Water | Resources
Fluoride in Water Concentrates in Cooking
I received this today in a newsletter from Go Beyond Organic:
–Fluoride slowly accumulates in our bodies as well as in the environment. It doesn’t just blow away in the wind, nor get easily expelled in the urine. It first goes to the soft tissue, cartilage, tendons, and blood vessel walls, various organs, then the harder tissues such as bone, then to the teeth, and finally what’s left over gets excreted via the kidneys, hopefully. But remember, most of it is cummulative. Approximately 50% of the fluorine ingested, remains and accumulates in the body.
–Fluoride cannot be removed from drinking water with a charcoal filter; and reverse-osmosis filters only remove 40-60% of the fluoride because of the infinitely soluble form of hydrofluorosilicic acid. Steam distilling process will remove most of the fluoride. Boiling water for soup, coffee, tea or other drink, only concentrates fluoride.
–Approximately 1,200 mg (1.2 grams) of sodium fluoride (“just a pinch”) will kill an adult human being. That was the low estimate that Dominic Smith ingested when he died from an overdose of fluoridated water at Hooper Bay, Alaska on 23 May 1992. (Approximately 200 mg will kill a small child.)
–In the fluoridation process at the water treatment plant, fluoride is added to our water supply at the rate of one part per million, or 1 milligram per liter. One milligram is the daily intended “target dose” of this medicine, for each child under 14 years of age whose teeth haven’t yet fully formed. (Adults and pets supposedly don’t count in this equation, even though they also receive their own fluoride in extremely unreliable and varying dosages.) Therefore, for every 400 liters of water supplied to us, a full 400 milligrams of fluoride is added to the water supply. However, since only 1 milligram of that amount (one liter of water) is swallowed, 399 milligrams of excess fluoride literally gets flushed down into the sewer or sprayed out onto the ground as a fully legal toxic waste dumping ground. (And we pay $400.00 for just $1.00 worth of medicine.) Since we even bought the toxic waste, that’s quite profitable for whomever manufactured and sold it, but not very healthy for Mother Earth.
Bedrock Industries
"Crafted entirely from post-industrial and post-consumer glass; we add no additional oxides or colorants. Each tile is handmade from unique combinations of glass that give our tiles their distinctive appearance and subtle color variation….shows how beautiful sustainability can be."
Bed, Bath & Beyond
Untreated cotton, organic cotton (percale and flannel–in solid colors), and bamboo twill sheet sets online and in stores. I can’t link to the specific pages, so use their search engine to type in “all-natural sheet sets,” “organic,” and “bamboo”. Good prices.
Bear Creek Candle Company
Hand-dipped tapers and poured votives and tins made with “pure unrefined beeswax.” Hand-rolled honeycomb candles made with pure beeswax honeycomb foundation, manufactured for use in beehives as the base upon which the bees build their honeycombs. Beeswax Aromatherapy Candles are scented only with Aromatherapy Grade Pure Essential Oils, “nature’s own, soft and sweet as a walk through a fragrant garden.” 100% cotton wicks.
Battery Solutions
Will accept all types of batteries for recycling from residential and business customers. For a small one-time fee, they will ship you a container that you ship back when it is full of spent batteries. After the initial fee, you pay for shipping and a small recycling fee based on the type of batteries you've sent. A small price to pay to keep toxic metals out of our landfills.
Latex Mattress Allergy
Question from Leslie
Hi, the Sealy website says that the latex layers in their innerspring mattresses are petroleum-based latex — not the natural. They claim that it’s the natural latex that people with latex allergies react to.
Debra – is this true? I’ve got a severe latex allergy (can’t walk through a mattress store if they’ve got the natural latex mattresses on display (don’t know about the petroleum based).
I understand and agree with all the significant issues in a toxic mattress, and the issues with petroleum-based items, but right now, I’m just looking to resolve the latex allergy problem
Many thanks.
Debra’s Answer
My understanding is that latex allergy is to natural latex.
Crib And Mattress Question
Question from singing tomato
Dear Debra,
after research we decided to replace our 7.5 months daughter’s crib with a safer one from Pacific Rim.
My question is: should we also replace her mattress as well? we have been using an organic cotton one from Naturepedic and we are really happy with it. But I am worried if the mattress could have accumulated toxics from the crib? Is this possible or am I overworrying?
