscle damage and a single dermal application has killed rabbits in laboratory tests.  Additional tests on Memory Foam mattresses even detected 61 chemical emissions and off-gassing from a single mattress.  Think about how many hours you spend sleeping on your mattress… every … single … night.  All the while, you are inhaling these toxic off-gassing chemicals. I find it frightening, AND infuriating, especially where our children are concerned.

If you’d like to take a look at my original post and view a supporting news report, you can find it here.  Or maybe you’d just like to know to answer…

For us, the ONLY answer is an organic mattress.  They’re made of pure organic wool, 100% organic cotton covers and 100% natural latex cores, providing even better fire retardancy than the chemicals… naturally! For our son, we selected a Savvy Rest mattress from Healthy Home Sleep Gallery (and we DIDN’T need a prescription!… more on that here).  Was it more than the common mattress store brands?  Sure, it was… (the cheapest method to comply with the fire retardant regulations is to simply spray on the chemicals!), but was it worth it when we made a new mattress purchase for our son?… without a doubt.

Now that it’s nearing time to replace our own mattress, I can’t imagine choosing anything other than organic for our own health…  but also because it’s only a matter of time before my two precious “hot water bottles” plan another sleepover too, and I want ALL of us to rest and breath easy (and healthy)!

The easiest way to visually freshen-up the inside of a house is paint.  Add a new color and, instantly, the place looks lively again.  In fact, every year approximately 630 MILLION gallons of paint are sold in the U.S. alone.

After recently having new windows installed in our home, I found myself in this exact situation and needed to purchase paint to cover all of the new trim.  While some of us might get caught up in the color palette, I found myself laboring over the SAFEST paint.

The concern?  VOCs – volatile organic compounds.  These off-gassing, toxic chemical emissions contribute to ozone and smog formation and are linked to respiratory illnesses and memory impairment, so they put both our health and our environment at risk. In fact, the concentration of indoor VOCs is often higher than outdoors (by about four-to-six times as much) as a result of paints, stains, and varnishes used in our home, and these emissions can continue for multiple years after the finish is applied.

You can avoid this health and environmental hazard by choosing low- or no-VOC finishes… always.  Simple as that.

If you think a little bit of paint can’t possibly matter, consider this:

The amount of VOC toxic emissions saved by purchasing just a few gallons of low-VOC paint each year is equivalent to the VOC that would be saved if you didn’t drive your car for an entire year.

So, pick your palette, go crazy with the colors but just remember to say “hold the VOCs, please!”

This weekend my family and I happily retrieved some fantastic local produce from our CSA with Fresh Fork Market.  I’m telling you, I’m like a little kid picking-up a bag of sweets at the candy store.  It’s just so exciting to share in the local and organic harvest, fresh from the farm!

This week’s bounty included some fabulous strawberries. Our kids were thrilled because they are bona fide strawberry junkies (and yes, these photos are the “actual” strawberries… yummy, yes?)

Well, if your family has strawberry junkies too, or if you EVER buy strawberries for that matter, this next issue should interest you… (especially since strawberries are on the “dirty dozen” list and they retain a lot of pesticides!)

It seems the state of California, the nation’s largest agricultural producer, is close to approving a potent carcinogenic gas for use on strawberry fields and other food crops.  This chemical pesticide, methyl iodide, is a known neurotoxin that disrupts thyroid function, damages developing fetuses and has caused lung tumors in laboratory animals. Although California already classifies it as a human carcinogen, the EPA approved it for agricultural use in 2007 despite the objections of 50 prominent scientists.

Really?  This just causes me to put my face in my hands and shake my head profusely.

I, for one, do NOT want this applied to anything meant for consumption, but I also shudder to think what this does to the air, water and PEOPLE that work these farms or live in close proximity.

If you agree, you can speak up and voice your disapproval.  CREDO is working hard to get the EPA to reverse this decision.  If you would like to sign the petition, simply go to this link so you can be counted.

In the meanwhile, we’ll be consuming these lovely, local, organic strawberries and hope that the EPA will rethink a decision as rotten as the tainted strawberries they are willing to feed us.

Now that the countdown to the final days of school has reached “10 days and counting” all my kids can talk about is all the fun we’ll have this summer and our annual beach vacation!

But any parent knows that fun in the sun also means extra caution to make sure our precious little ones (ourselves included!) don’t get fried during “sun fun”, so if you haven’t bought it already, sunscreen is sure to be a purchase in the very near future.

