The Benefits of Organic Cleaning Products

Everyone wants a clean living or work environment, but cleaning can be hazardous to your health if you use cleaners with harmful toxins. Exposure to the harmful toxins found in cleaning products can worsen asthma and cause allergic reactions.

You may not even be aware that you're polluting your home when you clean. But if you'll check the ingredients posted on the side or back of regular cleaners, you'll see many allergy and cancer-causing ingredients listed. You can research these chemicals and see the harmful health effects they've been linked to.

Earth-Friendly All-Purpose Cleaner

Using organic cleaning products offers many benefits that chemical based ones do not. By using organic cleaners, you can rid your home of chemical cleaner toxins. Organic cleaning products don't contain harsh chemicals that will not only damage your skin but can affect your lungs if you breathe in the vapors.

Cleaning products are used in every room in the house, including on counters, on floors, and on furniture - and everyone in the home is exposed to whatever active ingredients make up the compound of the cleaning product. What do you want your family to come in contact with?

The number of children diagnosed with asthma continues to rise and concerns have been raised by study groups that exposure to the toxins found in household chemicals may be to blame.

One form of asthma, called extrinsic asthma, is caused by environmental contaminants. By using organic products, you'll create a safer home environment for everyone around you. Because they're non-toxic, organic cleaners are safer to use around kids and they're also safer to use around your beloved pets, too.

Organic is better for allergy suffers as well as asthma sufferers. Going organic cuts down on (and in many cases eliminates) illness brought on by being around chemical cleaners. Not only are organic products better to use in your home for health reasons, but they're also better for the environment.

Chemical cleaners can contain harsh abrasives that damage the surfaces of counters - even granite - and bathroom fixtures too, whereas most organic products are gentle and won't hurt the surfaces. Even when you're finished using a chemical cleaner, the chemical toxicity can stay on your counters, tubs and toilet for several hours if not longer before evaporating.

Organic cleaners can clean as well as (and in most cases, better than) chemical cleaners. Plus, there's the cost involved. Chemical cleaners seem a lot less expensive, but they're not in the long run. Many organic and natural cleaning products are highly concentrated, so you don't have to use as much of them. And when you factor in the long-term impacts on your health, organic cleaners come out way ahead.

Different Types of Toxins and How They Affect Your Health

You may have heard that detoxing helps improve your health. What you may not know is how. What happens when you remove toxins from your body? And what types of toxins are inside you?

Image via WikipediaToxins come in a few different categories. They include:

* Household toxins
* Food toxins
* Environmental toxins
* Lifestyle toxins

Let’s take a closer look at each type of toxin.

Lifestyle Toxins

These toxins are the easiest to eliminate from your life. However, the detox and withdrawal process can be quite challenging. Lifestyle toxins are the toxins you get from smoking, taking prescription and over the counter medications, and drinking alcohol. Sugar and white flour can also act as significant toxins in your body and cause serious problems. Even high levels of caffeine can cause health problems.

Food Toxins

Food toxins include artificial sweeteners like aspartame and Acesulfame K. It also includes chemical fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides and preservatives. During the farming and manufacturing process the food you eat is exposed to hundreds of chemicals. The human body isn’t equipped to manage these chemicals. Thus those chemicals stay in your body. The result can be severe including cancer and immune or neurological disorders. Detoxing helps get them out of your body.

Image via WikipediaEnvironmental Toxins

Go outside and take a breath of fresh air. As cleansing as that breath can feel, it is contaminated by toxins (at least if you live in just about any urban or suburban area). These toxins are off gasses from farming and manufacturing processes. In addition, combustion engines and other systems create pollution. That pollution finds its way into your body in the air you breathe and the water you drink.

Household Toxins
There have been many studies that have shown that the air inside your home is much more dangerous than the air outside your home. Indoor pollution is a real problem. Household cleansers are filled with chemicals. You breathe them in whenever you use them. Additionally, bath and body products are also filled with chemicals.

Toxins are everywhere. They’re inside your home, workplace and the places you visit. They’re also in the food you eat and the things you drink. You can minimize your exposure to toxins by eating organic and locally grown foods (or even growing your own). Use natural cleaning products in your home and bath.

You can also purge the toxins from your system by occasionally going on a detox program. You’ll be able to purge the toxins from your body and maintain your health. It’s a great way to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. You can gain renewed energy, better sleep, more mental clarity and even lose weight by occasionally detoxing. Take great care when you detox. Follow your doctor’s guidelines and treat your body well.

For more on toxic load and what you can do about it, visit our website at www.newholisticliving.com. 

Keeping The Environment Safe From Harmful Chemicals

Think about recycling and maybe the first thing to pop into your head isn't damage that's done to the earth when we use products with harmful chemicals, but that's part of the cycle, too.  As well as reducing waste, recycling products and reusing what can be reused, protecting the earth from harm is all a part of the same cause.

Image via WikipediaIt's not something we set out to do, at the beginning of the day; the thought isn't, "Hmmm, how can I hurt the Earth today?"  It probably sounds something much more like, "Gee, I need to clean today, let me reach under the cupboard and see what I have," not realizing that whatever is done with the products I use to clean, once I've cleaned, can be harmful to not only the earth itself, but any living things that may come in contact with the wash off.  We live in a sterilized world, where the idea of a clean home, clean work place and clean where ever we take our children is the first order of business.  But we need to stop and think about what harm we may be doing in our quest for the cleanest living area. 

Is it worth a colony of ants to clean your kitchen floor with a harmful chemical, and that when you dump out the bucket that contains those chemicals, onto the ant hill, you risk wiping out the entire population?  Maybe you don't like ants, and that wasn't the best example, but you know what I mean.  We have a responsibility to the other creatures that share this Earth with us to not purposely do it, and them, harm.  We need to be mindful of what our actions are producing and how our actions affect all other living things.

There are so many options for safe-cleaning on the market today that you don't really have to look much further than your local grocery shelf.  Pay attention to the words that describe the items you are buying.  Do they contain the words, toxic, poisonous, or dangerous?  If they do, then keep reading the next product's ingredients, there is a better choice out there. (Try Earth Friendly, or 7th Generation for some good alternatives.)

Many synthetic chemicals are not easily broken down by natural processes after they have been used and may make their ways into the streams and lakes and have a disastrous affect on any forms of life that inhabit them. It will only take a little effort on the part of consumers to prevent these things from happening, but we must start somewhere.

Image via WikipediaWe need to be careful with the chemicals we have easy access to and become more responsible for what happens as the result of our choices.  It really isn't all that hard to make an informed choice and help the Earth; we certainly don't want to hurt it but being irresponsible with basic cleaning products can do just that; we can end up causing great harm to the planet on which we live.  Remember, it doesn't take much more than a little awareness to be an advocate for the health of the place we call home.

Be Smart.  Shop Smart.  Clean Smart.

For some suggestions for safe, truly natural cleaning products, check out earlier posts on this blog, or visit http://www.newholisticliving.com/toxicload.html. (You can also find a free checklist there for reducing other toxins in your home as well.)