“Everyone Knows Someone Who Needs This Information!” (TM)
I have recently seen a few episodes of Dr. Mehmet Oz, MD Show, and I am using it as a jump-off point for this week’s lessons and discussion.
This is going to deal with YOU! – Dr. Oz wrote a famous book series of the same name – from one “end” to the “other” end, euphemistically.
What we eat not only impacts us, but our environment, too. Especially if you have doubts about this, then read: Your environmentally responsible choices.
Your knowledge or ignorance seriously impacts your Health every bit as much as what you eat, whether you de-stress, how and how much you exercise. Believe it.
Having 2 new babies in the family (one 10 months old; one 3 weeks old) I am thinking a great deal about the environment all of us have created for them, and which impacts all of us! It’s been changing the quality and length of our lives. We have to change!
I have been responsible all my adult life — long before “environmentalism” became a household word — yet I am frustrated that we have NOT stemmed the chemical tide, and that too few in the ensuing generations have done enough (or are doing enough) to help our planet and all life, including us!
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is the chemical used to make hard plastics (in the USA, it has now been banned from baby bottles, finally). It is also used to line food cans (it’s in the shiny coating) and on bottle caps in things like juices, spaghetti sauce and apple sauce. It is also used to create carbonless receipts (so if you are a cashier, be concerned).
BPA has been proven to raise the risk of breast cancer in rats and even the turtle-paced US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has raised an alarm about the potential harm BPA can cause. Connecticut banned its use in children’s products (it is in toys, as well as bottles and plastic dinnerware and utensils).
Ninety-three percent of us already have BPA in our bodies! We will have to deal with it. But, until then, we excrete it when we go to the bathroom, sending the chemical into the environment.
And, many of these man-made chemical pollutants are Endocrine Disruptors! These chemicals alter the actions of hormones in our body. This can hurt us in 2 ways: 1) they can block our hormones from acting as they normally would, and 2) they can act aberrantly e.g. like hormones triggering effects like early onset puberty in children, before normal adolescence. And, remember, insulin is a hormone!
The medication we take also ends up in our water supply in 1 of 2 ways. We secrete it in our urine (that we can’t control), but many of us also flush unused medication down the toilet.
This ignorant action contributes MASSIVELY to the rising amount of pharmaceutical pollution found in our water supply. In 2008, the Associated Press found that dozens of pharmaceuticals end up back in our water supplies, and eventually, in our tap water.
That’s because water treatment plants are designed to neutralize biological hazards, such as bacteria, but not pharmaceutical pollutants such as antibiotics; they get through the system. Scientists are now finding bacteria in the wild which are not only resistant to antibiotics, they can actually live off them! This bodes as a serious assault on our future ability to use these medications for infections — it’s much more serious than these bugs just being “antibiotic resistant”, as if that weren’t bad enough (caused by over prescription and not taking the whole course of the prescribed medication, which leaves thew strongest, most-resistant bacterium to stay alive and breed later).
Steps to take:
1) Remove all sources of Bisphenol-A (BPA) in your home. Example: I am reducing even further my use of canned goods, and I will make sure that I keep all bottled goods upright, at all times in hopes the food won’t contact the cap area. I made crockpot beans, drained them, froze them in a single-layer on a cookie sheet and bagged them. Beans are a major canned food for most people as they “don’t have time to cook them” — but you can overcome this by using a crockpot. Do it! And. choose frozen and fresh produce instead of canned.
2) Do not use any plastics with the recycle triangle numbers 3, 6 or 7. You can usually find the embedded symbol on the base of the plastic object.
3) Do not expose your children or grand-children to Bisphenol-A in toys, baby bottles, dinnerware or cups! Chances are anything “old” had it in it. Buy new, but only if labeled BPA-free. BPA is used to “strengthen / harden” plastics.
4) Do not use plastic for your water bottle or cutlery or cooking tools. For water, spend the money for a Stanley stainless steel thermos (as long as it’s not made in China now) or a Sigg SAF Aluminum bottle (even though aluminum has issues, too).
Before 2008, Sigg was secretly using BPA, so be aware of this and the rest of the industry’s bottles status by reading Metal Water Bottles and Health.
5) Never heat plastic in the microwave (even if it says it is microwave safe) — I do not microwave any food anymore (and haven’t for 20 years). I stopped when I saw scientific articles about how microwaves transformed the molecular structure of milk! If it does that, it does it to all foods.
6) Dispose of unused medication by contacting your pharmacy for information about ways to return it for disposal (the industry is just beginning to offer it) OR ask your local hazardous waste disposal unit (county, city) when and how to get it to them to deal with.
7) Avoid parabens and phthalates. Read labels. Avoid items with artificially-produced fragrances. These are bad for the environment and YOU!
Many alternative medical practitioners and scientists believe that obesity is also a case where your body is “walling off” toxins by using a fat-cell package. So the more toxins you have in your body, the more likely you are to gain weight, even becoming obese. This partially explains the current global obesity epidemic as world-wide pollution is rampant.
Now that you’ve got the word to dispose of some majorly bad things, we’ll talk about getting more good things into your Life, next week. Balance. Balance. All in balance, for a better life.
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