Top Five Ways to a Non-Toxic Lifestyle

The effects of body toxins are finally making their way to mainstream news.  And it’s scary business.  The good thing is as more people become aware of these issues, the more information there is out there how how to live a non-toxic lifestyle.  Recently we had Dr. Victoria Maizes, Executive Director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona,  at The Ranch to speak about how to live a non-toxic lifestyle.  Priceless information.  Here we broke it down to the top five ways:

1.  Buy local organic whole foods.  Dr. Maizes mentioned something scary during her talk.  You can not always trust the label “organic”.  My heart sank when she said this.  Now, organic means gmo and pesticide free.  But it doesn’t always mean that it’s non-toxic.  You can have an organic farm next to a busy road or down the street from a factory.  It’s not always regulated.  She also mentioned that there is even organic food coming to the U.S. from China.  This blew my mind as well.   Another major reason to buy locally grown produce from farms that you can visit, see where they’re located and how they grow their food.  Last thing regarding organic food.  She mentioned that organic produce won’t be grown in  sewage sludge-based fertilizers.  Excuse me?  This is what regular non-organic food is grown in?  Well, if that’s not enough to change your mind, then I don’t know what is.
2. Avoid the dirty dozen (apples, strawberries, grapes, celery, peaches, spinach, sweet bell peppers, imported nectarines, cucumbers, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, and hot peppers) to cut down on toxicity from pesticides.  And eat the clean 15 (asparagus, avocados, cabbage, cantaloupe, sweet corn, eggplant, grapefruit, kiwi, mangos, mushrooms, onions, papayas, pineapples, frozen sweet peas, and sweet potatoes). Dr. Maizes mentioned that if only eat the Clean 15,  you can reduce your toxicity by 92%.  Check out the Environmental Working Group for for information.
3. Cut out red meat all together or only eat it for special occasions.  Why? There is strong evidence that red meat can increase your risk of cancer.  Ever seen Forks Over Knives?  This documentary really gets to the bottom of these discoveries.  Also, if you do choose to eat red meat, make sure you know and trust where it’s coming from.
4. Avoid storing food in plastic containers.  Plastic contains endocrine disruptors that interfere with the production, release, transport, metabolism, binding, action or elimination of hormones.  For these reasons, definitely don’t microwave plastic or put it in the dishwasher which releases these toxins.  Also, plastic is terrible for the eco system. One way to get around this is to use glass tupperware.
5. Use more natural beauty products or better yet, make your own homemade beauty recipes.  Why you ask?  Because the beauty industry is completely self regulated and most products are filled with toxic chemicals.  The reason for this is that these toxic chemicals to make products smoother, silkier, etc, but is it worth your health?  Woman use an average of 12 beauty products a day and men use 6.  Day after day, that’s a lot of chemicals that are soaked into your skin.  Check out Skin Deep to find non toxic beauty products.

To learn more about toxicity in our food and environment, I highly recommend watching this Ted Talk with Dr.Victoria Maizes.