The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products

August 25th, 2007

Becky and I wash our hair with vinegar and baking soda. We brush our teeth with toothpaste made from baking soda, vegetable glycerin and salt. We use plant based bar soap for hand washing and bathing and plant based detergents for dishes and laundry. Becky makes a moisturizing lotion out of raw aloe vera. For deodorant, the crystal stick works well, although, it won’t stop your pits from sweating.

At best, the “personal care” and “household cleaners” industries amount to institutionalized insanity. (I think of it more as genocide for profit.) Becky and I have totally turned our backs on that reality and feel as though we’re much better off as a result; never mind the cost savings.

If you’re interested in this issue, you might want to check out Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power by Mark Schapiro.

Via: Alternet:

American industry would have you believe that taking potentially hazardous and toxic chemicals out of everyday consumer products — removing phthalates from children’s toys and cancer-causing coal tar from hair dye — would damage our economy and result in a loss of American jobs. In his latest book, Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products, Mark Schapiro busts this myth and reveals the grim fact that some companies, whether American or international, often have two production lines: one that manufactures hazard-free products for the European Union and another that produces toxin-filled versions of the same items for America and developing countries.

Schapiro examines how America, once a leader in environmental protection, came to allow potentially toxic and mutagenic chemicals, banned by the EU, into everyday products. He also looks at how the EU’s economy — almost identical to that of America — continued to thrive even after these chemicals were banned, essentially “calling the bluff” of the American industry.

Lots of Simple and Inexpensive Alternatives:

Better Basics for the Home: Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living by Annie Berthold-Bond

Clean House Clean Planet by Karen Logan

Baking Soda: Over 500 Fabulous, Fun, and Frugal Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of

Vinegar: Over 400 Various, Versatile, and Very Good Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of

7 Responses to “The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products”

  1. Dennis says:

    And a wee wedge of lemon rubbed over stinky armpits does a great job as a deodorant as does lavender oil.

  2. Miraculix says:

    This particular form of evil — and make no mistake, I mean full-on, no-holds-barred Mengele-type evil — running neck-and-neck with the industrialization of foodstuffs, is the subject I hold back on the most in polite conversation.

    How exactly does one explain gently to family & friends that they are poisoning themselves daily?

    That the micron-sized alum particles so effective against B.O. in that anti-perspirant can be absorbed via the skin and are none too kind to the body — especially the brain tissue.

    One tries. One also fails. Official propaganda to the contrary and/or confusing the issue is both pervasive & strong. I know it took me a number of years to find my own way ALL THE WAY out, and I started early. So, eventually you learn to plant clues when you find fertile soil. Learning is an adaptive skill. Adapt or perish. That’s the game we all play. Alone or together.

    Sadly, in the sort of gardens growing near the intersection of industrial medicine, nutrition and propaganda the soil tends toward sterility.

    My brother recently visited from the states, a regular profit machine these days, making a shiny dime in defense atop his usual feats of hoarding capital and weapons.

    He remarked at my eyesight more than once during a long trip, and how good it remains at forty-one next week, but wanted no part of specifics on how I’ve worked to keep it. A former PAC-10 football player, he’s a walking heart attack these days. Still BIG and strong, but quietly holding a hand of serious medical cards very close to his chest.

    My father is eating himself to death one package of cookies at a time. My mom is diabetic with more surgery scars than she can count. And I’m off in the German countryside drinking raw milk and eating our own eggs and designing a bigger greenhouse and planting fruit trees, with MY priorities the ones somehow out of whack…

  3. Angelo says:

    Great feedback Miraculix, you’ve captured the essence of the situation perfectly. The absurdity of peoples position in the face of a much larger contextual viewpoint. The persistence of such contorted thinking is exactly what cannot be called out, for it is the cornerstone of this cultures blackmagic spell.

    Though I’m sure you will also notice that Europe has dark clouds of its own, though in a much more subtle guise. America is indeed a land of extremes.

  4. Kevin says:

    This area really seems dark, even to me. “Mengele-type evil” is not at all too strong a description. Indeed, it’s not just the toxic nature of the stuff, it’s the socialization that goes along with it. The zombie-like consumption and use of these poisons.

  5. Miraculix says:

    Thanks for the kind word Angelo. I lost my illusions about intelligence and what it’s capable of years ago, and as much as I am (we are) forced to hold back on such subject matter, it’s a nice to have a moment or two here and there where someone actually groks my allusions.

    My anti-propaganda propaganda has been rated of the highest quality by those in the know over the years, but it already felt like “preaching to the choir” as far back as high school, so my voice has languished on the fringes earning bucks as required with brief, targeted applications of talent. Someday, I suspect a book — narrative fiction — will emerge fully formed and need to be excised like a growth. Several such ideas admittedly lurk in dark, back corner lobes near the hippocampus.

