Chemical Maze

Is your drycleaner a health hazard?

Lindy Schneider — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:26:52 +0000

Have you found yourself driving home in the car, having just picked up freshly dry cleaned garments, desperately winding down the windows in order to breath or relieve a headache? Chances are the fumes from dry cleaning solvents, toxic chemicals such as perchooethylene (or ‘perc’), have effected you. Skin and eye irritations, behavioural changes and breathing difficulties may be immediate effects but there is also concern as to the longer-term impacts and risk factors for cancer, immune disorders and other health problems. Of course, not buying clothes that need to be dry leaned may be one solution to the problem, but if you are unable to avoid a trip to the drycleaners make sure you air your clothes well, out of the plastic, before wearing them.

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Lindy Schneider is a writer and researcher with a keen interest in health, wellbeing and natural childcare. She is an advocator of a chemical-free lifestyle in the best interests of her family, the community and a sustainable world.

Sunshine good for health

Lindy Schneider — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:24:58 +0000

Vitamin D deficiency is a common health complaint for many people, even when they live in a sun-drenched country such as Australia. Vitamin D deficiency has become such a problem that doctors are now recommending an annual test and supplementation may be warranted for some people year round. Protecting our skin from skin cancer is important, but a daily safe dose of sun, the body’s main way of manufacturing Vitamin D, is equally as vital to everyday health. Do beware of the growing category of processed foods that promise extra Vitamin D in your diet. The sun is the best source for quality Vitamin D, and most foods that claim extra Vitamin D will lack other necessary vitamins and minerals for its uptake. Milks, yoghurts and cereals have recently been launched with the added Vitamin D claim – read labels carefully and know that if you are deficient, foods such as these will have no real or lasting impact on your serum Vitamin D levels, or health.

If you found this article valuable, you can download the Chemical Maze App to your iPhone now or purchase the book online.

Have easy-to-use information on thousands of potentially harmful ingredients at your fingertips.

Most skincare chemicals were first developed for industrial use

Lindy Schneider — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:23:25 +0000

In the six years since Bill first wrote this, not much has changed except we, as consumers, are becoming better informed and our range of choices has expanded.

‘Most of the chemicals used in cosmetics were originally developed for use in industry and have not been tested for long-term human health effects such as birth defects, reproductive toxicity, generic toxicity, immune system toxicity, nervous system toxicity, endocrine toxicity and other health problems. Although legislation stipulates products must be ‘safe’, it is largely up to the manufacturers themselves to determine what is safe. Regulators rely mostly on the information supplied to them by the manufacturers. While it would seem logical for manufacturers to provide products with health safety as a top priority, for financial reasons this is seldom the case.’

by Bill Statham The Chemical Maze Bookshelf Companion (Possibility.com 2006, p2)

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Real foods don’t need to tell lies on pack

Lindy Schneider — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 08:21:50 +0000

Just as it is preferable to eat real, rather than processed foods, it is also best practice to have real vitamins, rather than processed or synthetic ones. Many foods are now promoted as being vitamin enriched but the truth is that most vitamins and minerals need other vitamins and minerals in order for the body to absorb and use them. Most, if not all, vitamin-enriched foods will lack the necessary balance to facilitate absorption and so have very little effect on overall health and wellbeing. Real vitamins are found in quality supplements and real food. A balanced diet, rich in a variety of colours and fresh foods will provide your body with the best possible vitamin and mineral mix, and supplementation may help with deficiencies when they occur. Don’t be persuaded by vitamin-enriched claims, they are often just clever disguises for over-processed foods that lack many other essentials elements.

If you found this article valuable, you can download the Chemical Maze App to your phone now or purchase the book online.

Have easy-to-use information on thousands of potentially harmful ingredients at your fingertips.

Honey – can it be faked?

Lindy Schneider — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:53:01 +0000

Honey is one of those products that nature offers us that is full of healthy attributes and medicinal properties, just the way it is. Made by bees not man, its hard to imagine why ‘we’ would tamper with the perfection of nature and compromise the health benefits of pure, natural, unfiltered honey that comes directly from bees to our tables without any real need for processing.

But tamper we do and it is now estimated that over 75% of honey on a supermarket shelf has been processed in some way. Heat processing, plastic packaging, filtration, chemical additives and dilution are all standard elements in honey processing and all this happens at the expense of the micronutrients and health promoting ‘pollens’ that pure honey contains. Be discerning about where your honey comes from. There are plenty of bees who want to give us the best!

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If you found this article valuable, you can download the Chemical Maze App to your iPhone now or purchase the book online.

Have easy-to-use information on thousands of potentially harmful ingredients at your fingertips.

