This post will
complete my series of blogs on toxic chemicals in our environment. After
reading all the bad news, if you are still with me you must ask:What to do? Is
there a solution? No, there is NO SOLUTION. There are many solutions! (It
is pretty long and I probably should have put it into several blogs but I am
pretty busy and my fingers just kept typing!)
These are
solutions that come to my mind and solutions that our extended family has made
over the decades with new “solutions” added as needed. You are welcome to
google the net for additional ones but
these are the paths we have chosen in our family and are derived primarily from our own experience.They are laid down in
no particular order and may seem repetitive.
1.
FIRST and FOREMOST. If you fear the health
effects of plastic and the associated chemicals. STOP USING PLASTIC. Every
suggestion follows from this single golden rule.
2.
. Don’t buy anything in plastic or wrapped in
plastic. Ok I get it. In a plastic contaminated world that can seem impossible
especially if you are dependent upon an industrial civilization for most of
your needs. But start somewhere. Maybe you can reduce it 50% and go from there.
Some food items wrapped or shipped in plastic are probably fine from a toxicity dosage standpoint like frozen meats
or vegetables and fruits with a peel or dry goods of all types. Do not buy
liquids if possible because the
chemicals from some kinds of plastic can leach out and some are relatively
safe. I know which ones based on research I have done . Do your own due diligence.
There are types of plastic which don’t shed bisphenols or phthalates or PFAS for example like PE or HDPE. Most of the toxic
chemicals arise from improper disposal such as in landfills which leach the chemicals
into the ground water or air.
3.
. Do not heat anything in plastic, EVER.
Especially in a microwave. Do not place plastic film over foods in a microwave.
Parchment paper or butcher paper works just fine.
4.
Do not buy any food or beverage which has spent
significant time in plastic.
5.
Never buy water in plastic bottles. Bring your
own tap water with you or buy bottled water in BOTTLES. That is why it was
called bottled water!
6.
Grow your own food or get it from someone who does,
preferably grown organically. On our little farm we have always had gardens and pastures and we grow most of our
food, make all of our compost, all of our soil. Fruits don’t grow in Wyoming
and we don’t consume a lot of fruits because most are heavily dosed with
pesticides and herbicides. If you can’t grow your own food or find someone who
can for you, maybe you should move.
7.
No Teflon or similar PFAS chemical pots and pans
and implements. Teflon is a PFAS. Teflon
is used in things besides pots and pans so educate yourself, in some lids for
example. Use CAST iron, SS, ceramic,plain steel or glass or enamel over steel.
They have unlimited life and improve over the decades.
8.
Eschew
synthetic fabrics. Wool, Cotton,Flax, linen,silk have worked for 10,000 years.The plastic polymers like the polyesters and fleece may not
transfer anything to your skin directly but
when laundered shed micro plastics into the environment and water supply
as micro and nanoplastics. When I got rid of all my polyester clothes I burned
them in our wood stove. They should not be recycled to other innocent folks. As
an aside I believe the only way to dispose of most all(but not all) plastics is
to burn them in a very efficient airtight EPA certified stove without a catalytic
converter. VERY high heat is the sine qua non. Never use a burn barrel.
9.
Never use disposable diapers. Always and only
cotton diapers. My wife always used a diaper service with our children and
ditto my daughter with hers. OK, buy some Pampers if you have to do a trip.
Disposable diapers are really hard to remove from the environment. Ask my Pacific Energy wood stove what she thinks of
plastic diapers.
10. Avoid
almost all household cleaners and detergents and stain removers. If the label
says “miracle” run don’t walk away! PFAS and similar compounds are part and
parcel of cleaning agents and detergents whether to clean dishes, clothes, your
hands or automobile engines. Good luck with this recommendation. The only true
soap I am aware of is Ivory hand soap as well as Dr Bronners liquid. These are the
only soaps I will use on my body. The list of ingredients in for example a
clothes detergent box takes up most of the box and nowhere does it say there is
or was PFAS used in its manufacture but you can be pretty sure it’s there. This
goes for most products from our chemical industrial economy. If you simply cannot avoid their occasional
use, reduce the amount radically. IF the Tide box says use ½ cup, try ¼ cup or
an 1/8 cup. I assure you it will clean about as well. If you see suds, you used
too much. Your washing machine will thank you. These chemicals are hard on the
innards of washing machines as my plumber once told me. Research clothes and
dish cleaners and there are lots of suggestions including baking soda,vinegar,
boarates and others.