    The temptation to blog away in some quiet corner as the waning years of the Net go by has nearly burst the surface after a year of distractions — and ongoing one-man renovation of what was once an 80-head dairy farm grafted onto an old tax house, built by relations in 1751.

    As you might then suspect, the dark skies over Europa are more apparent to yours truly than most. Living in the Mosel-Frankish German-speaking eastern fringes of the Ardennes, I’m neighborly-like with the beating heart of Old World fascism and the birthplace of the pharma and chemical industries.

    The man-made skies here over the Eifel would be breathtaking, if I didn’t know what they consisted of — this being another of the great unacknowledged elephants squatting pink and massive in the middle of the room.

    Mengele’s men & his troupe of dancing elephants have themselves quite a circus in which to perform these days. Meanwhile, the French hold tight to their nuclear facilities and the Swiss remain well armed. Blair successfully rolled out the surveillance state. And still we feel more confident about our chances hunkering down in a rural patch of continental Europe than stateside. Our “get out” alert was flashing for quite some time before a clean egress could be managed, but managed it was.

    It’s not a remote section of a sparsely-populated region of a large South Pacific island, but the knowledge that Caesar chased Belgae here, that Charlemagne liked to hunt here, lends a sense of being deeply rooted to all the hard work we invest in this pile of rocks we call home.

  6. sharon says:

    Kevin, are you aware that the whey that is a by-product of tofu-making is an excellent soap? It was used in Japan, I guess ever since they’ve been making tofu, for washing hair, fabrics, floors, and everything else. (This info is from “The Book of Tofu,” by Shurtleff and Aoyagi.)

    I can’t say that I always save and use whey, but it does seem to make a fine shampoo–and probably far better for your hair than harsh detergents in commercial shampoos.

    The trick is to manage to eat enough tofu.

  7. beelercroon says:

