The short version: my goal is to help people be educated so they can make decisions in an informed way.
I am not trying to scare people or to be a downer, though I acknowledge that these days, most of the news is bad news.
The fact is that in a capitalistic society, the main goal is to make money. The people who produce food, who create processed foods, who make cosmetics, soaps, detergents, toys, furniture, clothes are all in it to make money.
Making money is not inherently bad. We need to make money to function in society as it exists.
But making money has become The Most Important Thing. More important than families. More important than our own or others’ health. More important than honesty or integrity.
As a result, it’s all gone to hell.
Problems in the food supply are real. Problems with the water supply are real. Problems with the chemicals in our personal care products are real. Problems with the chemicals in toys are real. Problems with the chemicals in our household goods are real.
Most of the time, the exposures are low. (Corn, soy, sweeteners including but not limited to sugar are exceptions—exposures to these are off the charts.) But when you put them all together, they’re not low at all.
Is this reality scary? Yes. Does it mean you need to live in constant paranoia? No. Does it mean you need to throw away everything and start over right now? No.
But if we all keep on living as if nothing was wrong, they’re going to keep manufacturing as if it’s OK. We pay the price with our health, our children’s health, and all aspects of the environment.
One step back from that—we can’t decide if we want to make changes or take a stand if we don’t know what’s going on.
So we need to be educated. (That’s my job! To help educate.)
Then we need to speak out with our voices. (If nothing else, online petitions take almost no time to sign.)
But even more than that, we need to speak with our dollars. Because in America, dollars speak louder than anything else.
I’d love to hear more about this topic. Specifically water and toys… weird combo. How or where do I go to get reliable information? What besides plastic do I need to watch out for? Is all plastic bad?
That’s a lot of questions! I’ll see about putting up some posts with more detailed answers, but toys: lead and other heavy metals and phthalates immediately come to mind. Reliable information is hard to come by, honestly. As far as I know, there’s no plastic that’s good to be bitten or used for food or drinks. For general use? I don’t know. (It’s all bad for the planet, though.)
Water: it needs to be filtered and skip bottled.