Ten Simple Steps to Reduce Body Burden: Steps One and Two

I posted early in my blogging life about Sloan Barnett and her book, Green Goes with Everything. (I re-uploaded the video in this link because it was not playing properly. So if you weren’t able to watch it the first time around, give it another go.) In her book, Sloan discusses our Body Burden, the "total amount of chemicals and pollutants that are present in our body at any given time." If you haven't taken her Body Burden Quiz yet, take a moment to do that.

In thinking about health for families, we need to address this excess baggage. Over time, our body burden can deal devastating blows to our wellness. Everything from Alzheimer's to cancer to chronic fatigue has been connected to our chemically burdened bodies. And, we need to pay close attention for our little girls’ sake, because all of these chemicals interfere with their own hormone signals and wreak havoc on their developing femininity.

In Green Goes With Everything, Sloan gives Ten Simple Steps for a Greener and Healthier Home. Over the next week, I’d like to present those steps and add in my humble comments. As moms, we play a huge role in creating healthy home environments. Creating health can be an overwhelming duty when we look at the our toxic world, but I think Sloan ten steps will give us each a doable action plan. And, the new year is coming up… perfect time for change!

Sloan's first two steps have to do with switching to safe, green cleaning products. Several of my posts this month have been on the same subject, so I'm going to group her first two steps together. Here they are:

1. Start by replacing a bunch of your cleaners (your general spray cleaner, glass cleaner, counter-top cleaner, floor and bathroom cleaners) with a natural, nontoxic all-purpose cleaner.

I don't want to be redundant, but eliminating cleaning product chemicals is one of the easiest things we can do. You will only need one product to replace almost all the standard cleaning products in your home. Really!

2. Replace your laundry detergent with a natural nontoxic one so the clothes you wear and the sheets you sleep on have no fumes for you to breathe.

Have you ever thought about why drug patches work? Your skin absorbs what is put on the surface. A portion of everything you put on your skin, including your clothes, will migrate into your blood stream. Scary thought. Like switching your cleaning products, making a laundry product change doesn't have to be scary. I've found something that works even better than my previous laundry products AND is safe for my kids' bodies. Here's what I use.

The next 8 steps steer away from replacing household toxins, so you have something new to look forward to! But I had to go ahead and mention these two, even though I've had a series of posts on Household Toxin Exposure, because this is such a simple and effective way to do something monumental for our family's health.