Avoid Toxins

* Eat only organic food as much as possible. Ask your spouse to also do this. (A 1998 USDA report stated that nearly 55% of 7,000 fruits and vegetables contained pesticides.) Current methods of detection are not completely accurate and believed to miss up to 60% of pesticides in foods. It is reported that one single apple can contain as many as 10 pesticides from a possible 37 different chemicals commonly found on apples.1f * Try not to eat any genetically-engineered or irradiated foods. Eat mainly fresh fruits and vegetables. Milk, soy and corn tend to be genetically engineered at the present time. Animal studies indicate pigs can become cripples and blind, cows die earlier and have arthritis and more stillborns, and rats develop thyroid cysts and prostate abnormalities from genetically engineered foods. We do not have adequate studies showing the safety of these products for human adults or infants. * Drink only purified water in glass for at least six months before attempting to become pregnant. Ask your husband to do likewise. Eat nothing stored in plastic or Styrofoam. * Check your urine, blood, and possibly semen, for toxins before you attempt conception. Call AccuChem Lab 800.451.0116. The average number of chemicals in blood is 99, but some single blood samples can contain up to 700. * Check your breast milk for chemicals near the time of delivery. * Don't use heating pads or electric blankets when pregnant. * Don't sleep on a bodyform-fitting synthetic mattress or pillows which contain chemicals. * Don't sleep between polyester sheets (formaldahyde) that have had fabric softeners used on them. * Use only organic cotton or wool blankets, no synthetic fibers or cotton that does not require ironing because it contains chemicals. * Don't sleep in a bedroom that contains freshly dry cleaned clothing or mothballs. Wearing freshly dry cleaned clothes increases your chance of cancer. * Use only natural cleaning products for dishes, floors, laundry, disinfectants and deodorizers. Use no scented sheets in the dryer. Use Bon Ami polishing powder for scouring powder. Use no aerosol or pine smelling cleaning materials or anything that contains phenol. * Use only natural personal body products and cosmetics, and use "Essential" sanitary napkins. Use pure cotton diapers or "Tushies" for disposable diapers. Buy at health food stores. * Do not use fingernail polish or remover. * Use only natural food dyes. * Don't eat fish from the Great Lakes or other lakes where the water is heavily polluted with chemicals. (If such fish are eaten two to three times a month, the babies can have a smaller heads and brains than normal. Those with elevated PCBs can be delayed developmentally so they talk and walk late, and some have significant learning problems.) * Don't wash your dog with a flea pesticide solution or put a pest collar on your dog because this can cause a six fold increase in your unborn child's chance of developing some form of cancer (leukemia or lymphoma) by the age of six or seven years. * Avoid cigarette or tobacco smoke and alcohol in all forms. * Avoid all obvious chemical odors. Be the first in the beauty parlor on a slow day, before it is too heavily polluted. Use your own non-allergenic hairspray, such as "Clinique." * Do not dye your hair. If you do, use entirely natural dye from health food store. * Do not use any pesticide inside or outside of your house unless you are certain the chemicals used are entirely safe. Avoid all pesticides. In one study when pregnant women were exposed to PCBs, their infants had smaller penises and increased behavior problems. In other studies, as PCB exposed children grew older, they tended to developed thyroid disease and learning problems. Other studies have shown similar changes in animals exposed to PCBs. * Avoid all habit-forming addictive type drugs, such as cocaine, Ritalin, etc. * Don't cook in Teflon under high heat. (The chemicals given off can kill birds and we do not know what it does to infants or humans.) * Do not personally lay a synthetic carpet. Hard wood or hard tile flooring and non-toxic glue are much preferred. . * Do not paint or remodel your baby's room unless you use allergy-free paint. * Decorate with cotton fabric and try to use only genuine hard wood furniture. Use no plywood or particleboard because it contains formaldehyde. * Be wary of a moldy smelling home or room for an infant. Molds can seriously harm infants in many ways.

After the Baby Is Here

* Use only natural organic cotton for clothing. * Use washable or totally organic disposable cotton diapers or disposable Tushies. Do not use any chemical-smelling wipes. * Try to breast feed. It was created for babies. (It takes two to six hours for the foods a mother eats to reach the breast milk so you can often easily detect food allergies if a mother eats a food to which her infant is sensitive. Chemicals can pass into the breast more quickly than foods.) * If you can't or won't breast feed, heat non-genetically engineered milk or soy in a glass bottle in a pot of water. * Buy no irradiated foods or milk. They can cause a 20 to 80 % decrease in nutrients. Irradiation can cause a sevenfold increase in benzene in irradiated beef. This solvent is a cause of leukemia in children. In animal studies, heart lesions developed in 83% of 25 animals in 85 days when they were fed uncooked irradiated milk. Control animals had no heart lesions. I know of no studies to verify the safety of irradiated products in the human fetus, newborn, or children. * Heat nothing in plastic and nothing in a microwave. (It decreases the nutrient and energy value of foods and can contaminate the heated food with the dangerous or harmful chemicals found in plastic.) Do not freeze or heat anything in plastic. * Feed your infant only organic food that you prepare, or natural baby food from health food stores. (One study showed that 76 non-organic baby foods contained 16 different pesticides. Every day 77,000 infants are fed commercial non-organic foods that contain unsafe levels of pesticides. * Give your baby only natural organic vitamins. * Read Sherri Tenpenny's website entitled [email protected] before you make any decisions about immunization with vaccines. Many studies indicate infant damage because of many trace metals, such as mercury, found in most vaccines.

