Accidentally Green

Making Healthy Decisions That Honor God and Happen to Help the Environment

Why Personal Care Products May Not Be Safe

Last week, I started Mystery Ingredient May by explaining a few ingredients found in cleaning products. This week, I’m tackling personal care products. Before I start, it’s important to put the safety – or danger – of the ingredients into proper perspective. The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to protect children, infants, and the unborn from toxic contaminants, estimates there are about 10,500 different chemical compounds used in personal care products. ... Read more

My Love/Hate Relationship with Castile Soap

  If you mention “castile soap” in green circles, you’ll probably hear overwhelmingly positive feedback. You can use it to clean everything. It’s natural. It’s safe. Heck, the Dr. Bronner’s brand even markets it as “magic soap.” I do like using castile soap. But I don’t always love it … mainly because of a few major disasters I’ve had while using it. Love it! Castile soap is a great product made of organic, vegetarian oils. Dr. Bronner’s includes water, organic coconut oil, organic olive ... Read more

Sharing the Cleaning Products I Use

I’ve promised to disclose what products my family uses, in hopes that it can spur you on to live a healthier life. And since I’m pretty frugal, these options don’t break the bank. Ready to learn how I keep things clean? Kitchen My go-to all-purpose kitchen spray is Shaklee’s Basic H2 Organic Super Cleaning Concentrate in a squirt bottle, diluted with water. (I only need 1/4 teaspoon of cleaner for a 16-ounce bottle of water.) I mop my floors with castile soap and water, or Murphy’s Oil Soap ... Read more

What’s In Your Cleaning Products?

Have you ever picked up a product with every intention to read the ingredients but when you do, you have no idea what the ingredients really are? Since I’ve tried to make healthier choices for our family, I run into this predicament a lot. I’m starting to have a better understanding of toxic and not-so-toxic ingredients in personal care products, but I'm not as aware of what's in food and cleaning products. Recently I raided a friend’s shelf of cleaners in search of ingredients. I didn’t ... Read more

My Family’s Diapering Decisions

Long before I was pregnant I knew I’d use cloth diapers, mainly because I didn’t feel right about putting a literal ton of my child’s dirty diapers in a landfill. When I tried to convince my husband about cloth diapering, the financial savings sold him right away. I researched a lot of the cloth diaper varieties – Prince Charming said he didn’t want to do the “origami” kind, but something that was as easy as disposables. I chose a one-size-fits-all pocket diaper, which means the diaper size ... Read more

How to Clean Cloth Diapers

Cleaning cloth diapers could be one of the biggest hesitations in the diapering decision. Expectant parents might be nervous about coming so close to the contents of a dirty diaper. The thing is, it doesn’t matter what kind of diaper you use: as a parent, you will get used to your child’s bodily functions. It never becomes pleasant, but it’s definitely part of parenting. For a wet cloth diaper, it’s easy: Toss it into a dry diaper pail. For a dirty cloth diaper, it depends on the age of ... Read more

Different Kinds of Cloth Diapers

Initially, cloth diapering can be intimidating. There are so many choices. And when I was contemplating what diapers to choose, I had absolutely no idea what was involved with the washing process. (Don't worry. I'll explain that tomorrow.) To make it a little easier for parents who may consider cloth diapers for their children, here are the basic varieties of cloth diapers: Prefolds, the most basic kind of cloth diaper, are what people usually imagine when they hear about cloth ... Read more

Are Disposable Diapers Safe?

When considering a child’s health, disposable diapers contain fragrances and dyes that could harm a baby. A super-absorbent gel, sodium polyacrylate, is linked to toxic shock syndrome in tampons; and dioxin, a byproduct of bleaching paper in diapers, is a known carcinogen. The National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory analyzed toxin exposure through diapers and tampons. Their results were a little surprising: “Although dioxins are found in trace amounts in both cotton and ... Read more

Diapers: Disposable vs. Cloth

Diapering is a big business. There’s a reason parents complain about putting their babies through diapers – it's costly. The price really adds up when you consider how often a baby should be changed each day: Newborns are changed at least ten to twelve times, and infants and toddlers should be changed six to ten times. Since diapers are a vital part of early parenting, two camps have formed: Disposable diaper lovers and cloth diaper lovers. In researching and using disposable and cloth ... Read more

Something Fishy’s Going On

This week we’ve covered a lot of healthy hints for pregnant mothers – from safe cosmetics and cleaning products, to natural ways to combat morning sickness. We also touched on the importance of avoiding BPA. Like BPA, it’s important for pregnant and nursing women to limit their consumption of fish high in mercury – like tuna, red snapper, halibut, and swordfish – because the mercury passes directly to the placenta and into breast milk. The Environmental Working Group, an environmental ... Read more

Protect Your Baby. Avoid BPA.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Bisphenol A is nasty and because it’s used a lot, it’s easy to be exposed to the toxin.Exposure to BPA is especially serious for pregnant women because of the harmful effects to fetuses, including: Abnormalities in brain and liver function; Altered behavior of more than 200 genes; Birth defects to the male and female reproductive systems, including permanent changes to the genital tract, damage to eggs, increased anogenital distance ... Read more

Can a Pregnant Mama Safely Satisfy Her Nesting Instinct?

A pregnant mother’s exposure to the harsh ingredients in cleaning products can cause profound health effects, and unborn children are at a high risk. Just like with cosmetics, any chemicals in cleaning products that a pregnant cross the placenta mother uses– that means they head directly to the baby. At an International Conference on Fetal Programming and Developmental Toxicity in 2007, a consensus was reached: “Many scientists now believe that chemical exposure, even at very low ... Read more

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