11. Avoid
most cosmetics or personal care items unless you can verify by an independent
assay that it has only benign ingredients. PFAS chemicals abound in cosmetics
as well as other toxic chemicals. Most toothpaste has micro plastic granules as
polishing and cleaning agents. Read the label. The ingredient will say “toothpaste.”
Informative. MY dad always used Baking
soda or tooth powder. I use Baking soda and a water pic and only rarely use
floss. FLOSS and PFAS are married to each other. There is a particular PFAS
that does wonders for your skin leaving it smooth and soft and glossy. If there
is PFAS in a product , rubbing it into your skin will allow rapid absorption
into your body. If you are pregnant it will be in your fetus in a New York
minute to do damage and bio accumulate. If you are pregnant or trying to be
pregnant, be especially mindful because a dose that might pose little risk to
you can pose great and prolonged damage to a growing embryo especially in the
first 3 or 4 months of gestation. Assume any and all personal and skin care products
are harmful and that includes, nail polish mascara, lipstick,rouge, powders, deodorants,
conditioners and shampoos, sunscreens and insect repellents and some perfumes.
Do your own research. Make your own cosmetics.
12. Hunt
or fish for your own meat or if you are out of ammo and worms then raise your
own as we do. In our 5 freezers right
now we have our Berkshire pigs, Lamb, pork bellies, and a wide variety of wild game and wild
caught fish. Our domestic beef and lamb is 100% grass fed to increase Omega 3’s
and decrease Omega 6’s. We have halibut, cod and salmon from a co-op in Alaska.
(We formerly fished commercially for salmon and Halibut in the Gulf of Alaska.)
We have always had chickens and haven’t bought feedlot eggs in many decades. It
is possible to increase beneficial fatty acids like Omega 3’s in your eggs if
you really allow them to graze on pasture and also consume insects. We feed
them leafy greens like lettuce, spinach and kale in season and all our table
scraps. The favorite food of our chickens is turkey and chicken! Buy only raw
unpasteurized milk. We no longer milk Daisy, our affectionate Jersey cow but
buy from a friend who has a Jersey herd. I make my own butter if we have enough
cream and from the butter I make Ghee and clarified butter as well as yoghurt
and buttermilk. When we have pigs to raise we feed them a lot of spoiled milk
and dairy from a local recycler and it does wonders for the taste of the meat.
Danish Hams for example have a diet rich in milk and dairy. I consider
commercial milk swill, fit only for pigs.
13. Do
not buy any plastic toys and especially old plastic toys. Teething rings are
the poster child of pediatric plastic poison Old plastic toys should be incinerated as they
are loaded with Bisphenols and phthalates. Do not send them to the landfill.
Avoid letting children play on playgrounds covered with plastic padding or artificial turf. Phthalates, bisphenols and micro-nanoplastics are in the dust and can
be inhaled. Most especially avoid recycled plastics. Some of the compounds used
to recycle them are worse than the parent virgin plastic. Some recycled
plastics end up in children’s toys. There should be a special place in hell for
the companies that did that.
14. Avoid plastic school supplies if possible.(I
can hear you groaning from here!) Why use a plastic marker if you can use a
wooden pencil?
15. Avoid entirely all use of herbicides,
pesticides growth promoters, fungicides, rodenticides. If this isn’t obvious to
you by now, you haven’t been paying attention. Roundup for example has a myriad
of ingredients besides glyphosate and one scientific article I read said it has
8 of 10
of the characteristics of a EDC(endocrine
disrupting chemical. Have you seen any bees lately, cleaned any insects off
your windshield? 70% of insects are gone. Seen any insect eating birds besides robins?
16. If
you live near an airport or military base or old industrial chemical site and have a well you may have water contaminated
with PFAS or other chemicals. Test the water. New tests are available for most
chemicals. It is possible to remove many compounds like PFAS with a commercial
Reverse Osmosis or ion exchange unit. Many have activated carbon filters
attached. Test the water after install and if its still there plan on moving
especially if children are present in your household. Good luck selling the
house.
