Say Goodbye to Toxins: Easy Swaps for a Cleaner Home

Today we're talking about how you can detox your life in five easy steps.

What to ditch for better health.

I'm your host, Kristen, and let's dive in.

Welcome to Everyday Vitality, the podcast that empowers you to live your healthiest, most vibrant life naturally.

I'm Kristin Fitch, your guide to natural wellness.

Over the years, I've learned the importance of embracing holistic health, from clean living to ancestral practices to help me feel my best and keep me improving my wellness.

In each episode, we'll explore how alternative health nourishing habits and natural therapies can enhance your energy, vitality and health.

Let's dive in and make every day a step towards living well naturally.

On today's episode, we are going to talk about some easy swaps that you can make in your life to lessen the number of toxic chemicals that you're putting into your body and into your home.

Before we dive into those five things today, I did want to let you know what you can expect from Everyday Vitality.

We will have episodes like this one, which will be more of an overview of things you can do to improve your health.

We will have deep dive episodes that will dig into one topic in depth with experts, researchers, scientists, doctors or health experts.

And then we'll also have people coming on and talking about how they've improved and changed their health and what steps they took to do so.

All right, so today's episode, for some of you, some of this might be overview, it might be old news, and for some of you, this might be new information.

We are all at different points in our own health journeys.

There's going to be episodes I'm going to bring to you that you've maybe heard before, maybe you've heard from these experts.

And there's going to be episodes where it's probably new information for you or there's new studies coming out.

So let's jump in.

So today we're going to talk about what can we do in our own environments, in our homes and what and what we're putting in our bodies to make easy swaps to detox how much toxic chemicals and heavy metal and other toxins that we are exposing ourselves to.

All right, so the first thing up we want to talk about today is how can we limit chemicals we're putting in our bodies when we're cooking our food.

So we're going to talk about swapping out pans if we're using non stick pans or pans that are considered high in toxic chemicals or heavy metals.

And so first of all, non stick pans, or at least most of the ones on the market, have PFAs or PTFE's in them.

So they basically have chemicals that were created in order to put that non stick surface onto the pan.

We want to avoid those because when we cook with them, especially at high heats, they are releasing more of those chemicals into the air and then into our food.

So what are the better choices that you can swap out when you're going to go buy pans or pots?

So you can use stainless steel, you want to use high quality stainless steel pans.

Those are a great choice.

One of the top choices, you can also use cast iron pots and pans.

Now if you are someone that struggles with high iron, then you want to be more cautious with cast iron pans.

But for most of us, they're okay.

And there is at least one company, I think several on the market that have a ceramic coated solution.

So one of them is called Caraway ceramic coated pots and pans.

They're free of PTFEs and PFAs and heavy metals.

So those would be a safe, somewhat non stick solution.

If you're looking for something more like that.

Two tips I have for you here on stainless steel pans or just swapping out your pans is you don't have to do everything all at once.

So I am not suggesting that you have to go out, throw away every pan you have, that's nonstick and buy all new pots and pans.

Now if you're in the market and you've been thinking about it, then go for it.

But if you're somebody thinking I don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on a whole new set of pots and pans, I totally get it.

I would say whichever pot or pan you use the most, if it's non stick, try to replace that one.

There's a lot of affordable ways to get a new pot or pan.

Check out pots and pans that they have at something like Home Goods or TJ Maxx, Walmart.

They have reasonable solutions and price points there.

And the next thing is, the other tip is that if you heat your stainless steel pan before you put anything in it, like a avocado oil or olive oil or butter or beef tallow, and you wait until your pan is hot enough that when you put water into it, you flick water into it, it actually rolls around in a ball instead of sizzles.

That is called the Linden frost effect.

And when that happens, you put your oil in it.

It makes the pan wherever the oil has Then been put on the pan.

It makes it look like a non stick pan because there's a layer of air between what you've put on the pan and what you're going to put in it.

And we do this with our scrambled eggs all the time and it works perfectly.

And so if you've not tried this before, search Linden frost effect or just search how to cook with my stainless steel pan to make it nonstick.