Quick and fresh

Lindy Schneider — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:52:06 +0000

Do our diets reflect a supermarket layout or do supermarkets reflect our diet? I am tipping it’s a little of both but when you look at the amount of space dedicated to processed foods compared to that given to fresh foods the lack of balance is very obvious. Most of us dash in and out looking for quick and convenient options, but what could be more quick and convenient than being able to do the majority of your shopping in just 10% of a supermarket floor plan? By buying fresh instead of packaged, you will do exactly that. So next time you reach for a tin of canned peaches or a foil sealed tub of fruit, think about a fresh, preferably organic, option. You will also be buying less packaging, less processing and therefore less chemicals as well.

If you found this article valuable, you can download the Chemical Maze App to your iPhone now or purchase the book online.

Have easy-to-use information on thousands of potentially harmful ingredients at your fingertips.

Lindy Schneider is a writer and researcher with a keen interest in health, wellbeing and natural childcare. She is an advocator of a chemical-free lifestyle in the best interests of her family, the community and a sustainable world.

Breathing wellness

Lindy Schneider — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:50:51 +0000

Do you know that every day you take over 21,000 breaths? That is 21,000 opportunities for toxic chemicals in the environment to enter your body – 21,000 times your body has to cope with a potential chemical load that is in addition to what you eat. Obviously we cannot stop breathing and the more fully we breathe into our bodies the more life flows into us, so it is important to take whatever steps you can within the home to ‘freshen’ the air you breathe. Chemicals in cleaners, for example, linger in the air in your home, air fresheners are also pollutants that can have an immediate effect. You may like to consider paints and building materials in your home, some plants indoors and how often you are breathing ‘air-conditioned air’ instead of fresh air. A few simple changes can really help ‘clean’ the air your breathe, not just every day, but every second as well – even when you are sleeping!

If you found this article valuable, you can download the Chemical Maze App to your phone now or purchase the book online.

Have easy-to-use information on thousands of potentially harmful ingredients at your fingertips.

Barcodes and country of origin

Lindy Schneider — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:49:36 +0000

Label reading is an important skill to develop when seeking a chemical-free lifestyle and it pays to understand what information on a label can and cannot tell you. Recently an email has been widely distributed that suggests that by noting the first couple of digits in a barcode, you can figure out where a product is made. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple as the digits appearing first, for example a 93 which is Australia, only indicate where the product was first ‘registered’ and do not indicate country of origin at all.

Many countries require the country of origin to be shown on a product label, but note that ‘grown in’, ‘packaged in’ and ‘manufactured in’ may all be processes done in different countries, which means you will need to read the label very closely. There is no doubt that foods produced in other countries may be prepared to different standards and we need to be vigilant, but a barcode alone is not enough information for us to be truly informed.

If you found this article valuable, you can download the Chemical Maze App to your iPhone now or purchase the book online.

Have easy-to-use information on thousands of potentially harmful ingredients at your fingertips.

A cleaner school environment

Lindy Schneider — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:26:55 +0000

Have you ever checked what cleaning chemicals your children’s school routinely uses to clean classrooms, toilets and general traffic areas? Large cleaning tasks such as public buildings and, of course, schools often use strong, chemical-laden cleaning products for an efficient clean that meets stipulated hygiene standards. But when you think about the fact that our children spend around thirty hours per week in these environments, it is useful to ask the question about how cleaning chemicals might be affecting them in the day-to-day, and in any longer terms health issues. Frequent headaches or nausea, asthma and eczema and even poor concentration have been linked to chemicals in the environment and may be impacting on children’s behaviour and wellbeing.

Whether a classroom, or a office block, we all have a right to a clean environment and if the cleaning products being used are adding to the toxic load then it is important to ask for a review of the chemicals used to bring about a greener and healthier workspace. Take a moment to check the next opportunity you get.

If you found this article valuable, you can download the Chemical Maze App to your iPhone now or purchase the book online.

Have easy-to-use information on thousands of potentially harmful ingredients at your fingertips.

Low fire danger clothing may be high chemical danger clothing

Lindy Schneider — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:25:16 +0000

Many products in your home will have been treated with a flame retardant chemical. Everything from mattresses to DVD players, pillows, clothes, furniture and even televisions may have been treated with these flame retardant chemicals in the production process and by law, infants bedding and sleepwear must be treated. Manufactures are however, not required to provide information on labels or packaging about chemicals used to fireproof clothing, and some of these chemicals can be harmful to health – especially for young ones. Many people would actually feel assured when they see a ‘low fire danger’ label in a garment but unless that garment is made of a naturally flame resistant fibre such as wool, the exposure to a chemical such as BFR (brominated flame retardant) is a potential health problem. Infants and young children can be particularly susceptible to adverse reactions – a new mattress, pyjamas and bedding may be a chemical flame retardant concoction that is more than little systems should have to cope with.

If you found this article valuable, you can download the Chemical Maze App to your iPhone now or purchase the book online.

Have easy-to-use information on thousands of potentially harmful ingredients at your fingertips.