ECOHOLIC
17May

Less than 2 weeks to speak up against triclosan!

by: adria categories:Bodycare, Health Comments Off

The world has plenty of bogeymen and things that go bump in the night. To protect ourselves from things unseen, some people pack guns, others, well, they pack hand sanitizer. But while basic alcohol-fueled hand sanitizer is fairly harmless, especially if you get the organic kind from the health store (unless you consider the dry skin you get from alcohol gels a plague), the antibacterial chemical triclosan is now officially more of a villain than the bugs it’s trying to kill. You may have heard me rant about triclosan on your radio, in this blog or in my column before and I’m getting on my soapbox one more time because the clock is ticking! Friends, countrymen, we’ve got until May 30 to submit our comments to the feds on toxic triclosan so rally your pals and let the feds know you want triclosan banned altogether today. Here’s their email substances@ec.gc.ca. And here’s a sample letter:

To the Executive Director, Program Development and Engagement Division,

Thanks so much for taking the important first step of declaring triclosan officially toxic (Canada Gazette Vol. 1 146, No. 13-March 31, 2012). I agree that triclosan is a danger to the environment. However, if that’s the case, then triclosan should not continue to be sold on shelves. A voluntary phase-out isn’t enough. Please consider the request of the Canadian Medical Association and bring in a ban on triclosan in consumer products. The ingredient isn’t necessary in handsoap, toothpaste, deodorant or acne wash. It isn’t necessary in household items like pillow cases, underwear and cutting boards either, since triclosan is released into the environment ever time the products are washed. So one more time, pretty please with a cherry on top, reconsider your position and bring in a ban today.

By the way, you’ll notice that in the sample letter I only mentioned triclosan as an environmental hazard. That’s because Health Canada says it’s not a health hazard at the quantities to which we’re exposed. But come on now, what about the cumulative body burden of taking in triclosan from dozens of different products in our environment??  Environmental Defence’s new report Trouble with Triclosan spells out some of the potential health impacts, besides its potential for spawning antibiotic-resistant bugs:

 Endocrine disrupting chemicals are substances that interfere with the body’s hormones. Triclosan is a known endocrine disruptor, and mimics thyroxine, an important hormone for the regulation of the body’s functions. Triclosan has also been shown to suppress the activity of mast cells, which are important to the functioning of the immune system. Initial studies of triclosan’s toxicity were based on a toxicology model that considers toxicity to be monotonic, meaning a higher dose is assumed to be more toxic, and research is aimed at assessing a safe dose, a threshold below which there will be no effect from exposure. But advances in the study of hormones have shown that chemicals like triclosan that mimic the body’s own hormones pose a risk to health even at low doses.

In light of advances in the study of hormone-mimicking chemicals and endocrine disruption, the argument that triclosan is safe in household products, at the low concentrations currently allowed, fails to take this into account. The established guidelines for use also fail to take into account that consumers are exposed to triclosan constantly, from numerous sources. Not only is the inclusion of triclosan in many of these products without proven benefit, triclosan’s endocrine-disrupting properties mean that the constant low-level exposure could be impacting our hormonal systems.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Time to kiss triclosan goodbye for good. For the full breakdown of all the hidden sources of triclosan in household goods (from pillows to towels), check out my latest column. 

14May

Honey, honey, how you heal me

by: adria categories:Bodycare, Health 0 comment

I love bypassing the chemical middlemen of this world and making a bee-line to mother nature whenever possible. I already told you about one of my favourite kitchen cupboard beauty secrets — oil (and it’s dozen and one functions), but there’s another ingredient in your kitchen pantry that’s got amazing healing properties — honey! It’s been used on wounds for thousands and years and today’s docs are realizing that it’s also kick-butt at healing antibiotic-resistant burns and wounds.

All honey is naturally antibacterial but the darker the honey the better for you it’s proving to be, so buckwheat and manuka honey have more antibacterial properties than a light coloured honey. Buckwheat honey has been found to be more effective than over the counter cough suppressants though manuka honey is probably the most research backed for tackling burns, wounds, even reversing antibiotic resistance and tackling chronic sinusitis. Things that make you go hmm: researchers have found the vast majority of honey’s antibacterial powers actually come from a protein added by bees called defensin-1.