All right, Hack number two is replacing our drinking water.

So if you're drinking tap water or even filtered water from your refrigerator, we want to replace it with the cleanest water possible that we can.

You know, that's in our price range.

And so there's a lot of options.

There's a lot of different thoughts on them.

But so whether you're going to filter your water with just a heavier duty filter.

So using a company like a Pro1 filter system or Berkey, there's lots of other ones.

Basically those filters, normally they're either in a stainless steel reservoir or it could be ceramic.

And then you buy the filters every six months or a year depending on how quickly you use your filters.

That removes about 99, just over 99%.

So 99 point something percent of heavy metals, toxins, chemicals.

It removes fluoride, chlorine, some of the stuff that's in our drinking water through our taps, like what am I talking?

Medicines, Things that aren't really filtered out when they go through our water treatments, treatment plants.

And so there's still a lot of stuff in our water, there's bacteria in our water, all sorts of things.

And so we want to get a filter or if you are ready to kind of up level.

Even better is looking into a reverse osmosis water device.

They have those tabletop versions which are much more affordable, so they're probably somewhere between 250 and $400 give or take.

Or they have reverse osmosis systems that go underneath your sink or for more bigger ones for your whole house.

Those are ideal.

I'm still working on getting a reverse osmosis drinking station, but for now I've had a Pro1 filtration system that I've been using for years.

So we want to get cleaner water because whatever's in our water, we are drinking that.

And so like I said, in our normal tap water, in most states and cities, they're still putting fluoride, fluoride in our water.

Most of them have chlorine in our water.

And like I said, we have, there's bacteria in there.

There's other toxins, like anything that went in through our waste system, if it comes back into our clean drinking water, we may have trace amounts of people's supplements or whatever medicines they were taking and things like that and so or whatever else they put down their drain.

So we want to get the cleanest drinking water possible.

They are.

I will have a link in the show notes to a review of what water systems are highly recommended.

So I will share that with you.

Okay.

Beyond drinking water, we want to talk about what products we're using to clean our homes, clean our dishes and clean our clothes.

And so what we want to do over time is we want to replace those products with cleaner alternatives.

So you may be somebody that's already doing that and if so, awesome job.

I know I've been using as clean of products as I can to clean our house, to clean our dishes and our clothes for a really long time.

But on occasion we still grab something.

My husband sees a better deal or a different product and he'll grab it and I'll say, oh, this isn't really, you know, what we want.

And so we bought it.

So in most cases we'll go ahead and use it up and then we'll go back to something a little cleaner.

But even with our washing, I'm sorry, dishwashing detergent, in the past we've used, you know, we've used liquid way, way back then.

We used tablets or little pods.

Those little pods, at least from a lot of the companies out there, name brand companies, they're full of other things that you really don't want on your dishes and can actually mess up your gut, biome and other things.

So we want to get back to as simple of a product that will clean our dishes.

And so there's some clean brands that sell some pods or some more like tablets and things like that that you can put in your dishwasher that'll clean your dishes really well, but aren't don't have all those extra harsh chemicals and things in them.

You can even just buy washing soda or, or there is a recipe for washing soda with citric acid.

And I think one other thing that you can just put 1 teaspoon in your dishwasher and it will wash your dishes.

So it's super clean.

It doesn't have a lot of that junk.

And it's just really important because what we put in there we're literally sticking onto our dishes that we're then going to eat off of.

So it's a really easy thing.

We can do.

As far as washing our clothes, you know, in the washing machine, we just want to find alternatives that have, you know, no fragrance or it's from something that we know is they tell you how they're deriving that fragrance.

You don't want fake fragrance or colors, right, that make it prettier.

And also you just don't want things in there that aren't necessary.

So you want to buy a washing detergent that's just a cleaner option for your dryers.

Fabric softeners and things like that have chemicals in them both from the fragrance perspective.

And then what makes it softer, you can pick things like the reusable wool dryer balls and you can even add scent on that with using the really high end therapeutic grade essential oils and just throw those in with your clothes.

