Design Your Well Life
Intentionally design a lifestyle that promotes healthy and clean choices.
Learn what it means to truly design a well life - a life that nurtures your Body, Environment, Mind, Spirit, and Relationships.
Whether you're curious about reducing your toxic burden, creating a home that heals, or finding balance in your everyday routines, this podcast is for you. I'll share design recommendations, personal insights, and inspiring interviews with experts and real people on their own healing journeys.
Design Your Well Life
Healthy Home Highlight - Plastics
A bonus highlight on plastic, why are microplastics dangerous, and what to use instead.
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Welcome to this week's Healthy Home Highlight. We're talking about plastic. Do you know how much plastic you use each day? You'll be so surprised with what you find it in. Now, we can all name things like plastic baggies, water bottles, and tupperware, but did you know that plastic is in gum, paper cups, toothpaste, and sunscreen? It's a big task to get plastic out of your home, but the key is to do it slowly and start replacing one thing at a time. I would recommend doing a self evaluation. What do you use the most each day, and is it made of plastic? If you answer yes, then start by replacing that, and move on to the next big thing. But, let's back up a little. Why the big deal about plastic, and why should we stop using it? According to Laura Lopez Gonzalez, a microplastics researcher from UCSF,"chemicals like BPA, phthalates, and PFAS can mimic human hormones". Now, that's the body's chemical messengers that control things like reproduction, growth, and metabolism. It's been shown that exposure to these substances has also increased the risk of everything from infertility to poor fetal development and even cancer. Microplastics also contain toxins from the chemicals that were used in their production, which then creates exposure and potential absorption of these as well. So Laura goes on to say,"more than 80, 000 registered chemicals are used commercially in the U. S. But, less than a dozen are regulated". Can you believe that? So now you're trying to get all the plastics out of your home. But what are safe things that you can replace them with? For me, I drink a lot of water each day, and the biggest impact was not using plastic water bottles anymore. January 8th, 2024, about a year ago, the NIH published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that researchers found, on average, a liter of bottled water included 240, 000 tiny pieces of plastic. Now, 90 percent of these plastic fragments were nanoplastics, and remember from the last episode that nanoplastics are small enough to breach cell barriers in your body. This total amount that they found was 10 to 100 times more plastic particles than seen in the earlier studies, which mostly focused on the larger microplastics. So what do you do? I bring a reusable glass water bottle with me everywhere I go. Find a glass water bottle with either a glass or stainless steel straw. Most of the glass water bottles even have a silicone sleeve that helps to protect the glass. Now, you may be wondering about stainless steel, and stainless steel water bottle can also be a really great choice. However, they still contain a lot of plastic parts, like the lid and the straw, so just be cautious of that. Fill it with filtered water and take it along wherever you go. Most places you visit will have a water refill station where you can refill your own bottle. I'll link to a couple of my favorite glass bottles on Amazon. I also made sure to get rid of all of my plastic cups and replace them with drinking glasses. Aesthetically, I really love a drinking glass with a thicker weighted bottom. Or, right now, I'm really loving the look of hobnail glasses, which add a beautiful texture to a table setting. I also have a great set of on the go drinking glasses that have bamboo lids and glass straws. They're perfect for smoothies and electrolytes when I'm quickly trying to head out the door. I'll link to those as well. Now, my next big move was to replace my storage containers. I either use food grade silicone, Glass or Carraway ceramic containers. I use the Carraway containers for my lunch every day. Now, keep in mind, Carraway ceramic containers do have a plastic lid, but I never keep it on the container when I reheat, and I don't let it touch the food. Carraway also just came out with some mini ceramic containers, and I love the colors. But nothing beats a clear glass storage container with a bamboo lid. They look beautiful in your fridge and you can see what's inside. Now, speaking of lunches and packing lunches for kids, a great replacement for baggies is Lunchkins recyclable paper bags. They even have a sticky seal to close the bag. They come with cute patterns on them, are non toxic, and have no plastics. We love using these for packing snacks or sandwiches for everyone's lunch. Now, whenever I have the choice, I always prefer a glass plate to eat from or reheat food on. And speaking of reheating food, there is a great glass microwave cover that has venting. It looks great, and you can see the food as it reheats in the microwave. But back to plates. When you are having a big event and need something disposable, make sure you look for uncoated, compostable paper plates. Yes. Even paper plates are coated with plastic. You don't want to reheat or especially cut on top of those. The brand of paper plates I recommend is called EcoVita. They hold up really well, they're completely recyclable, and even better, they're made from bamboo fiber which regenerates quickly so they're not cutting down trees in order to make paper plates. And just like paper plates, Paper cups and aluminum soda cans even have a plastic coating on the inside. I recommend a similar solution as the water bottle. Find your favorite stainless steel or ceramic hot beverage cup and take it with you. Now, finally to the gum and toothpaste. Can you believe it? These two surprise people the most. It shocked me when I heard it. When you look at the ingredients on the gum package, the ingredient known as gum base in the list on the chewing gum is largely made of polyvinyl acetate. The FDA says that these plastics are just fine to chew. However, knowing about microplastics, I personally stay away. If you want to try a gum without plastic, try True Gum or Simply Gum. I actually don't chew gum because of the added sugars, but if gum is your thing, try and get it without the plastic. And check that toothpaste! Many toothpastes have microbeads which are made of plastic to help clean the teeth. It seems like we just can't get away from added plastic in anything that we use, My two favorite clean toothpaste brands that also don't use plastic are Dr. Bronner's Peppermint All in One Toothpaste and Just Ingredients Remineralizing Tooth Powder. I'll go into the tooth powder a little more in future episodes, but it's pretty great. Part of design is to create an environment that supports positive lifestyle changes. Moving away from plastics and incorporating quality pieces that are made to last is a great way to introduce functional and beautiful pieces into your surroundings that also keep you and your family healthy. Thanks for listening to this week's Healthy Home Highlight.