17. Avoid synthetic carpets which have been loaded
with PFAS, especially all the old ones. Incinerate them. Newer wall to wall carpets
are said to have no or reduced dirt and
water and stain repellent chemicals. They may have something even worse. Expensive
wool carpets like Persian carpets with a low weft are a nice expensive
substitute. Critters like skin mites and allergenic dusts live in all carpets.
Our family has always had throw rugs or braided cotton rugs here and there
especially near doors. Wooden floors of course and only wooden floors. Ok our bathrooms have ceramic tile. We use oil
based poly on the floors done every 10 years or more and move out of the house
for the week it takes to cure. Varnishes, epoxys and many paints are loaded
with PFAS. I know. That is why we go on vacation for a week every 10 years.
18. Avoid
buying or driving in new cars. Buy only
used cars. New cars interiors are all plastic which you can smell especially on
a hot day. The plastic outgases and condenses on the inside of the windshield
and on the inside of your lungs. This diminishes with age and our 25-40 yr old
cars and trucks seem to have no odor whatever. My old Toyotas and Mercedes diesels are mostly
leather . Cloth interiors are of course preferable to plastic. If you have to
impress the Jones at least drive with your windows open for the first 5 or 10
years! If you use cleaning agents on the inside of your vehicle, the agents may
be more toxic than the plastic.
19. Get
rid of all plastic food containers. Burn them or send them to the garage to
store screws and bolts. Store all food only in Glass, ceramic, steel or
aluminum. We use ½ and 1 gallon Ball jars. All cups are ceramic, glass or
metal. We have a few Tupperware cups for the grandkids who tend to drop things.
20. Avoid
using any disposable anything EVER unless you take it home and incinerate it.
21. Because
the route of ingress for many chemicals comes through food it is now time to
address that most important of all strategies. My opinions are derived from my
own observation and on the work of some amazing researchers like Dr Robert
Lustig and his friends and associates. Casey and Calley Means along with
RFK are currently beating the drums
about the metabolic syndrome and the obesity epidemic especially in children. Pay attention to their message even if you don’t
favor their politics. Youtube is a good source as well as their excellent books
which I have covered previously in this and other blogs I am a retired doctor
with an interest in diet and health and I can claim some level of expertise but
educate yourself and use your own talents. Starting simple my advice is make
and prepare your own foods from fresh ingredients in your own kitchen as often as you can. Make meals the same as grandma
made as Michael Pollan says. For god’s
sake bake your own bread. We make 4 loaves every 2-4 wks and have for 3 decades
or more. I avoid takeout and restaurants except on special occasions and never
I mean NEVER eat fast food. Never. Did I say Never? There are a few chains
which are exceptions and you can figure out which ones. Most serve fast
garbage.
22. Avoid
Sugar if at all possible with the exception of Dextrose(glucose). There is no such thing as a healthy artificial
sweetener.If you consume sugar in any other form you should limit yourself to
25 gm/day/adult. Less for children A
tbsp is about 12 gm and a tsp about 4. This means honey, maple syrup, molasses as
well as others. Table sugar is a synthetic compound of 50%glucose and 50%
fructose. The bad guy in this story is the fructose molecule which is toxic in
large amounts and ends up just in fat and in your liver. Glucose goes
everywhere else .See my older blogs or folks like Bob Lustig for the details.
Fructose is one of the root causes of the Metabolic syndrome which encompasses
a constellation of diseases like Diabetes, hypertension, Insulin resistance,dyslipidemias,
fatty liver disease, dementia and cardiovascular disease among others. The
metabolic degradation pathway of fructose is identical to alcohol which should
tell you something. To my amazement even the federal government is advising
keeping sugar to 25-50 gm a day.
23. Your
next problem is avoiding sugar in purchased foods. Some studies have said that
it is in 60-70% of processed and grocery store foods. It is there by design of the Big Food
companies and the fast food and sugared beverages industry and It is there because it is addictive, If it’s
addictive, it’s profitable. Throw in some salt and now you are hooked. You
should also avoid cakes and cookies and pies except in moderation. I will give you a little tip. I eat cakes and
cookies and pies on occasion but I sweeten with glucose and sometimes some
brown sugar or honey. Glucose is not very sweet and sometimes you have to cheat
a little. You will need to purchase it
in 50 lb sacks from places like beer supply stores or Amazon. The small quantities in grocery
stores are too expensive. If you want your pancakes to brown you also have to
add a little sugar. That is the Maillard reaction. More on that maybe later.
