SOS: Day 41
April 11, 2011 
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Day 41
Forget! Avoid! Remove! And shun!
Public domain.
On May 8, 2010, a cancer panel that reports to the president issued a study so strongly worded it stunned health reporters. This authoritative, nonpolitical group (Bush appointees) came down hard on government for not regulating chemicals and warned the public to beware.
Panel findings:
–Out of 80,000 chemicals used daily by Americans only a few hundred have been tested for safety.
–300 contaminants have been found in the umbilical cord blood of newborns…pre-polluted babies!
–41% of Americans will get cancer.
–Pregnant women and young children are very vulnerable to chemical pollutants.
–Consumers should avoid plastics containing BPA. (The hard, transparent plastic bottles popular with those of us who take seriously our 8 glasses of water a day are BPA cesspools. Who knew we were poisoning ourselves while hydrating?)
–People should eat organic food grown without pesticides, chemical fertilizers, or growth hormones. ( This holds for your backyard garden, too, oh habithackers. Put down that MiracleGro. It’s like heroin for plants. Don’t get them hooked. If you feel you can’t afford to devote so much of your paycheck to Whole Foods, perhaps you can just buy organic for your kids. If you can afford it, and I’m lucky enough to be able to, please buy your veggies and meat with good farming and animal husbandry practices in mind…even if you don’t care so much for yourself. If there’s more demand, prices will come down, and everyone will benefit.)
–Citizens should be filtering drinking water and storing it in glass or stainless steel only.
Pay special attention to the lists below of the most dangerous (buy organic) produce. And check out the list of foods that are pretty safe to buy nonorganic (cheaply).
The Dirty Dozen: BUY ORGANIC. The EWG, Environmental Working Group, found that people who eat five fruits and vegetables a day from the Dirty Dozen list consume an average of 10 pesticides a day. You may as well have a DDT cocktail.
Celery
Peaches
Strawberries
Apples
Blueberries
Nectarines
Bell Peppers
Spinach
Kale
Cherries
Potatoes
Grapes (Imported)
The Best 15: Don’t HAVE TO buy organic. Those who eat from the 15 least contaminated conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables ingest fewer than 2 pesticides daily. Barely a shot of poison, I guess. It’s still a good idea to buy these organic…but not mandatory.
Onions
Avocado
Sweet Corn
Pineapple
Mangos
Sweet Peas
Asparagus
Kiwi
Cabbage
Eggplant
Cantaloupe
Watermelon
Grapefruit
Sweet Potato
Honeydew
Melon
SOS Month 2
What to do so far:
In case you missed a day, the reminders below are clickable.
Mitigate your snoring.
Work out to dance DVDs.
Exercise for the fun of it.
Remember lesser-known benefits of exercise.
Record body measurements.
Accept setbacks.
Get younger.
Decrease your chemical load.
Need a refresher for SOS Month 1? Click here.
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