Side Issue 04.4: Safer Products

Another health-related issue is reducing your exposure to potential toxins.

If you're anything like me, you read that sentence and said "Toxins!? He's peddling new-age woo!" and your finger automatically tried to close the tab. I am absolutely not doing that. I'm talking about legit toxins, like arsenic, or chemicals that are known to disrupt endocrine function. You do not want this stuff in your body. So if you have the opportunity to reduce its presence in your environment, without much disruption to your life, you should seriously consider it.

Enter the Environmental Working Group, EWG. EWG has guides for nearly any product in your house, with a detailed analysis of the ingredients and their potential impacts on human biology.

Now, EWG's website is a little opaque. I usually just google something like EWG dishwasher detergent and get to the site that way. Be aware that brand loyalty doesn't help. A single brand might have a super-safe product right next to a not-so-safe product, even within different scents of the same product. You should drill down to the specific product and variety, every single time.

Now, EWG may grade based on things you don't care about. Maybe you don't mind asthma triggers, but are super-concerned about endocrine disruptors. Perfectly fair! EWG scores aren't the end-all-be-all, and I'm not saying a product that EWG grades with a D will kill you; there are some jobs only chlorine bleach will do. But still, it's good to know the options out there.

The other problem is that it's sometimes not trivial to actually obtain the products you find on EWG. I've made a list of what we buy regularly off Amazon, to save you some legwork.

• Hair products
• Shampoo
• Clarifying shampoo
• Conditioner
  
• Kids conditioner
• This stuff is amazing for tangly hair!
  
• Kids detangler
  
• Bar soaps
• EWG certified bar soaps are particularly hard to come by on Amazon, and they keep changing. There's one right now, but you may be better off going to your local Whole Foods or farmer's market and just buying something made by a local farmer. No guarantees that way, of course.
  
• Hand soaps
• We've started using Dr. Bronner's, in foaming dispensers. It works great, smells amazing, has a very low EWG score, and the foaming dispenser keeps small children from getting 10x too much soap.
  
• Dish soaps
• Better Life dish soap gets a B, while almost every Dawn product gets a D or F.
  
• Dishwasher detergent
• One particular variety of Seventh Generation dishwasher pods is easily available, gets an A for its ingredient content, and it being in a pod means you don't get exposed to it during use. Again, don't assume other Seventh Generation products also get good scores; some don't.
  
• Laundry detergent
• Biokleen Free and Clear works great, and gets a B from EWG. Compare to All Free and Clear, which gets a D.
  
• Toothpaste
• David's Natural is pretty expensive, but it's there. Also keep in mind that it's fluoride-free, so if you're particularly concerned about cavities, for you or for your children, maybe this is an area where you should keep using a fluoride product.
  
• Lip gloss
• Dr. Bronner's Naked gets a good score. So does Burt's Bees, but it's made with canola oil, so I'm avoiding it for that reason. This is another area where finding a local farmer's market may be more cost-effective.
  
• Sunscreen
• Metal-based sunscreens are much safer than chemical-based ones. Badger was the best one I could find on Amazon.
  
• Food Storage
• Try replacing your plastic food storage with glass or silicone or beeswax wraps
• Household cleaning
• Stop using bleach wipes! They don't really work that well, and they expose you to terrible chemicals. E-cloth works just as well, if not better.
  

Dr. Annie has tons of other great data-oriented experiments on other cleaning processes and products.

Another issue to pay attention to is makeup. Imagine how much of lipstick gets into the digestive tract and blood stream of the person wearing it. It sits on your mucus membranes for hours, right next to your mouth. You have to be consuming some of it, right? Unfortunately, I don't have any detailed recommendations here, but EWG has quite a database.