It seems the talk of toxins are everywhere lately. At first I thought it was just a bunch of hippie chatter but then I started to do some research of my own. What I found was pretty unsettling! The amount of chemicals in everyday products is unreal. And, on top of that, a lot of everyday products are not heavily regulated in the United States. After doing some research, I decided I couldn’t ignore what I had found, but at the same time I felt totally overwhelmed. I am hoping with this blog post I can help ease the overwhelm for you and help you find where you need to detox your life.
Where to Start?
If you are anything like me and feeling overwhelmed, you are probably thinking, “Where do I start?”. I think the most important thing to consider is what your goals are. I know for myself, I wanted to remove toxins from everyday items and reduce my toxic burden as much as I can. With that in mind, I also knew that things like replacing flooring or furniture in my house to be less toxic was not a big concern of mine. And before you ask, yes, there are people who replace everything in their house to be less toxic, just join any non toxic facebook group!
The most important thing is to know what you want and what your goals are. Are you trying to use better beauty products? Are you just trying to eat non-toxic? I think once you have your areas of focus, starting seems a little less overwhelming. Here are the areas that I am most concerned with:
Personal Care Items
This was the biggest surprise to me! Why would products that are put on our face and body be pumped full of chemicals?? It just does not sound right to me. I even learned that formaldehyde is in some beauty products! Seriously?! Because that sounds super safe!
This is where I kind of started my non-toxic journey and it’s a great place to start to detox your life. Since I couldn’t justify throwing away every personal care item and buying brand new ones, I slowly started to swap out products for cleaner ones. The first product I swapped out was deodorant. You can read about deodorant here!
Our skin is the largest organ we have and it absorbs way more than we think it does. The sad fact is that the US has banned 11 chemicals while the EU bans over 1,300 chemicals in beauty products. This is why companies have to change their formulas if they want to consider selling it in different companies.
My biggest advice when it comes to personal care items: start slowly swapping them out as they run out. It’s an easy way to get better products without the stress. If you need product ideas, make sure to check out my Things I Love page!
Cleaning Products
I feel like when I researched cleaning products I wasn’t really surprised by the list of nasty chemicals in them. After all, they are cleaning products! I was surprised to find that things like air fresheners, candles, and fragrances can leave toxins in the air. It’s sad that things that are suppose to leave your house smelling clean and fresh are actually polluting your air.
The good thing is that there are so many alternatives to toxic house cleaners. So once again, as I ran out of something, I would simply replace it with a better alternative. If you want more info on cleaners I love, check out this post here! And if you want my recipe for a super simple non toxic all purpose cleaner, check it out here!
Food
The last category I am focusing on is food. This is my hardest and trickiest category because I am not the only one I am feeding. I still have a husband and two kids to feed. My husband does not have the same passion I have to eat healthier/ cleaner foods. He also loves to snack (typically processed foods), which makes the kids want to snack. It has been a process swapping products out and keeping everyone happy.
Food has been a lot of give and take. Food is normally a big one that people want to work on and it might be where you would like to start to detox your life. With food, I have two suggestions:
- Start with foods you eat regularly
- Swaps snacks out one at a time
In this house, we eat tacos on the regular. So I decided to find ways to make them less toxic. This included my non toxic taco seasoning and learning to sprout and make my own refried beans. Starting with items you eat regularly will help motivate you to keep finding ways to cut out toxins.
Snacks can be tricky because snacks are mainly processed foods and we all know how toxic those can be! My advice, start with one snack and find something every one likes so there isn’t an uprising in the house! Once every one has adjusted to the change, move to the next snack. Not everything needs to be done at once!
Time to Detox Your Life
If you didn’t seem the theme of this post, it is to swap things out as time goes. You run out of something, do a little research and swap it out! It really is as simple as that and you’d be surprised how much you can make in a short time following this!
I hope you this post as been helpful! Drop me a comment if you need and advice, tips, tricks, or product recommendations! I’m always here to help!