Honey’s also a great humectant, which means it attracts moisture, so mix it with olive oil as a hair treatment or whisk it with an egg yolk and a little yogurt as an amazing anti-aging mask!

P.S. Try honey on cold sores too!

For more on the plight of honeybees and whether buying organic honey helps, check out a column of mine on the topic (ignoring the photo gaff of the hover fly!).

10May

Good news and bad news on pitcher filters

by: adria categories:Foods/Drink, Home 0 comment

Oh pitcher filter. Why did you have to disappoint us, so? Yes, in this week’s Ecoholic column I talk about the short comings of Canada’s favourite water filter, Brita, as well as other pitcher filters. Seems they do reduce heavy metals like mercury and used to meet lead reduction standards, and then the standards improved and the pitchers couldn’t keep up. So yes, they do reduce lead somewhat, but not enough to meet NSF standards. On the bright side, activated carbon filters do seem to seriously reduce the presence of trace pharmaceuticals in water. More good news (not mentioned in the column), last year, Toronto voted to bring in ultra violet filtration to the city’s water, which will also slash the presence of pharmaceuticals in our water supply. A very good thing, especially in light of a new federal water study out of the U.S. that found 112 toxic materials (from flame retardants and pesticides to personal care and cleaning chemicals, as well as drugs like the diphenhydramine, Benedryl) downstream from wastewater treatment plants. For all the deets on filters, check out this week’s column. 

Oh and as for my point about carbon filters not removing fluoride and pestering your local councillor about removing fluoride from your local water supply, thought I’d share a link to a full news article I did a while back for NOW Mag on the problems with fluoridated water as well as a link to Canadians Opposed to Fluoride.

You may have spotted in Ecoholic Body I leave the choice on fluoridated toothpaste in your hands. But that’s a whole ‘nother topic for another day.

 

10May

Doin’ the frown dance on The Marilyn Denis Show

by: adria categories:Bodycare 0 comment

Actually, I was talkin’ head to toe bodycare detox. Okay so we ran out of time before we got to the toe part (namely nail polish), we did cram a heck of a lot of good info into one segment, if I do say so myself!  If you’re wondering why I’m doing the monster dance, I’m actually demonstrating how I create — and try to counteract– my frown lines. Watch and learn, people. For those who missed it, there are Frownies taped to my head. Yes, Hollywood’s original pre-botox treatment. No toxic creams or botulism injections necessary. Marilyn told me Shelly Winters first told her about Frownies. Anyway, for those of you wondering which are the bad ingredients I mentioned on the show, the quickest way to track ‘em down and to avoid them when shopping is to bookmark or print off my downloadable Mean 15 list of ingredients to avoid. To see some of my top picks for high end and budget eco options, you’ll just have to watch the segment! Or pick up a copy of Ecoholic Body, naturally.

 

07May

Why so many parabens still in 2012, Body Shop?

by: adria categories:Bodycare 4 comments

With less than a week to get your butt in gear for Mother’s Day, a lot of people will be popping into their local Body Shop looking for prezzies. Actually, the Body Shop was the first store I ever turned to for stuff that wasn’t tested on animals and I loved their banana shampoo because it was loaded with, well, bananas. As I say in Ecoholic Body: The Body Shop was a pioneer in profiling fair-trade ingredients, it banned phthalates and musks from scents in 2009 and it finally came out with its first certified-organic skin care line, Nutriganics that same year. All good things, except they still rely on too many -eth sudsers linked to carcinogenic 1,4-dioxane (like sodium laureth sulphate) and one thing I didn’t mention in Ecoholic Body – they’ve still got far too many products that are dripping in hormone-disrupting parabens, including their bestselling Satsuma Shower Gel/Body Lotion, Super Volume Mascara, Arber Aftershave Balm, Lip & Cheek Stain, Camomile Gentle Eye Makeup Remover, Shimmer Cubes, Eye Colour, All in One Face Base, and my old fave, Banana Shampoo. Most contain not 1 but 5 parabens.

Of course, industry maintains they’re safe but even mainstream drugstore brands are ousting parabens en masse. Super star Denmark’s banned butyl and propyl parabens from bodycare products aimed at kids under 3. And this time last year, France’s National Assembly passed a bill that aimed to ban the use of endocrine disruptors such as phthalates and parabens from consumer products (still waiting to see if anything comes of it. Any word, France?). Shame Canadian MPs haven’t followed suit. If you’re shopping at the Body Shop this mother’s day or any day, make sure you double check the ingredients before you pull out your wallet.

