How to protect yourself from toxins

I have the great privilege to still be friends with my girlfriends from high school. We’ve all grown up, learned new things, gotten married, survived heartbreak, moved around, had kids, tried different careers and learned a lot! I was having dinner with my wonderful friends G and B on Friday night and we started to talk about how you should begin to educate yourself around what you should and shouldn’t eat, the toxins you should avoid, etc. B has two little boys and she way saying that it feels stressful to try and work though all that stuff when you are busy, tired and working. We live in a time of immense education which can feel amazing and overwhelming at the same time.

I came across this CNN Health series around the ‘5 Toxics That Are Everywhere” which I thought did a really good job of breaking down some of the toxins we can try to avoid. We can’t be perfect – I think you’d have to live in a bubble! But taking small steps every day can make a huge difference. The 5 toxics the article discusses are:

• BPA
• Phthalates
• PFOA — Perfluorooctanoic acid (also called C8)
• Formaldehyde
• PBDEs – Polybrominated diethyl ethers

Happy educating 🙂

How do you like your formaldehyde?

Today’s Q&A brought to you by Debra Lynn Dadd. Hailed as “The Queen of Green” by the New York Times, Debra Lynn Dadd has been a pioneering consumer advocate since 1982, specializing in products and lifestyle choices that are safer for human health and the environment. She is the author of Home Safe Home.

Question: I know there are probably a lot of alternative names for formaldehyde used in products. Do you know or have a list of the other names?

Answer: Here are the ones I could find: 

Formalin 
Methanal 
Methyl aldehyde 
Methylene oxide 
Morbicid acid 
Oxymethylene

And these preservatives, found in personal care products, release formaldehyde: Quaternium-15 
2-bromo-2nitropropane-1,3-diol imidazolidinyl urea 
diazolidinyl urea

Debra 🙂

Read more: http://healthychild.org/live-healthy/faq/formaldehydes_other_names#ixzz0elIoFCLC

When was the last time you checked your personal care products for formaldehyde? It makes me wonder how much of the skin issues people experience today are caused from what’s IN their personal products as opposed to what their skin produce themselves.