Baby Steps

One of the favorite movies at our house is What About Bob? We watched it again the other day and it's good every time. "Baby Steps" came to mind as I was thinking of the post I'm going to write. See there are so many problems with the world and so many ways I need to live my life better that I get totally overwhelmed by it all. I get "all-or nothing" about it and then it's too much. I've got to learn to go in baby steps--so hard for a nature like mine who wants to be completely part of something...

Anyway, I've slowly started some improvements that help my life coincide with my beliefs and now I will proceed to evangelize them on this blog.

First: Cleaning products

I recently read, in one of the many books I'm reading, that "the average sample of breast milk produced by a woman in the US contains over 100 contaminants. Some 25 percent of the breast milk supply is now so laden with toxic foreign substances that if bottled and sold as a food product it would violate federal food safety regulations." So what I thought was the best and safest thing I could possibly feed my kid is really just another thing to worry about! So what to do? First of all I have to constantly remind myself that I just do a little and do the best I can, Baby Steps, you know. Here are some things I've found helpful:
-Get rid of all Windex. White vinegar works just as well and is way safer. There's no real reason to use Windex. When I was a custodian at BYU they told us of the ills of the stuff and we were supposed to follow the directions (had I EVER read the directions on that? No) and spray into the rag so as not to breathe it in and always use gloves. I'd grown up doing neither and sad to say didn't heed the advise of my managers as custodian either. Old habits die hard. But now I do not own Windex and just have a squirt bottle with Vinegar. Vinegar also does pretty well with hard water stains and worked just as well if not better on my windows that had lots of hard water from sprinkers.
-Borax is good for cleaning bathroom sinks.
-Hydrogen Peroxide is a disinfectant. I've started cleaning my toilet bowl with it. Then after rincing it, doing a one over with Borax. I don't know if the fact that it kills germs in your mouth means it kills fecal germs, but who really knows if the stuff they sell us really does either.

So brief interlude. The more I've been reading lately, the more I feel betrayed. I've felt that all things I buy are safe for me and that laws and regulations are out to protect us, etc., etc. And while laws and regulations are out there to protect us, I as a consumer need to be so much more informed and careful about things. I'm such a trusting person. Time to start reading fine print and inform myself.

-I mop my floor with vinegar.

Well, I hope to do a lot more changes as far as cleaning. I'm reading and trying to find safe but effective ways to clean. Luckily my parents have done a really good job getting me started and we didn't use pesticides, herbicides, oven cleaner, or other dangerous chemicals. But we did use comet, toilet bowl cleaner, windex, and pinesol. I'm trying to find easy ways to get rid of these now too.


Food:

I recently read The Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I loved it. I've known a lot about the ills of our food industry and just try to block out what I know when I buy things. I've known how awful animals are treated as they are grown to feed us and it makes me ill to think about. But I still buy and eat meat. I've known that the hormone levels in milk from the hormones they inject in cows to make a few more bucks on faster growing beef is slowly making puberty start earlier in girls and could be linked to fertility problems nationwide. Yet, because organic milk is over twice as much I don't buy it. I've known about all this long before reading The Omnivores Dilemma, but the book is pretty convincing. I have decided to try to change for the better for my own health and my family's. Baby Steps. I bought my first half gallon of organic, hormone and antibiotic free milk. I've been buying organic yogurt for Caleb for months now. And we just planted a little garden.

As you can see this is a different set of beliefs than you might have originally thought, but I believe in doing what's best for our health, individually, as a community, as a country, and for the world. There are so many problems and when I read about any of them, poverty, hunger, disease, misuse of power, abuse, etc., all over I just feel like there isn't anything I can do. You may not think that changing the way I clean or eat has anything to do with those, but to me it all ties into doing what's best for our world, starting with us. So see it is trying to live in line with my beliefs.

I'll keep you posted. As long as Andy doesn't think this bit of spouting off out to all of our beloved readers isn't too annoying. :)