The One Thing Many People Forget To Ask Themselves When Trying To Go Green

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I've been in the so-called "green" world for quite some time now. From starting a better-than-organic farm over 14 years ago now to reading Treehugger.com for I believe about 20 years to being endorsed by the Sierra Club when I ran for office about 10 years ago... I'm not really a newcomer to the scene. Simply a newcomer to this domain name my wife and I recently bought to help spread the truths we've learned about the living healthy lifestyle.

For those who are trying and struggling, my advice to you is to simply hang in there. If you've grown up and spent your entire life in a world surrounded by chemicals and fragrances and petroleum-based products and you're struggling to find things that are actually healthy for you, we know it's difficult. But here's the upside: more and more people are waking up to the idea that certain chemicals are bad for you and cause cancer and other diseases, and so more and more products are becoming available as alternatives to the products we've known and loved for years.

Most of the green beauty blogs and green living blogs I've seen out there tend to still get this one thing wrong though. They are focused on being an advocate for Crunchi to make oodles of money or they're focused on selling eco-friendly non-toxic mattresses to build their bottom line. And yes, we too use affiliate links and programs to help support this site. But there's one thing I'd like for you to consider before you go buying anything through any of the affiliate links on our site or those others. That one thing is this. Do you need it?

That's right, I'm suggesting that rather than continuing to try and find replacements for absolutely everything, sometimes the best replacement is nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. It's an extremely affordable solution to that never ending quandary of how to afford to be healthy.

Here's one example. As a guy, I have these hairs that grow in on my face. I'm not a big fan of facial hair, but nobody ever asked me whether I'd like for these hairs to be growing out of my cheeks and chin and neck. I find that when the hair gets to be about a quarter of an inch or so that it gets really itchy, so I'm not just going to let it grow out into a macho lumberjack style beard. I already wash my face with soap and use shampoo for my hair which runs down my face some as I rinse it out. So I don't really want to add yet another product or two in there between the shaving cream and a razor which typically has some sort of moisture bar in it with yet more chemicals.

So what do I do?

I use one of these: Philips Norelco Beard and Hair Trimmer. It's a whopping $18 at the time that I'm writing this and doesn't require any blade oil, which is a win because I'm not putting yet more petroleum based products on my body. The one I linked to isn't the exact one I purchased about 8 years ago or so, but it appears to be the current model.

Now, as I think about that $18 purchase, how many razor blades have I been able to avoid buying for shaving my face clean? How many bottles of Dr. Bronner's Organic Shaving Soap have I not needed to purchase?

And remember, that's just one example. Here's another for those of you who are saying, "but I'm not a guy - I don't have facial hair". Okay, fine, what about gray hair? My wife used to spend hours looking for ways to be non-tox or low-tox with her hair dye. We both have some gray hair coming in, though her more than me, and while I'd complain about mine she'd do something about hers. Since she's still in her 30's, she didn't want to be all grayed out quite yet. However, she eventually decided that she should simply succumb to the idea that she doesn't need to dye her hair. Putting the number of chemicals in it every 2 or 3 or 4 weeks just isn't worth the potential health risks from doing so. It's now been over a year since she's used any sort of hair dye and she constantly gets comments on how pretty her gray hair is and how people admire her for just letting it grow out because they just couldn't do that.

So what's stopping you from joining her? Ditch the Clairol and the Revlon. Let your hair grow out into whatever color it's going to be naturally. Look at the grays as beautiful and a sign of experience. Gray hair doesn't determine your energy level. It doesn't determine your mood. If you really want to go green and be healthy, get rid of yet another product that typically has some sort of fragrance or perfume added to it and own your natural hair color.

There are plenty of other ways you can eliminate products in general from your life, and we'll be sharing ways to easily eliminate certain products altogether from your life over the upcoming months and years. For now, find something small in your own life to replace with nothing. Don't let the mass media's consumerism infect your mind and feel like you have to go buy something to (insert task here)_____ because that's what the world expects of you. Be you, naturally.

What Are Toxins?

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merriam-webster: a poisonous substance that is a specific product of the metabolic activities of a living organism and is usually very unstable, notably toxic when introduced into the tissues, and typically capable of inducing antibody formation.

wikipedia: A toxin is a naturally occurring organic poison produced by metabolic activities of living cells or organisms.

No matter whether you've been in the healthy and green living space for quite some time or if you're brand new to the concepts we're discussing here, you've probably heard the term toxin thrown around quite a bit. You might have noticed the term tox is even in our name! So what exactly is a toxin?

Technically, a toxin only really includes naturally occurring poisons produced by living things. It's a subset of what are known as toxicants. Toxicants include these naturally occurring poisons but also include the man-made ones as well. But here's where it can get a bit more confusing. You see, venom is a toxin and thus also a toxicant. Some toxins are poison. But venom and poison are typically separated by the method of delivery.

For something to be considered venomous, the delivery method is through a fang or stinger using a process called envenomation. Poisons on the other hand are absorbed through the skin or ingested or inhaled. There's an old saying:

"If you bite it and you die, it's poisonous. If it bites you and you die, it's venomous."

While venoms are certainly not good for you, we're probably not going to spend too much time on our site covering subjects like how to keep venomous things out of your body. We'll leave that to the spider and snake and zoology experts out there. We're going to focus on the toxins and toxicants, although you'll probably find us just using the more generic term toxin most of the time. Just know that just because we're calling something a toxin doesn't necessarily mean it's naturally occurring or organically based. No matter what it's technically called, we still want to avoid these toxins and toxicants.

Toxins and toxicants are detrimental to human health and can cause all sorts of diseases and disorders including such things as thyroid disease and disrupting hormone production and the endocrine system. Their effects may not be immediately noticeable as some toxins take a while to build up before side effects start to arise. As you're reading through our site, I encourage you to keep in mind the old adage that has been attributed to Paracelsus:

"All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison." This is often condensed to: "The dose makes the poison" or in Latin, "Sola dosis facit venenum".

In other words, there are some things that can be harmless when consumed in small amounts while they are harmful when consumed in large quantities. As an example, did you know that water intoxication or water poisoning is possible when someone consumes too much water? I'm not talking about drowning here, I'm talking about actually drinking too much water on purpose. While it is rare and usually associated with things like water drinking contests or drinking too much water too frequently during long exercise routines, it is indeed possible.

Remember that just because something is natural, that doesn't make it non-toxic or safe.

Our goal at Zero Tox Life is to help you make smart decisions on what toxins negatively impact you the most and help you eliminate them from your life wherever possible. In the case that you believe we've gotten something wrong, please feel free to reach out and share with us! We're happy to share the resources we use in our research if we haven't already and we want to make sure we're finding the right answers so we're only sharing the truth with others as well!

We look forward to having you join us on our journey and living long and healthy lives together!

Hello world!

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We may just be getting started with this site, but we’re not new to the low tox / zero tox lifestyle! Please bear with us as we build out a library of information and resources that you can use to zero tox your life!