24. Absolutely
never EVER buy or consume soft drinks. The amount of fructose in them is huge
especially in the worst offenders like Mountain Dew. It will fatten your liver,
wreck your waistline and rot your teeth. Look up “Mountain Dew Mouth.”Even big
companies like Coca Cola and Monster energy drinks have our chemical friend, Bisphenol,
the potent endocrine disruptor in the cans. Use bottles whenever possible. Also
drink fruit juices in moderation if at all. Most are loaded with fructose. Eat
fruit instead because the fiber in the fruit is the antidote to the fructose.
Dried fruits have concentrated fructose especially things like dates and
raisins. Never give fruit juice to babies! I should reinforce a point I have made earlier
because this whole obesity epidemic/metabolic syndrome requires a systems
analysis. Many of the chemical poisons I have mentioned affect adipocytes and
promote increasing size and fat deposition which juxtaposes perfectly with
fructose overload. The two are synergistic. Also keep in mind this whole
dietary/ chemical disaster is NEW. In the past six or seven decades. Look at
movies from the 30’s and 40’s and tell me how many fat people you see. Also how
many plastic things do you see?
25. Add
fiber to your diet, both the soluble kind and the insoluble kind like in
celery. Appropriate amounts of fiber promote gut health. Fiber is the preferred food for your gut
bacteria. If you don’t feed your biome bacteria they may start to feed on you! On your gut lining. Scanty or absent amounts
of fiber cause leaky gut syndrome where the stuff in your gut( essentially, manure!)
can leak out through the membrane walls into your blood. Many researchers think
that leaky gut is behind the rise in autoimmune diseases because your body’s
immune system attacks what’s leaking out and with the right conditions starts
attacking the host. That’s you, Bob. A benefit of eating whole fruit and
fibrous vegetables is that it reduces
fructose getting into the portal circulation to the liver and sends it down the
pipe to the porcelain throne.
26. There
are industrial poisons available out there besides in plastics, pesticides pots
and pans and cosmetics. No longer are they confined to those industrial sites
ringed by railroad tracks along the river. They are right in your neighborhood.
Your big box grocery stores. Go in any Krogers or Safeway or Walmart and you will see whole aisles devoted to sugar
saturated breakfast cereals and industrial oils ready for the plucking. Take
seed oils for example. There are a host of them. The first oils used in the
engine invented by Rudolph Diesel was vegetable oil. Rudolph designed it to use
mineral oil which was in short supply but found it ran fine on peanut oil,
castor oil, and rapeseed oil. The Japanese battleship Yamamoto was said to be
powered with soybean oil. I once ran one of my Mercedes diesels on spoiled
olive oil and it ran fine and smelled like a good salad. There are problems with seed oils. One problem is how they are
made. You can get wonderful and healthy oils by pressing them, called expeller
pressing, and the oil flows out. Just
filter it. This works fine with products like olives, avocados, coconut and
palm oils. Not so fine with soybeans or sunflowers, corn or rapeseed . Ah……Rapeseed…such
a horrible name. It had to be renamed to try to sell it and the folks north of
the border rebranded it CANOLA (Canada)oil which was initially promoted as a “healthy”
oil. Most of the industrial seed oils are anything but. In order to extract
them the boys in the lab had to use a lot of heat and chemical solvents,
centrifuging them along with adding
other substances to yield a clear liquid which goes into plastic bottles. The
lab boys had to use clever marketing to peddle their oils because most of these
seed oils are easy to grow in prodigious quantities on the vast croplands of
North America and Canada. They used
terms like “polyunsaurated”(=good) instead of saturated(=bad). We know now that
was inaccurate. But there was a kernel
of truth in it. Most of these seed oils have a large amount of Linoleic Acid
which happens to be one of the “essential” fatty acids which our bodies need
for good nutrition. Essential means that our bodies cannot make Linoleic acid,
a potent Omega 6 fatty acid. You need Omega 6 FA because it supports inflammation
in the body which is needed to do things like attack nasty invaders like
viruses and bacteria and promote healing. Your body also needs other fatty
acids like the Omega 3’s. Overloading the body with too many Omega 6’s promotes
an excess of inflammation. The body needs a balance of Omega 6 to Omega 3. Many
authors say a balance of Omega 6 to 3 from 1:1 up to 3:1. But the overuse of
these seed oils in frying and processed foods has skewed this ratio to 10 to
20:1 according to some authors. The exact ideal balance is a subject of debate.