Satsuma Shower Gel:

Water, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Glycerin, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Cocamide DEA, Coco-Glucoside, PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Benzyl Alcohol, Fragrance, Phenoxyethanol, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil, Citrus Nobilis, Methylparaben, PEG-55 Propylene Glycol Oleate, Propylene Glycol, Benzophenone-4, Limonene, Hexyl Cinnamal, Disodium EDTA, Citral, Butylparaben, Ethylparaben, Isobutylparaben, Propylparaben, Citrus Reticulata (Satsuma) Oil, Linalool, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Oil, Citronellol, Geraniol, Orange 4, Yellow 6.

*red ingredients are on the Ecoholic Mean 15 list of ingredients to avoid (download the wallet-sized guide here).

04May

Want ethical roses for mom? The dirt on eco seals

by: adria categories:Column 1 comment

Planning on buying flowers for mom this year? You gotta love my straight-shooting mother-in-law for putting a stop to any more disposable flower buying in her name. As pretty as they are, it’s true – they die so quickly! But if you’re still planning on getting flowers, you should check out this week’s Ecoholic column in NOW where I take a look at just how sustainable/ethical various seals are. Let’s just say some are greener and fairer than others.  I’m told the official Fair Trade label even pulled out of Colombia because they were having a hard time getting genuinely fair conditions. Here are a few more background critiques on two of the 4 seals you might see on flowers – Fair Trade and Florverde. Thankfully the Veriflora standard is still seen a a really good choice!

Time for an informal poll. So what’s your preferred pick, if you had the choice?

1) Ethical flowers from abroad that support better jobs in Colombia/Ecuador?

2) Canadian-grown greenhouse flowers (non-organic)

3) Field grown/wild local flowers (when available)

4) anything but factory flowers

By the way, didn’t have room to mention in the column that one local sustainable florist, Sweetpea, delivers their bouquets by bike or car-share and uses a worm composter to compost all leftover flowers on site. Pretty cool (sweetpeablooms.ca). Oh and until more field grown flowers come in EcoStems is offering local greenhouse grown orchids, black pussy willow, tulips, chrysanthemums, anthuriums, and more.  (ecostems.ca). Ask your local florist what homegrown options they have on hand

 

 

02May

How Pure and Clean is Garnier’s new eco line really?

by: adria categories:Bodycare 0 comment

Garnier PureClean

It seems like everyone and his multinational corporate uncle has come out with a green line these days – and Garnier is the newest kid on the eco block with a natural line free of parabens and silicones — Garnier PureClean. Since a lot of you have started asking about it, I decided to do some label snooping to see if their claims hold up.

Claim #1 Biodegradable: So Garnier PureClean’s shampoos and conditioners say they’re 92% or 94% biodegradable. That’s great! …but what about the rest of the product? Does that stay in our waterways for months/years/ever? And who’s certifying these biodegradable claims anyway? Hm, let’s see…no one. There’s no seal on the bottle that tells us, like Nature Clean products, that it’s 99% biodegradable within 28 days according to OECD test #301, or whatnot. If you’ve read my other books, you know it drives me bonkers when companies say a product is biodegradable but don’t cough up any proof, certification, seals, standards or some sort of indication of how on earth this actually breaks down.

Claim #2: 98% Naturally derived: I’m definitely relieved they’re not calling it 98% natural, because that would be misleading. As I say in Ecoholic Body, while this is an unregulated term, the “naturally-derived” label is more accurate than “natural” in most cases since so many plant-based ingredients in a shampoo or whatnot have been lab altered and synthesized. Perfectly fine in many cases, but remember, just because it’s plant based doesn’t mean it’s sustainable (case in point: palm oil–based ingredients), nor does it mean you want it on your skin. Cocamidopropyl betaine (from coconuts) was voted 2004 allergen of the year by the American Contact Dermatitis Society.

Clean #3: Recyclable. Gee whiz, Batman, aren’t virtually all shampoo bottles these days made of PET recyclable plastic? That’s right, Robin, they are. Would have been nice to see some recycled content in that bottle.