Our old crib is from 100% solid wood with no veneer or laminate compnenets and with non toxic finish.
Thank you in advance and thank yiou for the wonderful blog..
A worrying mom
Debra’s Answer
A mattress or any porous fabric product can absorb chemicals from the surrounding environment, but they also can release absorbed chemicals.
I don’t think you need to replace your mattress. Just give it a good airing outdoors in the sunshine, a day on each side.
New And Safe Sofa
Question from singing tomato
Dear Debra,
After reading about the health concerns about the use of flame retardants in upholstery furniture we decided to buy new ones.
Since our bugdet is tight we have 4 options:
1. keeping the sofa and loveseat which we bought 3-4 years ago and are 100% from polyester. Do you think that because we bought the in 2006 the worst may be over and we may be ok?
2. Viesso, which you don’t mention on the list but are eco friendly. Their furniture is customizable and they use eco natural latex foam as a filling . I already contated them and they said they use no fire retardants, no formaldehyde.
3. Furnature, which you mention on the list and use natural rubber but are a lot more expensive than Viesso.
Debra’s Answer
Viesso is not on Debra’s List due to technical difficulties I’ve been having with adding new entries. But I am about to be able to add new links and Viesso is on my list to add.
1. Your existing sofa and loveseat has outgassed some and the worst is over. But it has not outgassed completely.
2. & 3. Natural latex and natural rubber are the same thing, both from the rubber tree. I will just say, though, that various chemicals are generally used to turn the natural latex into foam, and also all the latex foam I have ever seen has an odor I personally cannot tolerate, but others seem to do fine with it. So I strongly suggest getting a sample of the foam before committing to the furniture.
4. If all you are concerned about are the fire retardants, then this option would be fine. You don’t mention what the other materials are.
Food Combining Made All The Difference
Question from SVE
Debra, I’ve made a major breakthrough in regard to my diet which consists of all (except one) organic, simple foods.
I’ve had food allergies (30 + years) and am presently on a five-day rotation diet. Problems for me cropped up consistently on two of the five days. I’m not allergic to any of my foods so this was a mystery. I searched the internet and found “Food Combining” as illustrated in this chart: at www.alderbrooke.com/chart.php
I began combining foods as shown on this chart and it definitely works for me. I’m still eating my same foods, but I’ve changed my meals to following basic recommendations for food combining.
One example: I was eating fruit along with meat for two of my five breakfasts. Six to eight hours later, I would experience very uncomfortable digestive symptoms (for two plus hours!).
I was desperate to find out why this was happening, searched and finally found within several food combining websites that fruit is easily digested, but meat is not. When the fruit sits waiting for the meat to get digested, it “ferments!” Alcohol is one of the possible substances that can form in a person’s digestive system in a case like this. If the fruit had been eaten alone, there would not have been a problem. I’m now eating my fruit meals alone!
Have you, Debra, or has anyone else found food combining to be of help?
Debra’s Answer
I tried food combining many years ago, and while I no longer adhere to it strictly, I tend to eat meals of vegetables and protein, and eat fruit separately as a snack.
Problems With Growing Tomatoes
Question from trina
dear debra, can you help me with my tomatoes , they are always looking sick after a while and get a yellowing and browning off of the bottom leaves after a while they all get the disesse and die. what if anything can i do that is organic and safe too stop this dissease. ? thank you trina
Debra’s Answer
I’ve grown a lot of tomatoes. In California, we grew them up lattice on the side of a deck that was ten feet above the ground, and they would grow all the way up to the top of the deck. Around September we would pick tomatoes from the deck and not even go down to the garden.
Here in Florida, we’ve had varying success as we learn this new climate. This year our tomato plants are doing better than in past years.
We have problems here with nematodes, and so we find it more successful to grow tomatoes in pots or hanging baskets than planting them in the ground.
Also, tomatoes are heavy feeders. In California, we used to put fish heads under each tomato plant when we planted it. Then we would sprinkle lots of black pepper around the plants to keep our cat and other animals from digging up the fish heads.
I’m not sure what disease your tomatoes have. You might be able to get some help from a local organic nursery or garden club.
