We live in a toxic world. There is no way around it.
The air we breathe is polluted. Outdoor air is polluted by industrial waste, dirty power plants, cars and trucks, industrial fumes and automotive exhausts. Automotive fumes and industrial waste have
The water we drink is adulterated. Even when our municipalities claim is it “purified,” it is riddled with toxic substances, including chlorine, fluoride and residues of prescription drugs.
The food we eat has been altered to the point where our ancestors wouldn’t even recognize it. Our food has been genetically modified, with carcinogenic additives and preservatives.
Even the clothes on your back, the shampoos, toothpastes and skin creams you use, not to speak of sunscreens you use to prevent skin cancers, contain toxins and ingredients that cause cancer.
It sounds rather, grim, doesn’t it?
After all, we all have to breathe, drink water, eat food and clothe ourselves.
It would be easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless.
But there are steps you can take to protect yourself and you family. In this book, I’m giving you simple, effective and reasonably priced ways to minimize or even eliminate your risk of toxic exposure in your daily life.
It would be easy to tell you that you need to move out of New York City, buy a farm in the middle of nowhere, get all your water from a well and grow all your food, but I realize this is not practical or even possible for many of us.
Resources are finite for most of us, so I’m going to give you the basic costs of healthier living and a list of priorities to you can make your choices and priorities.
Let’s keep it real, my friends. First, by knowing the volume of pollutants that has infested our world, we can take the necessary steps to protect ourselves.
We do have choices in what we buy, what we eat and what we bring into our homes. So some extent, we can even choose our work environment and the school environments our children experience.
While none of us can single-handedly clean up the air or the water supply or the food production system, together we can have profound effects on the way things work.
I am a passionate believer in community and the collective voice of the people. At the risk of becoming overly political, I think it is fair to say that corporate interests most often get more attention from our government than do “We, the People.” We can change that. It is time. It is our time.
Get involved. Call me crazy, but I attend almost all of our local government meetings. I go to the county commission meetings, if for no other reason than to let our elected representatives know that someone is interested, that their constituents are watching. I even attend county planning board meetings, which can be paralyzingly boring, with the occasional opportunity to make my voice heard.
A group of natural health advocates in our little city was able to stave off the City Council’s attempt to re-introduce fluoride, a toxic chemical that disrupts hormone function, into the city water system.
By doing our homework, introducing carefully researched, irrefutable, scientifically validated information we were successful. This came in stark contract to local dentists who reflexively announced that cavities had increased in local children since fluoride was removed for the municipal water five years earlier. They didn’t ask the most obvious questions: How much soda are these kids drinking? Where do they liver? How many lives in houses on wells without fluoride and what is their cavity rate compared to kids who drink fluoridated city water?
To be frank, we beat the pants off the so-called medical professionals. The City Council voted 5-0 to keep fluoride out of our water. It was a sweet victory!
This is just one small example of how citizen participation can change the ways our elected representatives behave and profoundly influence our exposure to toxic chemicals.
This applies to local, state government and federal government. Take a few minutes and, if you don’t already know your representatives, so a little research. Become your congressperson’s pen pal. Ditto for your state legislators. Local elected officials are even easier to contact, since you’re likely to see them in the supermarket or the local coffee shop as well as at regular meetings. Let them all know you care.
Elected officials must listen to their constituents if their voices are loud enough.
Just Google your state name and legislature for your state officials and search for your county and city websites to get contact into for your local officials.