It softens them a bit and it can also give them a fresh scent.

But it's so much cleaner.

I remember when one of my sons was young, he when we would be at someone else's house and if we had to wash the clothes and they'd use a softener, I just didn't even think about it at the time.

I never use them.

He would break out in a rash because he was just super sensitive to whatever they put into the fabric softeners.

So we want to make a swap for that.

And look, I get it.

A lot of us love really lovely smells, and so some of us get addicted to the smells of the fabric softeners or those little things you sprinkle in your washing machine that give your clothes a scent for weeks.

Those have chemicals in it that you really don't want to be smelling in and you don't want to have them in your clothes.

And so we want to swap that if we can.

And then cleaning products, we can swap, you know, buying better quality cleaning products.

So there's obviously lots of cleaner alternatives now.

Or you can make your own.

I do both.

I buy method, I buy other brands, and then I also make my own.

You know, I just use my same spray bottles and then I just pull up a DIY DIY recipe and then I put in ingredients I already have in my house to create cleaning products.

And they work just as well.

The only one I have a challenge with sometimes is if your bathroom gets mold in it.

Sometimes that can be trickier and it takes a little bit more, I guess, TLC to get it removed.

And I have in that case used a little bit of a stronger product.

But even that, they say encourages mold growth, bleach encourages mold growth, whereas Hydrogen peroxide with baking soda does not.

So I'm still experimenting with that and I will get back to you on that one.

All right, so the point, though is the cleaning products we use to clean our counters, we put in our dishwasher, we put in our washing machine and our dryers.

What we use in our bathrooms, we're breathing it in.

It's going on the surfaces that we're touching.

So we just want to be careful what we're using.

All right, number four is let's swap out all the smelly things in our houses.

What am I talking about?

Air fresheners and candles and maybe room fresheners.

Look, I love a good candle as much as the next girl or gal.

They obviously are giving off not only if it's unnatural sense, they're putting that in the air.

They're also most candles, especially if they're just commercially made, they're putting off soot and they're putting off allergens for our, you know, our breathing into the air.

So we just want to be careful.

We don't want to just buy a candle at a generic store and it's made with cheapest ingredients.

If you're going to use something like that one, you can use essential oils.

Just direct essential oils in a diffuser and get that same smell without the extra allergens that we're breathing in and things like that.

So that is probably the first recommendation.

If you're going to use a candle, though, you want to get a cleaner candle that doesn't have artificial smells, and you want to find one that's made of soy or beeswax instead of traditionally commercially made candles or made of paraffin, a paraben wax.

Excuse me.

And also look for ones with a wood tip or a cotton tip, like, so what you.

The wick.

I'm sorry, that you're going to burn, because those also are a little bit better for you.

And like I said, you wanted to use really clean essential oils, like high quality, not just natural, artificial fragrances.

And so if you're going to use a candle, then we really want to be careful what candles we're using and that we're not burning them as often.

Also, air fresheners and air fresheners or plugins, those definitely have been linked to health issues, especially if you use them all the time.

And so you want to swap with natural options.

You can make your own air freshener, air freshener that you can spray in your house, or you can, like I said, buy the small essential oil, either diffusers or you can buy ones that don't even have to plug in.

They're just more of a.

They either have a wick or they have a little area where you just put it in.

It just gets absorbed into the air.

You can try those as well.

But we want to breathe in the freshest air we can.

Of course, besides swapping out commercially made or artificially made air fresheners and candles and things that smell good, we just want to try to go back to the natural things.

If you're having people over, throw a little water into a pan on your stove and add some fresh spices and fruit and it will make your house smell amazing.

So there's a lot of things we can do to make our house smell great without using all the artificial things that we really don't want to be breathing in.

Now, if you're somebody, we'll cover this in a future episode.

But if you're somebody wanting to take it to the next level, you're already not using artificial smells and fresheners and candles.

Then of course, the next thing we can do is we can have cleaner air by using an air filter, a high quality air filter that's going to really pull out all the toxins and bacteria and things like that out of our air.