===========The Toxic Burden of Harmful Chemicals In Most Personal Care Products

Pesticide residues are now found in every ocean, lake and river on Earth - even found in the breast milk of Eskimo women near the Artic Circle. In fact, research scientists working in the Artic Circle have to drill down over 100 feet before they can find ice that doesn't have synthetic chemicals in it. (Synthetic chemicals are those that do not appear anywhere in nature.) An increasing number of studies are linking pesticides and other synthetic chemicals in everyday products to an increase risk for all kinds of diseases from cancer to birth defects. Because our bodies have no ability to metabolize these chemicals, they slowly build up in the tissues of our bodies until we get sick.

Still skeptical? List how many products including shampoo, conditioner, hair spray, hair gel, body cleanser, soaps, deodorant, toothpaste, mouthwash, perfume, shaving cream, body lotion, make-up, anti-bacterial soaps, and cleaning products you use on a daily basis, and determine how many synthetic chemicals are in each product. Then consider how many times per day you use these products. Now, multiply this number by the rough number of days in your life that you have used them. This will give you an idea of the internal chemical buildup you have from personal care and cleaning products. Also, consider these facts:

* The whitening effect in toothpaste is usually caused by sodium hydroxide, the primary ingredient in Drano. * A car's antifreeze is 40% propylene glycol, and many underarm deodorants are 60% propylene glycol. * "No more tears" products don't cause tearing because of a combination of chemical ingredients working together to cause an anesthetic effect, so the user doesn't feel the irritation. When these products are used on children, the child's eyes are not irritated because of the anesthetic effect of the combination of synthetic chemicals, not because they are mild. * Room deodorizers are effective because they contain chemicals that anesthetize nerve endings that smell sulpher based odors in the nose. These products are not designed to take the smells out of the air; they are designed to inhibit the ability to smell them.

A small amount of exposure to any of these chemicals probably will not do much harm. But thousands and thousands of exposures can. Over a period of 30 or 40 years many thousands of exposures to dangerous chemicals from everyday products is common.

Since the 1940's over 80,000 synthetic chemicals have been invented. Most of them have been created from petroleum or coal tar, and few of them have been tested for human safety. But, they have been added to our food, personal care and cleaning products anyway. According to the National Research Council, "No toxicity information is available for over 80% of the chemicals in everyday use products. Less than 20% have ever been tested for acute toxic effects and less than 10% have been tested for chronic, reproductive or mutagenic effects." The few that have been tested have not been tested in combination with other chemicals. When the cumulative effect of combinations of chemicals stored in the body is studied, a dangerous synergy is seen.

According to the excellent book, "Detoxify or Die", by Sherry Rogers, MD on pages 2-3, "The plastic wraps swaddling your fruits, vegetables and meats in your grocery cart look harmless enough. So do the Styrofoam trays that hold them and the plastic bottles for water, soda, milk, ketchup, fruit juices, and even infant formulas. But the phthalates that outgas from these plastics so ubiquitous in our food and beverage packaging leach into our foods. In fact, we eat so many plastics each day that the government has established an average daily amount that we ingest. And once inside our bodies, these phthalates or plastics tightly hook onto our cell parts where they gum up the works. For example, they damage hormone receptors, leading to loss of sex drive and energy, or they damage brain chemistry leading to learning disability and hyperactivity, or they accumulate in organs and trigger cancers of the prostate, breast, lung and thyroid. Each morning millions of Americans from construction to office workers line up for their ritual coffee breaks. But stealth poisons lurk in those Styrofoam cups and once inside the body there is no mechanism for metabolizing or getting rid of all the carcinogenic styrene (U.S.D.H.H. 1992, Jakoby, Clasdden, Sullivan)." The Most Common Toxic Chemicals in Personal Care Products

Phthalates, as noted above, are hormone disruptors that are released from plastics. They are found in the following everyday products: nail polishes, adhesives, synthetic leather, perfumes, hairsprays, skin lotions, deodorizers, gum, and candy. Possible adverse health effects are liver and kidney damage, birth defects, lowered sperm counts, and early puberty in girls. An article on MSNBC.COM on October 4, 2000 stated that phthalates are regulated as toxic substances under the environmental laws and limit their discharge into the air, land and water but there is NO limitation on the amount of phthalates used in consumer products including cosmetics.

These are just a handful of some of the most prevalent chemicals that we expose ourselves to many times per day. Please, consider making an effort to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals that you and you're your families are exposed to each day. Please know that Organic Excellence products do not contain any of these chemicals. Toxins in Cleaning products

Like it or not, we are living in the Chemical Age. Did you know that when you mix ammonia and chlorine bleach together it produced chloramine gas? Chloramine gas is dangerous. It causes watering and burning eyes, inflammation of the sinuses, difficulty breathing, shortness of breath. If you breathe it long enough it will damage your lungs and cause an illness known as "Chemical Pneumonia".