What is not debatable is that a huge amount of Omega 6 FA promotes too many inflammatory
responses in the body. There are other problems beside ultra high heat and
yucky stinky solvents to make these oils. Many of these seed oils like from
corn and soybeans are grown with huge amounts of herbicides and pesticides
unlike other oils like Olives and avocados and coconuts which don’t need these
toxic chemicals. The heat and solvents also destroys essential nutrients in the
seeds. A big advantage of these industrial oils is their elevated smoke point
which is desirable in frying like potato chips. Some of our “good” oils like
olive oil has a smoke point of around 300 degrees F which isn’t really high
enough for optimal frying. In fact getting olive oil to above its smoke point
can convert in from an unsaturated “Cis” fat double bond into a “Trans” double
bond and you now have converted a healthy oilive oil fat into a deadly Transfat.
That is why you must not fry at high temperatures with olive oil. It is best
served cold like on salads and baguettes.
Use other oils like avocado oil or Ghee if you feel you have to fry
anything. A huge part of the American diet is fried foods and snacks which have
invaded our lives. Presto-Change-o! A population of waddling giant sloths all
over the landscape where none existed in the 1940’s when I was born. Have I
made this too simplistic? Maybe. Are there
other factors involved? Of course. Living an
urban lifestyle always sitting on your butt in cubicles, cars or a sofa and
never getting outside breathing fresh air and exercise is a perfect storm to
turn us into a nation of slobs not only here in the good ole US of A but also
all over the world. Have you been to Polynesia or England lately? We are not
alone. This is a world pandemic.
27. There
are other problems in our diet. I personally don’t believe in promoting any
particular diet. There are certainly some diets better than others, like a Keto
or paleo perhaps but it is not necessary to go to those extremes. Prepare your
foods yourself from only fresh safe ingredients and include a lot more fiber
and especiialy nuts and seeds. Don’t confine yourself to just peanuts and
cashews. Add walnuts and pecans and pumpkin and chia as well as sunflower and
hemp seeds for example, especially if they are grown without pesticides or
herbicides. Your sperm will love it and really wag their tails!
28. Consider
cutting down on “white” starchy foods
like white rice, white flour, white pasta, white sugar and white potatoes.
There is a lot of rapidly absorbable glucose in these starches because of their
similar molecular branching structure which contributes to their glycemic index. Their starch is primarily
amylopectin. This means they release their glucose rapidly giving you fast high
glucose spikes provoking a corresponding insulin spike from your pancreas. Better to balance the release of glucose from
an amylase starch like what you find in beans, legumes and lentils. The glucose
in these starches is not laid out in branches like a tree but linearly like in
a rope or a chain. So the glucose has to be released or chopped off these
chains one by one thus no big insulin and glucose spikes. They have the
additional advantage of having a lot of fiber in their coats which makes your
gut stand up and cheer.I don’t need to tell you to cut down on white cakes,
white bread and donuts which are amylopectin treats saturated with fructose
poison.
29. What
about meats? I don’t buy the save the planet propaganda by avoiding red meat.
However I do avoid buying red or white(!!!) meat grown on feedlots or fish
farms with the poor critters stuffed with Omega 6 grains like corn. In our
little farm, if we didn’t grow it preferably on grass, we don’t eat it.
I
think I will wrap up this screed by stating a few more obvious ideas which are
hardly unique. All of these recommendations come down to adding good foods and
behaviors which promote “Good Energy”, the term used by Dr Casy Means in her
book of the same name. You get your energy from your mitochondria, the little
energy powerhouses inside all your cells. If you feed garbage and chemical
poisons to your mitochondria you will have a life marked by fatigue and
depression and disease and dementia. What you want are cells loaded with
abundant and healthy mitochondria and the way to get to that point you need to
get a lot of exercise which allows them to replicate and you need not to poison
them with sugar and processed food garbage. See. It’s simple. Not so
complicated after all. Good health and good luck.