So we're going to cover that in the future.

But that's obviously like the next step you could take if you have already removed all of these things from your house.

All right, number five, we also want to be careful what we're putting on our skin.

So on our body, on our hair, in our mouths.

And while we're not going to cover all of it today, we do want to start swapping out the products we're using.

So our personal healthcare products.

So we're just going to focus on body wash and shampoo today as a easy swap we can make.

Basically we want to pick a cleaner body wash and a cleaner shampoo shampoo conditioner.

So what it is is we.

If your shampoo lathers a lot, that has a chemical in it that makes it do that, right?

Because it's making our hair super clean.

It feels good, it's sudsy, but actually is not good for us.

So we actually want a low or no lather shampoo.

Because most of the time, the more lather it has, the higher that chemical or it has a chemical we don't want in it.

I think one of them is called.

Let me see if I can pull it up.

Sulfur.

Let's see, what is it?

Let me see if I can.

I'M sorry, sodium laureth sulfate or there's some other variations of that, but it's considered a carcinogen.

And it has other things in it also.

If it has artificial fragrance in it, that also can be harmful.

And then a lot of shampoos or body washes have parabens in them which are linked to breast cancer or other issues.

Some of our healthcare personal care products also are linked to issues because they have endocrine disruptors in them.

So look for one that says it doesn't have parabens.

It doesn't have, you know, no artificial, it doesn't have sulfates, it doesn't have all these things in them.

I will link to an episode.

Mamavation does a lot of really great deep dives into what products aren't the best for us and why, and then what products do they recommend.

And there's other companies that do this as well.

But I will link to one that she talks about when in looking for what shampoos and conditioners to buy.

It is a deep dive into which brands aren't recommended and which brands are recommended.

So that is a great place to start, but it's an easy swap we can do.

So I buy my family, my three high school and college age sons and my husband and I body wash that's just a cleaner body wash.

And then with the shampoos they have, they might use their body wash.

It's also shampoo, but for me I have to use one that's more for curly hair.

So it is just a no, it's a no suds shampoo.

And so while it's not perfect, it's a better choice than some of the other things that I could be picking.

All right, so that is the fifth thing that we can easily swap out.

And our health journey is just that, it's a journey.

So what this means is most of us, if we are just learning about things we can do to improve our health or boost our health and energy, we just want to make changes.

Baby swabs.

So when you're going to go to the store next time go buy a different body wash or a different shampoo.

If you're in the market for a new pan or you just said, I'm done with it, I don't want to use the one that I know isn't good for me.

Just buy one pan the size you use the most because most of us don't have it in our budgets to replace everything all at one time.

So this is just going to be an ongoing processing process of assessing what are you using in your home and where can you just make a healthy swap over time?

Months from now and then a year from now and two years from there and now and five years from now, we will be living so much healthier because we're educating ourselves and then we're making better choices.

And so that's really the goal of the show, is to help us understand what are the things we can do that don't cost us money, like making changes in our lives to get more sunlight, to get more, you know, more movement in, to drink better water.

So all of those types of things.

And ancestrally, what can we do that actually really will help us hack our health?

And then what are the things we can do in our environments to optimize our health?

And then from there it's just knowing what's going to make us live our best lives, be our healthiest, being able to move as we get older and feel good.

And how can we avoid medication and extra doctor's appointments in most cases?

Of course, there's instances where we cannot.

Right, with a chronic illness or something like that.

But that's the goal of the show.

I want to help you in really easy terms, understand some things you can do so that you can live your best Life in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond.

Because I want to see us just live a vibrant life for us to be so, have such great vitality as we move into these other decades.

And I know we can.

We just have to listen, learn and then be willing to make some changes.

So until next time, I hope you have a healthy and wonderful day and I'll see you back here next week.

Thanks again for listening to Everyday Vitality.

This is your host, Kristen.

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This show is intended to be informative and educational.

It is not considered medical advice.

Please consult your healthcare practitioners or a medical practitioner or any personal medical or health advice.