Our journey to...... :)

.......going "green" and getting the chemicals out of our home and bodies.

Our family is not "going green" in maybe the true sense of the word.
"Taking steps to reduce one's negative effect on the environment."
Remember we just purchased a 12 passenger gas guzzling vehicle :)

But in the sense of greening our bodies and our home. It's less about the environment and more about us :) My Mom died young from colon cancer, my MIL has recently found out she has breast cancer. We also have Diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's in our very close family. That being said there are oodles of links between what we put in our bodies, inhale, and just in general have in our homes.

The first few things we have done:

Don't cook with Teflon. That started when my dad told me too :) And then bought my sister and I new pans. But then hubby became interested in our birds health (don't hold that against him)
And that is a killer to birds. It puts fumes in the air that can kill a bird. Really if its not good for them how can it be good for us. some info here: http://www.wisegeek.com/is-teflon-dangerous.htm

Don't have a microwave: oodles of sites stating the dangers of them: just Google "microwave dangers". "The Hidden Hazards of Microwave Cooking Recent research shows that microwave oven-cooked food suffers severe molecular damage. When eaten, it causes abnormal changes in human blood and immune systems." taken from: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/gallery/6412/microwave.htm

Cut out HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) which is very difficult to do :) It is in almost everything unless you shop the "organic" section which is pricey!
http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/highfructose.html
http://heatherhodges.com/2008/05/12/no-more-hfcs/

Aspartame: http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-information.html, http://www.mercola.com/article/aspartame/dangers.htm and oodles of other sites.

We don't use fluoride: http://www.fluoridedangers.blogspot.com/, http://www.eves-best.com/fluoride-dangers.htm

And today I threw out all of the "chemicals" aka cleaning supplies and made my own :) Basically the "rule" is if you wouldn't eat it don't use it :) I have found a few places that you can buy the products if you don't feel up to making them yourself :) www.diapers.com has some things to order online. Cleaning supplies, diapers (some are better for the environment). We also started using a "green" sun block (CA Babies or Burt's Bees) Seventh Generation is what I use(d) for cleaning supplies (I just think it is cheaper to make my own). I will post a few more on my side bar that will require a little bit of time :)


This also stared with the birds. Their lungs are so sentitive that it doesn't take much to effect them. So it started small for us. But today we made an "all purpose cleaner", a "disinfectant", and going to get to the laundry detergent :)

Here is a site I have found useful: http://www.vinegartips.com/
There are lots of web sites on the net that are useful for finding recipes for "green" and healthy cleaning supplies :)

Shopping Changes: Meats (going to buy a side of beef next spring), but eating less red meat, fruits and veggies, from our local farmers market. Eggs from a family at church. And organic milk, always. We also buy Boar's Head lunch Meat. http://www.boarshead.com/index.html - "We are proud to say that our meats and cheeses contain no by-products, no cereals or fillers, and no artificial flavors or colors." We also switched to wheat bread. "Wheat" needs to be the first ingredient :) We no longer buy margarine.

"And here is the most disturbing fact....Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE from being PLASTIC"... taken from: http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/margarine.html

And lastly our ice cream I need to be able to read and understand the ingredients :)

Diapers: as of now #4 is not potty trained....so I bought from diapers.com Seventh Generation chlorine free diapers. If we are blessed with another little one I would love to do cloth diapers.

Our next step...getting BPA free We have cut down drastically on canned foods. Eating fresh as first choice and second frozen :) ...http://www.riverwired.com/blog/bpa-dangers-canned-foods-may-be-greater-plastics

So that is where we have started, where do we draw the line? As a family we haven't decided. But are prayerfully seeking His Will for keeping our family as healthy as possible :)