Clean Up Your Act!

How many decades has it been since President Richard Nixon declared war on cancer? Nearly four. Yet in spite of that, while the number of deaths from heart disease has dropped dramatically during those years, cancer death figures in America remain pretty much the same. Why?

One school of thought holds that environmental toxins are largely to blame. We are surrounded by enormous amounts of chemicals these days, in everything from food and drink to home furnishings, automobiles, clothing, and, of course, our air and water. Unfortunately, other than choosing organic food and purified water, it’s tricky to eliminate or avoid these substances. That’s why I was so excited to find this guide – “Alternative Household Product Recipes” – at the Los Angeles Department of Public Works (LADPW) website.

We can all do ourselves HUGE favors by not using toxic cleaning products in our homes and on our bodies. Plenty of the ingredients in common household products are known cancer-causing agents, and many are banned in other countries. (For more on this, get a copy of The Safe Shoppers Bible by David Steinman and Samuel Epstein, M.D. (Macmillan, 1995) – a very thoroughly researched book with tons of information.)

If you’ve ever tried to shop for the non-toxic variety, though, you may have noticed that they are not inexpensive. Some people are willing to pay the price to avoid the chemical soup that goes into most of these cleansers, but for others that’s out of the question.

So why not make your own? You’ll find non-toxic solutions to everything from window cleaners and drain openers to spot removers and hair shampoo in the Alternative Household Product Recipes. Print out the nine-page document and refer to it whenever you have a cleaning chore, garden dilemma (pesticides and herbicides are major sources of toxins), or cosmetic crisis (so much of what’s in beauty products is anything but pretty). With a few spray bottles, some baking soda, vinegar, lemon juice and a handful of other fairly common substances, you can create your own products. Bonus: they’ll be earth-, animal and human-friendly.