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Creating a safe and healthy home for the family can be a daunting experience. Here are a few suggestions to make your home healthy and toxin free.
1. Assess your Home: The obvious places are the largest places. Your home is built with walls, floors and ceilings. Make sure the paint that covers your ceilings and walls is made using paints low in volatile organic compounds or VOC's. For flooring consider using a natural, eco-friendly products such as bamboo flooring or other sustainable wood.
2. Check your Refrigerator: Read labels for additives and preservatives. If possible move towards a diet that is organic, fresh, seasonal and local. This may be no easy feat at first, but in time you should notice the difference in your health. Organic foods must meet FDA standards of growing and harvesting (usually pesticide free). Buying fresh, local and in season will cut down on long-haul transports and keep you rotating your diet. If there is something unfamiliar on the label, do your research. Many additions are unnecessary.
3. Check the Cabinets: Many home toxins exist in the products we purchase that are kept under the sink, in medicine cabinets or shelved in the garage. Learn to read labels. Many of the household cleaners (especially drain uncloggers and strong oven cleaners) have high levels of ammonia or bleach. Consider a safer alternative with non-toxic cleaners such as Seventh Generation products.
4. Inspect Your Family Products: Do you use the dry cleaner often? Are your clothes organic when possible? How about laundry detergent? Are your moisturizers, shampoos, deodorant healthy and petrochemical-free? Consider both personal and environmental health. For instance, many reports suggest liquid laundry detergents are over 50% water. Why not skip the plastic bottling and go for a box of dry detergent which is friendlier on the environment since your washing machine adds water anyway.
5. Sleeping area: If possible use hypo-allergenic pillows filled with unbleached wool or cotton, leaving out the synthetic fibers. Work toward getting a mattress that is foam or cotton and use untreated, unbleached bed sheets and blankets.
6. Remember to check pet and plant products: Check the ingredients for pet shampoos and flea control. Be conscious of using natural products as fertilizers and insect or pest detergents. Look for natural alternatives. Creating a healthy home does not have to be a difficult and tedious experience. Start with assessing the cabinets in your home and the different products they contain. When possible, switch over to healthy cleaning detergents or natural cleansing agents. A clean, toxin free environment is not only attainable, but necessary.
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Source by Brenda Mallett
