My friend Sally used to corral her three teenage children to clean their house every Saturday morning. I was envious of her chutzpa to demand this of her kids, but the part of the story that was always tragic to me was that every Saturday afternoon without fail, Sally’s son Sam was sent to his room for hyperactive, “out of control” behavior.
Looking at the cause and effect of the son’s behavior through my lens of awareness of how neurotoxic many cleaning chemicals are, I could see it would make sense that the son’s central nervous system and brain could be reacting to these chemicals. Symptoms of neurotoxicity include lack of concentration, personality changes, depression, hyperactivity and the mimicking of psychiatric disorders.
Not being particularly “green,” the cleaning products Sally would buy for her kids to use were the standard store-bought fare readily available in supermarkets. Examples of neurotoxins found in such products include VOCs (furniture polish can contain VOCs), neurotoxic disinfectants, petroleum distillates, fragrances (scented products are notoriously neurotoxic,) and waxes (VOCs again in the solvents), to name a few.
Read the rest on HuffingtonPost
What is your definition of “green?” There is a persistent definition of “green” that was reinforced in last week’s Fortune Brainstorm: Green 2010 conference and their April issue, 80 percent of which only looked through a lens that considered a product or activity’s impact on resources, waste, and emissions.
Yet the negative toll of toxic chemicals and pollution on our bodies is probably as dramatic as emissions are for the planet, or plastics are for the oceans, the direct link is just harder to make. Read the rest on HuffingtonPost>
If you are going to plant tomatoes this summer, or even if you aren’t, you may want to read my new blog on HuffingtonPost, Slow Food: A Tale of Two Tomatoes. If you haven’t tasted a true tomato, make it a point to start now! You won?t ever regret it.
Meanwhile, if you or anybody in your family suffers from poison ivy, spring is the time to get at it with this kitchen cupboard ingredient. Find out how and why, below.
And on the menu front, my family and I have been enjoying Nava Atlas’s vegetarian and vegan recipes for years. She has some wonderful books, and a great recipe-based newsletter. We are glad to share one of them here!
Articles in The Green Chi Time’s April 8th newsletter:
1. Feng Shui Your Bed
2. The Best and Safest Poison Ivy Fix for Spring
3. Seitan and Polenta Skillet with Fresh Greens, by Nava Atlas
The warm weather the East Coast enjoyed last week inspired me to set up my “summer” office, as you can see from the picture. While warm weather seems to have arrived a month early, I only saw smiles on everyone’s faces last week. If anyone doubted it, our environments do make a difference!
I’ve been enjoying settling in after my trip to the Far East. While talking with a sister the other night I was able to put to words one transformational change I’ve experienced because of the trip. When I left, I was pretty focused on lack. I’d suffered quite a bit emotionally and financially from being laid off, I was struggling to start a business, my daughter was off with her life (as one wishes for a child), and I am single. It wasn’t that I was woe is me as much as stressed. On return, after seeing the inhumanly cramped living spaces of Hong Kong, the extreme poverty in Cambodia, and feeling the lack of breathable air in Hanoi, I am filled with gratitude and appreciation for how much abundance I have in my life. What a beautiful change in me; what a correction to what is true.
Articles in The Green Chi Time’s April 6th newsletter:
1. Tick Repellent - Detox Diva DIY
2. Shopping Recycled: Second Hand Stores in New York City, by Dorian Yates
3. Aromatherapy Bath Oil DIY - Renew, Replenish, Revive
I had a healthy black bear in my front yard the other day, and this isn’t an April Fool’s joke! I think it may have hibernated nearby, as I last saw it the day before Thanksgiving, and not since, until now. The bear had a lush, shiny coat, and seemed docile and focused only on the bird seed and compost bin (see picture), not me or my dogs!
Combining seeing the bear with many days out of electricity due to a winter storm a month ago, I was brought down to Earth with a thud. Technology seems to increasingly separate us from the world “out there,” and yet what a very thin line is between us in reality. It behoves us to remember and teach the know-how of living with nature. I’m scrambling to learn it about black bears, and I’m going to be sure to gather a lot of kindling this summer, for my wood stove!
Articles in The Green Chi Time’s April 1st newsletter:
1. Nontoxic Spring Cleaning Kit - DIY Diva
2. Outwit Dust Mites
3. Simple Shaker Lemon Pie, by Debra Lynn Dadd
You can create a wide assortment of aromatherapy oils for the bath by adding essential oils to the Nourishing Bath Oil Blend below, or to any other nut or vegetable oil of your choice. The resulting oils can also be used for massage.
Ingredients for Carrier Oil
3 oz. almond oil
1 ½ oz. olive oil
1 oz. sesame oil
1 oz. canola oil
½ oz. wheat germ oil
Use 1-2 teaspoons of Aromatherapy Bath Oil per bath. (Note: Concentrated essential oils make the carrier oil stronger, so less oil is needed for the bath.)
Aromatherapy Oils to Add
Add 15-25 drops of essential oil to the carrier oil.
Essential Oil Choices
Juniper: Know for its purifying and detoxifying ability; it works especially well with the fatty layer of the skin, a place that holds many toxins.
Lemon: Cleansing and uplifting, it stimulates the circulatory system and helps fight against infection.
Grapefruit: Works on skin problems such as cellulite and “congested” skin; helps with substance abuse, is antiviral and antibacterial.
Geranium: Stimulates the lymphatic system to release toxins.
Rosemary: Combats fluid retention, cellulite, and lymphatic congestion.
A few others that are less commonly known essential oils used for special purposes:
Helichrysum: For alcohol and drug detox; helps the liver
By Annie B. Bond, author of Homemade Detox Baths (Green Chi CAfe, LLC, 2009), and other books including the recently published True Food (National Geographic, 2010).
I’ll be starting a weekly blog for HuffingtonPost mid-February. Please come check it out in the LIVING category.
True Food - 8 Simple Steps to a Healthier You
You may have heard the phrase “out of true.” It means not in correct alignment. During the last 40 years or so, most of us have been eating a diet that is wildly out of true compared to what our bodies need, and equally out of true considering what is best for the health of the planet.
There are many people and groups today working to get the food system back in true alignment, working to preserve and sustain “true food,” but we — the food shoppers and eaters–are the most important. This is why we –Melissa Breyer, Wendy Gordon, and I–wrote True Food (National Geographic, 2010). More>>>>
Annie’s daughter Lily tells about the flu from her generation’s perspective, and what she has learned from her mom about how to kill germs in the home, dorm, or office using methods and products that are government-approved, but that won’t harm your health…or the environment.
See more>>>>
I’ve been on a quest for a healthy breakfast that will also help with weight-loss for a long time. I love my toast with almond butter, but I am such with carbs that I will gain weight on that (or certainly not lose it). I lose weight on Atkins, but my cholesterol goes sky high and, well, it hardly feels healthy.
I posted an early version of this as a bread on the site, but this new version is working much better, and yes, the photo is true to the bars. I took it myself.
Read more >>>>
