Meadow Shadowhawk - Detox Your Place: Room by Room Remedies for Nontoxic Living

Detox Your Place

Room by Room Remedies for Nontoxic Living

Part of the DIY Series

Meadow Shadowhawk, 2020

This edition Microcosm Publishing, 2020

First Edition, 3,000 copies, first published August, 2020

ISBN 978-1-62106- 195-3

This is Microcosm #312

Designed by Joe Biel

Edited by Sarah Koch

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Microcosm Publishing is Portlands most diversified publishing house and distributor with a focus on the colorful, authentic, and empowering. Our books and zines have put your power in your hands since 1996, equipping readers to make positive changes in your life and in the world around you. Microcosm emphasizes skill-building, showing hidden histories, and fostering creativity through challenging conventional publishing wisdom. What was once a distro and record label was started by Joe Biel in his bedroom and has become among the oldest independent publishing houses in Portland, OR. In a world that has inched to the right for 80 years, we are carving out a place in the center with DIY skills, food, bicycling, gender, self-care, and social justice.

Table of Contents

Introduction

A s a mother of two living in a world where we have managed to compromise our air, land, water, and food, I am keenly aware not only of how things affect me and my family but also future generations. Our everyday actions not only affect us, but have a ripple effect that extends to our family, our community, and eventually, to the entire world. The future our descendants will inherit is dependent on the actions we take in the present.

Just as we are living with polluted air, toxic water supplies, and less nutritious food sources handed down to us by our parents, we must consider what we will leave for our children. Most Native Americans have long had a philosophy of basing their decisions on how their actions will affect the next seven generations. Having Native American heritage, I have always been guided by this principle and I am confident that if the worlds governments had this same philosophy, our world would look quite different. As humans progress, we are becoming more and more technologically advanced, but in regards to the overall health of mankind and the planet, we are decelerating at an alarming rate.

When working as a veterinarian technician in the early 1980s, I learned about a pet food developer who created a natural product, free of artificial colors or additives. He did this because research had shown a possible connection between these additives and birth defects as well as other illnesses. Having learned this, he sought to provide an alternative for those that wanted to avoid them in their pet food. That was a wakeup call for me. Like many people, I always thought that if something was allowed in the food supply, it must be safe. However, coming to the realization that that may not always be the case is what kick started my own research, a task which has been made all the more complicated in our current age of mega corporations doing whatever they can to increase profits. For the past twenty years, industrial facilities have continued to encroach on my suburban neighborhood. In that time, we have witnessed an alarming number of friends and neighbors diagnosed with various cancers, fibromyalgia, chronic migraines, asthma, and allergies, to name just a few ailments. Adding to this the number of local pets that have died from mysterious kidney diseases or succumbed to cancer at a young age, I began to wonder if it had to do with the environment we lived in.

Unfortunately it is not only my suburban neighborhood, city, state, or even country that is affected. Many people today are dealing with the effects of toxic environments, medical treatments, or just everyday life in a world that puts monetary gains before the health interests of its inhabitants. Most people are not even aware of the myriad of toxins that surround them, or what they can do about them. As regulations protecting people from harmful elements are eliminated or reduced in an effort to stimulate the economy, we are increasing the danger to people, the environment, and even the world.

It is therefore my intention in this book to provide you with the information needed to identify potentially harmful elements in your home, and explain how to replace them with nontoxic alternatives. Organized by rooms and subjects, this is the result of decades of research collected, scrutinized, and practiced in an effort to survive in our ever deteriorating world.

Things are constantly changing, and in the name of progress and convenience we have developed a lifestyle filled with toxic substances. Keeping up with the latest information on any given product can be time consuming and downright overwhelming. One day CFL light bulbs are the best bulbs to save the environment, and the next year we find out they emit high levels of ultraviolet radiationspecifically UVC and UVA rays. Experts say this radiation could initiate cell death and even cause skin cancer. So maybe LED lights would be better? Well, now we have learned that some LED lights are bad for the environment due to their high lead and arsenic content, and are bad for your health, mood, and can promote blindness, as the blue lights could possibly lead to age-related macular degeneration. It turns out that the best lighting for your health and happiness may actually just be the good old fashioned incandescent light bulbs.

While detoxification may seem overwhelming and you may feel hopeless, you do have an element of control. By being aware of what may be toxic, and how to substitute nontoxic alternatives, you can more easily maintain a healthy lifestyle. Most of the solutions are very cost effective and not labor intensive. Those that are more labor intensive can be done with some elbow-grease or will come with store-bought suggestions.

It is important to remember that whatever toxins can affect you, they are even more detrimental to your children and your pets.

When you do make changes, it may be a good idea to do it in steps rather than all at once. Sometimes if we try to do too much at one time it can be overwhelming and cause you to give up all together. Small steps are progress and will lead to success when they are continued. To make this a bit easier, the book is arranged by rooms. It will point out potential problems and provide solutions. Even if you are unable to make all of the changes suggested, doing whatever you can will lessen the toxic load in your home. This is only a guide to build on, to help you get started with the things you do have control over in order to live a less toxic life.