7 Simple Ways to Detox Your Diet and Your Home

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Find out what everyday items are the worst for your health in terms of chemicals and toxins and what you can do about it.

Nobody knows just how much of a risk toxins in our food really pose. Most of the associations between chemical exposures and disease are just that—associations. But we’re exposed to dozens, if not hundreds, of chemicals, and the effects of some multiple exposures may be more than the sum of their parts, say experts. Or, in some cases, they might cancel each other out.

What’s more, toxins get into our bodies through more than just food. We are exposed to them through our carpets, lawn chemicals—even our clothing. Check out these 7 toxins you can avoid in your diet and get simple solutions for minimizing these chemicals and toxins in your diet and life.

Effects of Pesticides

From rat (and bug) poisons to sprays that keep lawns lush and crop yields high, “pesticides” include hundreds of chemicals. Some interfere with animals’ nervous systems; others disrupt hormones, causing abnormal growth that kills the plant or animal. Thus, it’s not surprising that synthetic pesticide exposure is linked with diseases of the nervous system and problems with cell growth, including reproductive problems and some cancers.

 

What You Can Do to Avoid Pesticides

• Start a kitchen garden! It’s easy to grow your own herbs and worth doing: a 2011 report revealed that cilantro is often laced with pesticide residues.
  Tips for Growing a Kitchen Garden »
• Buy organic fruits and vegetables, particularly those with the highest pesticide residues, such as apples, celery and strawberries. (See the full list at foodnews.org.)
  12 Foods You Should Buy Organic »
  15 Foods You Don't Need to Buy Organic »
• Consider a water filter certified by the Water Quality Association (wqa.org) or NSF International (nsf.org) to screen out pesticides from farms and golf courses that can leach into well water. (Even tap water may contain traces of unregulated pesticides.)
• Remove your shoes when you enter your home—and ask guests to do the same—to avoid tracking in pesticides sprayed on lawns.
• Limit lawn chemicals, insecticides and rodenticides. Find natural ways to eliminate pests.

What You Can Do to Avoid Mercury

• Make smart seafood choices. Use Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch guides (seafoodwatch.org) to find low-mercury selections. (Generally, smaller fish, such as sardines, have less mercury than larger ones.) Consult fish advisories issued by your local health department. If you’re pregnant, nursing or feeding young children, follow the EPA/FDA’s guides: avoid swordfish, shark, tilefish and king mackerel; limitalbacore tuna to 6 ounces and total seafood to 12 ounces per week.
  Fish and Shellfish: 6 to Eat, 6 to Avoid »
  Green Choices: Seafood Buyer’s Guide »
  Recipes to Try: Healthy Sardine Recipes »
• If you do break a CFL bulb, leave the room for 10 minutes and open a window to let the room air out. To clean it up, brush it into a sealable plastic bag or glass jar with a lid using stiff cardboard and wipe the area with damp paper towels. Don’t vacuum, as that could further disperse particles. For perspective, one CFL contains about as much mercury as 47 servings of swordfish. More tips at epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup.html.
• Keep “button batteries”—used in remote controls and musical cards—out of kids’ reach. They contain a mix of toxic chemicals, including mercury, that, if swallowed, are very harmful.

What You Can Do to Go Phthalate Free

• Choose personal-care products (e.g., shampoos, lotions) and household cleaners free of synthetic fragrance, which often includes phthalates. Opt for those scented with essential oils or nothing at all. “Fragrance-free” or “unscented” on the front of a product sometimes means that the final product doesn’t have an odor; fragrance may have been added to mask another smell. Scan the ingredient list if there is one; if fragrance is listed, it’s often synthetic. (Some manufacturers of safe naturalproducts list natural fragrances this way, too, so if you’re in doubt, contact the company for more information.)
• Make the bulk of your diet minimally processed fresh foods. Processing and packaging can introduce phthalates into your food.

Avoid Perfluorocarbons

Research has suggested that 98 percent of Americans contain trace levels of PFCs (perfluorocarbons), chemicals that are used to repel water, grease and stains and are found in nonstick cookware, clothing, carpeting, furniture and food containers. Our bodies absorb PFCs through food, our skin and via fumes from overheated pans. They’re linked with liver damage, developmental problems, cancer and, according to one 2011 study in theJournal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, early menopause.

What You Can Do to Avoid PFCs

• Opt for cast-iron (including ceramic-coated) or stainless-steel pots and pans.
  Healthy Cast Iron Recipes & Cooking Tips »
• When using nonstick cookware, do not cook over high heat and do use wooden or other nonmetal utensils to prevent scratches.
• Look for clothing made from recycled polyester and polyurethane, which is naturally waterproof, and wax-coated clothes, which repel water and are PFC-free.
• Forgo the optional stain treatment on new carpets and fabric-covered furniture.

What Is in Tap Water?

We drink water to stay hydrated and flush out toxins. But could tap water actually be exposing us to more potentially harmful chemicals? Perhaps. A 2009 analysis by the Environmental Working Group found a whopping 315 pollutants in U.S. tap water, including arsenic (a heavy metal) and pesticides. More than half of the compounds are not regulated by the EPA, which means they can legally be present in tap water in any amount.

For instance, perchlorate—a currently unregulated chemical (though that’s soon to change, the EPA announced in early 2011) that’s used to make rocket fuel, flares and explosives—contaminates the drinking water of up to 26 million Americans. The chemical has been shown to reduce thyroid hormoneproduction; experts worry about the risks it poses particularly to babies and children. “Potentially even a very mild degree of low thyroid function could have an adverse effect on cognitive outcomes for a fetus. However, no studies to date have shown effects of low-level perchlorate exposure on thyroid function in pregnant women,” says Elizabeth Pearce, M.D., an endocrinologist at the Boston University School of Medicine.

In December 2010, the Environmental Working Group also reported finding hexavalent chromium (chromium-6), the “Erin Brockovich” contaminant that the EPA considers “likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” in the drinking water of 31 U.S. cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles. In the wake of this report, the EPA is reassessing the “oral reference dose” (or upper limit of what is considered safe), with a final ruling expected by the end of the year.