Verdict: This product is definitely safer than some other big name shampoos in drugstores, including regular Garnier, and it’s nice that it’s free of parabens, silicones, sodium laureth sulfate and dyes but it doesn’t say anything about its synthetic scent (perfume) being free of hormone disrupting phthalates. Would like to see some third party seals on here proving it’s biodegradable claims.

 

30Apr

DIY: Can I Make My Own Teeth Whitener?

by: adria categories:Bodycare 0 comment

As your grandpa will tell you, baking soda is a decent abrasive whitener. But brushing the powder straight onto your teeth can cause major irritation and long-term enamel erosion. Make sure it’s well diluted in a homemade paste with vegetable glycerine and some dissolved xylitol as your cavity-fighting sweetener. You can also cut the top off an organic strawberry and rub the berry on your teeth. The inside of an orange peel works too, according to TV docs. What the prime time tips don’t share with viewers is that you should use both techniques sparingly and rinse and brush right after any homemade teeth whitening since it can erode your enamel. Need I remind you that enamel doesn’t grow back, and that enamel erosion will make enjoying things such as, oh, ice cream or coffee seriously uncomfortable? Unless that sounds enticing, I’d stay away from harsher enamel-busting lemon remedies in particular.

26Apr

Phthalates in my probiotics? Parabens in my pain killers?

by: adria categories:Column, Health 0 comment

What's in my probiotics

After my article on the hidden toxins in everyday things for NOW’s green issue, I got a lot of reader mail asking me what drugs I was talking about when I mentioned that some pharmaceuticals contained hormone disrupting phthalates and parabens. Figured it was time to expand on the topic with a whole column of it’s own. Thanks to recent study that outed meds that contain dodgy phthalates, I got to name names and mention specific over and behind the counter drugs that contain the stuff. But what really floored me was something we didn’t have room to mention in the column — an earlier documented report of a man that had gotten his body checked for toxins at a Boston fertility clinic because he and his wife were having trouble conceiving. The clinic found his levels of harmful DBP phthalate (a reproductive toxin) were off the charts -  at 17,000 parts per billion when most of our phthalate levels are at about 46ppb. Turns out they traced it back to the DBP phthalates in his Asacol prescription. Asacol now cautions against using the drug during pregnancy, but how many women took the drug while pregnant before that warning was slapped on the medication?

Also, I couldn’t believe that some of the probiotics that I’ve personally taken in the past were listed as containing DEP (diethyl phthalate, a phthalate of lesser concern but still inconclusively tied to lowered sperm counts, etc), even though some of them didn’t mention it on the label. Nature’s Way says that they used to contain trace DEP but I’m still waiting for confirmation on whether they’ve reformulated. Advanced Naturals maintains they’re aqueous enteric coating is totally phthalate-free. All very interesting food for thought. Anyway, here’s that link again to the actual report - click on the tables (1,2,3) if you want to see what meds and supplements tested positive. Off to Montreal/Ottawa/Kingston now for a few days! Be good!

 

25Apr

My secret ingredient (hint: all you need is oil!)

by: adria categories:Bodycare 5 comments

The Beatles may have sung about love, but I, my friends, am singing about oil. Yes, forget half the products you rely on to get through your morning routine. A little oil on your skin after a shower makes a great moisturizer (my mom likes safflower oil, but coconut, jojoba, grapeseed, olive oil, or great Canadian hemp are all good). A few drops of oil on wet skin work as a cheap DIY shaving oil. Whisk in some egg and/or honey into some oil as a hair mask.

A couple faves:

Castor oil – the amazing hair growth booster and muscle soother! Works wonders when applied daily to spindly eye brows and lashes. Give it a few weeks and you’ll see fuller lashes and brows – for real! Naturopaths also recommend this oil with heating pads to sooth aching muscles. Did I mention a mix of castor oil with another quality oil like hemp or jojoba makes a great nightly face wash instead of soap and water? Just rub in for several minutes and wash off with a hot wash cloth.

Hemp oil – the great locavore oil! amazing Canadian moisturizer that dries matte, not greasy. Won’t clog pores and works beautifully on face, body, hair, you name it! Did I mention it’s Canadian?

Neem oil – the fabulous nail strengthener and dandruff buster! Forego toxin-laced dandruff shampoos and just add a little neem oil to your regular shampoo to help bust flakes. Add a drop to brittle nails at night to fight chips and cracks or on your hair to combat/nourish dry brittle hair!

Which oils do you like?