Question from jiwaskow

Does anyone know if Green Board carried by Home Depot is typically tolerated or not by people with chemical sensitivities? We built with block construction to avoid using drywall or insulation on our exterior walls, but the original builder didn’t line up the windows and blocks properly and they need to be trimmed with something. The new builder is suggested Green Board. I don’t know enough about it though.

Opinions and even other material ideas welcome. He said cement board, which we’re using in the bathrooms, would be too heavy and expensive.

Thanks!

Debra’s Answer

I don’t recommend greenboard. I haven’t researched what it in it, but it has an odor and tends to disintegrate.

Is this a big space that needs to be filled in? Can you fill the space with mortar?

P.S. I just noticed in another post there is a product called Green e-Board. Are you talking about this or standard greenboard that is used instead of cement backerboard?

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Question from ep

I am a mother of a toddler and an infant. I buy mostly organic produce but am having a harder time affording to do this lately. I have noticed that instead of buying produce that is not organic, I’m just buying less. I feel torn because I know the importance of feeding fresh fruits and vegetables to my family but I can’t bring myself to feed them food with pesticides. I am familiar with the “dirty dozen” but even those are expensive to buy organic. Can you comment on this dilema? Do I reduce the amount of produce we eat or start serving some fruits and veggies that are not organic?

Debra’s Answer

That is a dilemma I think a lot of people are facing today.

The way I look at it is, produce has benefits from the nutrients and fiber, and hazards from the pesticides. Organic is obviously best because you get the benefits without the hazards.

The question is this: is the benefit of the nutrients greater than the harm from the pesticides? That might be difficult to asses because we don’t know the nutrient value of any given sample of produce, nor the pesticides used.

If you buy the freshest, locally grown produce, it will have more nutrients, even if it is not organic.

You can reduce the cost of organic produce by purchasing fruits and vegetables in season, shopping at farmer’s markets, or joining a Community Supported Agriculture program.

And growing your own, if you can is most nutritious and affordable of all.

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Question from ep

Someone cleaned my microwave with an all purpose cleaner by 7th Generation. I cannot get the smell of the cleaner out and I’m afraid the scent and/or chemicals left behind are leaching into our food when we use the microwave. It has been a couple of months, and I’m still smelling it. I’ve tried to clean it with soap and hot water and have tried boiling lemon water in the microwave but nothing has helped. Is this odor harmful for our food and can you suggest what I can do to get rid of the odor?

Debra’s Answer

This doesn’t sound right to me. The odor shouldn’t linger that long.

I would contact Seventh Generation and ask them how to solve the problem.

Better yet, stop using your microwave.

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Question from sedgesprite13

Yesterday, the man came to put new soffets and gutters on our garage. After he left, we discovered he had cut the soffets next to our organic veggie garden. There were tiny, like confetti, bits all over the carrot patch. We bagged up the carrots and the top inches of the soil but may have missed a few metal bits. Did we do the right thing? Is any area the bits fell poisoned? There are lots of them in the lawn but that is too big an area to dig up! Help!!!

Debra’s Answer

I’m not really concerned about this. Over time, the metal may leach into the soil, but it would be very slow.

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Question from Jenna

Do you know of a powerful food blender that actually has a glass container as opposed to plastic?

Debra’s Answer

I don’t know of one. Readers, do you?

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We all know to avoid clear plastic water bottles because they leach endocrine-disruptor BPA into the water, but what about the alternatives?

A new study by the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine was done to find out whether or not water bottles claiming to be “BPA-free” really are. The researchers used old (but unused) polycarbonate and resin-lined aluminum bottles that they had put in storage several years earlier, along with new BPA-free “Tritan” plastic bottles (by Nalgene), stainless steel bottles (by Sigg) and new “EcoCare” resin-lined aluminum bottles (by Sigg). They also purchased some new aluminum water bottles.

Room-temperature water was storied in three bottles of each type for five days and another set of bottles was filled with boiling water (and then let the water cool to room temperature over the next day).

Levels of BPA were below the limit of detection for the new Sigg and Nalgene bottles.

The old polycarbonate bottles leached 0.17 to 0.3 nanograms of BPA per milliliter of water during the room temperature tests. The old aluminum bottles with an epoxy-resin liner leached 0.59 to 0.14 nanograms per milliliter.

Brand-new epoxy-resin-lined aluminum water bottles leached up to six times more BPA than the worst-leaching polycarbonate bottle and more than 10 times as much BPA as the polycarbonate-plastic bottle that had leached the least.

Hot water quadrupled BPA leaching over what occurred when water had been kept at or below room temperature.

The bottles that had been sold as BPA-free in fact did not leach the steroid-hormone-mimicking pollutant.

Source: Science News: Metal Water Bottles May Leach BPA