    We can all stop spending billions for American dental work and research. Let me tell you why: I have learned the real causes of dental cavities and gum infection. People, including you, will now be able to take care of their own dentistry with insignificant cost, and end with perfect teeth. Cavities and gum infections are ended! A great amount of REPUTABLE DENTAL RESEARCH proves the following: Tooth cavities will be ended simply by rinsing acids off the teeth. ACIDS ALONE EAT THE ENAMEL. There would be no cavities in the world if all people rinsed acids from their teeth promptly. Just sip water, milk or other liquid while eating. Water reacts with acids. Foods and drinks, other than those containing acids, have no action on tooth enamel. SUGARS HAVE NO ACTION ON THE ENAMEL. Bacteria cannot damage the enamel (calcium hydroxy phosphate). There is no such thing as decay of the enamel since bacteria require carbon and hydrogen to live. Billions of human and animal remains show teeth and bones are resistant to earth-bound organisms. Teeth reenamalize when clean. TO MAKE TEETH CLEAN ONE BRUSHES WITH ANY BAR SOAP. (There are good toothpastes at the health food stores. Check the ingredients before buying. Don’t get anything with glycerine in it.) Soap washes off in just two rinses. What about toothpastes? Glycerine in all tooth pastes is so sticky that it takes 27 washes to get it off. Teeth brushed with any toothpaste are coated with a film and CANNOT PROPERLY REENAMELIZE. Taking calcium and phosphate in the diet results in reenamelization of the teeth, but only when they are clean. Bar soap does a perfect job in cleaning the surface. The enamel thickens and becomes less sensitive. Adenosine diphosphatase furnishes phosphate to teeth. Gums are disinfected by brushing with any bar soap. Not only bacteria and viruses are destroyed promptly by small amounts of soap in water, but also white flies and aphids. Gardeners: Spray 1 tsp of dishwashing soap in 1 gallon of water to kill white flies and aphids. Plaque, a poorly formed crystal stuck to the bottom of the enamel, is prevented and eventually removed by brushing with bar soap. Dental procedures to get the badly formed crystals off dig holes through the enamel. These cavities catch food and cause gum infection. Prevention of plaque retards gum pockets. Gum pockets are formed as the plaque pushes the gums away from the teeth. Gum pockets, from 1 to 8 mm deep, are also formed by FLUORIDE, which severs the protein molecules adhering the gums to the teeth. SOAP PREVENTS GINGIVITIS caused by bacteria which is lodged in the gum pockets. VITAMIN C AND PHOSPHATE help knit the gums back to the teeth. Pressing against the gums with fingers forces adhesive materials from the gums onto the teeth, which helps the process. Abscesses can be offset by holding Cepacol (14% alcohol) in the mouth 5 minutes. Receding gum surgery will end when the gum pockets cease. The very mention of the procedure, which involves transferring flesh from the roof of the mouth to the excised area of the gums, is a heinous and useless procedure which ought to pass into oblivion. Removal of flouride from drinking water, pastes or gels saves the enzyme adenosine diphosphatase so it can deliver phosphate to calcium at the tooth surface, resulting in a beautiful, semi-flexible enamel. As stated above, the gums can be reconnected to the teeth by taking vitamin C (ascorbic acid) (1 tsp) with Arm and Hammer baking soda (1/2 tsp) in 1 inch of water, letting it fizz and then diluting to 1/2 to 1 cup with water, then drinking. The resulting SODIUM ASCORBATE is non-acid, very pure and a thousand times more soluble than vitamin C. Sodium ascorbate is more reactive than ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in building connective tissue and antibody structures and more effective in killing some viruses and bacteria. Receding gums and plaque are ended when soap is used for brushing and vitamin C is taken daily in the form just mentioned. 30% of American youths ages 8-10 have no cavities. 100% of Ugandan youths ages 6-10 have no cavities. What does this tell us? The reason Ugandan youths have 3 times better teeth than American youths is because they do not consume as many acid foods, have no fluoride in their drinking water, have regular meals rather than sipping acid drinks all day, have more calcium and phosphate in their diet, and have fewer dentists to work on their teeth. Dental literature says 42% of Americans over 65 have no natural teeth, while 25% of those over 43 have none. Dental literature says Americans age 43 average 32 cavities, those age 17 have 13 cavities, blacks and poverty stricken (without calcium and phosphate) have twice this and the native Americans have four times this amount. The Native American plight can be blamed on their poor nutrition, excessive fluoridation, and free but improper dental care. If fluoridation were effective in preventing cavities, Native Americans would have the least cavities. They have had forced fluoridation for approximately 62 years. Fluoride in water at 1 part per million INCREASED tooth cavities in four large reliable studies (7%, 22%, 45% and 10%, averaging 21%). The reason far these increases has to do with the fact that adenosine diphosphatase is destroyed by fluoride and CALCIUM FLUORIDE which slips into the enamel, is alien to the tooth composite and makes the enamel weak, brittle and discolored. The health of American teeth will increase to be very nearly perfect if the regimen of water rinsing, soap brushing and taking calcium, phosphate and vitamin C in the diet is implemented. Fortunately, we now know the current teeth perfecting protocol of dentistry with fluoridation is flawed. If the early estimates of 80% tooth improvement in childrens’ teeth by age 13 were true, each American would now have less than one cavity. That is far from true. The teeth in America are in a sorry state, and at the present time are getting worse. Numerous top scientists over the past 60 years have discarded the theory that fluoride helps teeth, or is a nutrient helpful to man. To avoid fluoride is to prevent more than 114 ailments listed with references in a book “Good Teeth Birth to Death” by Gerard F. Judd, Ph.D.. These 114 medical side effects extend all the way from cancer down to headaches caused by 1 ppm fluoride in the water. Thirteen of these side effects are proved by a double blind study on 60 patients by 12 physicians, 1 pharmacist and 1 attorney. The mechanism for destruction of enzymes by fluoride has been proven by x-ray studies. Hydrogen bonds are broken by fluoride. Fluoride is the smallest negative particle on the face of the earth. Since the fluoride particles are so small and so intensely negative, they connect with the hydrogen bonds holding the enzyme coils in place and ruin every enzyme molecule at very low concentration, around 1-3 ppm. These enzymes are often 3,000 or more times the small size of the fluoride. The effect is ruinous. To avoid fluoride is to prevent the destruction of 83 enzymes listed with references in Good Teeth, Birth to Death, by Gerard F. Judd, Ph.D.. Fluoride is a severe biological poison. Being intensely negative, it unlatches positive hydrogen bonds in enzymes AND proteins. It is fortunate we have learned fluoride is a nerve poison. Fluoride causes cavities. There is not the slightest doubt. Methylmercury formed from amalgams in the body is deadly. It causes brain disease. Fillings made of quartzite and epoxy are a safe substitute. Fluoride harms the economy by making people purchase other than city water to avoid it. It also harms the economy by making people dependent on undependable professions that know nothing about it. Ignorance about fluoride and what it does is worldwide. Keep the teeth moist. Teeth that are dry crack. If you chew ice, teeth may crumble. Teeth do have a breaking strength. LOOK IN YOUR MOUTH. Tell the dentist(s) what you want done and get several bids for examination and work. Save your fortunes. We now know we can cancel the green light given by Harry Truman with the help of Congress to subsidize dentistry. Billions of dollars being wasted in this regard (Public Law 755, June 24, 1948) can now be returned to the taxpayers. I hope you will put this information in the hands of your Congress persons so they and we may alert the newspapers, radio and TV stations, magazines, and all other news media as well as their friends, families, and associates about this giant leap in dental technology. I ask for your feedback on this letter and I would also like you to ask for feedback from the ones you contact. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! Respectfully yours, Gerard F. Judd, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Chemistry

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