Every day, we willingly bring toxic chemicals into our homes disguised as household products. We don’t give much thought to their content. Nor do we realize how these chemicals can affect our health.
We just take for granted that the products are necessary to keep our homes clean and smelling great.
But buyer beware: We are playing right into the manufacturers’ hands.
Linda Mason Hunter authored an interesting book called “The Healthy Home: An Attic-to-Basement Guide to Toxin-Free Living.” Among the issues discussed in the book:
• More than 250,000 new substances are created annually. Information about toxic affects is not available for 79% of the more than 48,500 synthetic chemicals listed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Less than 20% have been tested for acute affects; less than 10% for reproductive, chronic or mutagenic affects.
• Chemical hypersensitivity is becoming a common problem. “There is growing evidence that the levels of chemicals we used to consider safe are really not,” according to Hunter’s book. EPA studies have identified more than 400 chemicals in human body tissue.
I realize that the chemicals discussed above primarily are the industrial variety, but it troubles me that household products also contain neurotoxic chemicals that can disrupt nerve and brain functions. It is agreed that small amounts of many chemicals won’t hurt us, but no one really knows about the long-range affects.
Because the book includes recipes for natural, non-toxic cleaners, I decided to ban all store-bought cleansers from my home. But that is easier said than done: I have had trouble locating many of the recipe ingredients described in the book.
Do you have any tips, or tried-and-true recipes for home cleaning products? Send them to me, and I’ll give them a try: The best recipes will be published in future columns.