The concern with sunscreen is the presence of some nasty chemicals that we really don’t want to apply to our bodies daily, or even “frequently” for that matter, since they absorb into our skin and accumulate. Many are believed to cause hormone disruption, cell damage and allergies, amongst other things. They include vitamin A (retinyl palmitate), Oxybenzone, Zinc Oxide, Titanium Dioxide, Mexoryl, Avobenzone… augh!… just a bunch of things that we could really do without!

So instead of laboring over labels and trying (sometimes in vane) to decipher the ingredients… (drumroll, please….)  Environmental Working Group has released its 2010 list and ratings of over 500 sunscreen products.  Believe me, it is much easier to find one on the “best” list and just know you have a good product to keep you safe from the sun AND the nasty chemicals.

You can also look-up the products you have been using to see how they rate.  Sadly, all of ours were in the “caution” category so Mom Goes Green will be doing her research too.  Fortunately, EWG has done most of the work for us, so the answers are just a few clicks away.

Now check it out, slather on the good stuff and GO PLAY… summer is almost here!

When making the decision to “go green” the list of “should nots” is equally as important as the “shoulds”…

I recently ran across a fabulous list of the should nots that are very much worthy of a mention.  This list comes from Healthy Child Healthy World and includes the top 10 toxic products that you DON’T need in your home. Without further ado, start checking the checklist!:

• Air fresheners – they’re full of chemicals, synthetic fragrances and even anesthetics that can be inhaled into our lungs (ewww!)
• Bottled water – this water is no less contaminated (and sometimes MORE contaminated) than your tap water… add the BPA content of the plastic bottles and they are simply bad news.
• Canned goods – their epoxy resin linings often contain BPA, linked to hormone disruption, heart disease and obesity.
• Couch cushions – avoid anything containing foam that says it meets California TB 117 because they contain toxic fire retardant (like those horrible mattresses!)  They’re linked to cancer, birth defects, and thyroid, reproductive and neurological disorders.
• Drain, oven and toilet bowl cleaners – they contain lye and acids that can burn skins, eyes and internal tissues.
• Dry cleaned clothes – even though the chemical perchloroethylene (or perc) is applied elsewhere, it is linked to a number of cancers and even bringing home those clothes (and wearing them!) dramatically increases your exposure.
• Oil-based paints and finishes – they can contain up to 300 toxic chemicals and 150 carcinogens … enough said.
• Perfume and cologne – one formulation can contain literally hundreds of chemicals that can absorb through the skin and accumulate in the bodies.
• Pesticides – these chemical poisons linger and contaminate the air and undoubtedly get dragged into our homes.
• Rubber duckies! – okay, and ANYTHING that contains PVC or vinyl.  They can leach phthalates (linked to hormone distruption) and lead (a potent neurotoxicant).

Please check out Healthy Child Healthy World’s original post for more great information on all of these “toxic 10”, as well as important suggestions for substituting better options…

So, how many are still in or around your home?… I’ll bet you’re about to change that, aren’t you?!?

Most of us never give much thought to the deodorant we apply daily… after all, don’t all moms naturally smell like roses?… yea, I know, not always but dare to dream!

There is a problem though… common commercial deodorants contain all sorts of frightening chemicals, including Aluminum Chlorohydrate (linked to brain disorders), Parabens (linked to breast cancer), Propylene Glycol (commonly used in manufacturing antifreeze!), Triclosan (linked to the development of antibiotic resistance) and Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (a known carcinogen!).  Who wouldn’t want to avoid these chemicals?!?

Lately, I’ve been using Tom’s of Maine.  Those of us entrenched in the “green world” have probably heard of their products since they are easily found in major retailers, but it wasn’t as easy when I realized that it was probably time for our 8-year old daughter to consider some deodorant of her own.

Luckily I finally discovered Junior Varsity Naturals and honestly, I never imagined it would be so easy to convince my little lady to take-on this armpit task each day!  Their products are made of only safe, chemical-free botanicals, so I don’t have to worry about her putting toxic ingredients on her body just for the sake of hygiene.  And she looooves the smell… they have a Cherry Blast for girls and Citrus Sport for boys (all natural scents), so as soon as my little athlete is ready for some pit-assistance, I know he’s covered too.

If I can convince you of nothing else, please just avoid anti-perspirants. These are the products that contain dangerous Aluminum Chorohydrate to seal our pores and prevent sweat, but it’s being absorbed into our bodies every day!

There is nothing glamorous in the discussion of underarms, but even less attractive is the reality of the dangerous chemicals that enter our body as a result of wanting to smell more pleasant… now that’s really, REALLY the pits!