Happy!
by Minty LaVendy
Declutter for a happy kitchen
Three excellent reasons to "declutter" your kitchen.
1- According to Feng Shui principles, to prevent energy from
becoming stagnant in your home do not keep objects that
are not being used.
2- Some of your kitchenware is toxic: Aluminum leaches in your
food and can cause issues such as Elzheimer disease.
Plastic is toxic for your health and for theenvironment, plastics
containing BPA , an endocrine disruptivetoxin, can cause several
health issues,
3-The more things you have in your kitchen ,the more time you
will have to spend to clean and organize it all.
When you realize that only good things can come out of your "decluttering" operation, it will motivate you. Tackle one cabinet at a time: empty it completely, remove anything you don't use or you have in double, anything plastic or aluminum and put back only those items you use regularly (or the one you need for parties or holidays.) This operation should eliminate a good third of what you own. Some plastic and aluminum items will have to be replaced by their equivalent in wood, glass or stainless steel. you could give anything that can be reused to Good Will, it will score you extra Karma points and help the environment, unless you are planning a garage sale, (some people would buy plastic anyway, it is better if they get your recycled items than buying new one and up the production of plastic.) I like to always leave an extra empty space on a shelf or in a drawer just to get the good feeling that there is plenty of space. The same goes for the pantry: make sure you have those items used the more often on hand, you can organize with glass jars and bamboo containers instead of plastic. It is so much prettier too, once you find a good system you will never have to reorganize this cabinet anymore. It worked for me.
Plastics and BPA.
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Plastics are slowly invading our everyday life, we have already established that they are wrecking havoc on our environment, just that is a good enough reason to limit our consumption of plastics.
Here is an even more compelling reason to remove all plastics from your kitchen:
A while back we all heard in the headlines that some type of plastic toys and baby bottles contained BPA it started to concern mothers and in consequence the baby bottle makers removed BPA from their products. Soon the headlines about BPA faded and only the toy and the baby bottle industry seemed affected.
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What is BPA?
Bisphenol A is a chemical compound used to keep plastics clear and flexible, its use is widespread but it is more commonly found in the liner of food and soda cans, in the big water bottles used for water fountains, as a coating on the surface of sales receipts and in any plastics marked with code 3 or 7. The items I just mentioned are unfortunately present in our everyday life.
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What are the effects of BPA on the human body?
The main problem is that BPA is an endocrine disruptor, it means that when ingested it mimics the actions of our hormones, it mainly affects estrogen receptors and have been linked to obesity, drug addiction, attention deficit, hyperactivity, cancer... do I need to go on or did I make my point already?
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What is the authorities's position on BPA?
The FDA says that BPA is safe in low doses, I am not sure what is a low dose, do the doses accumulate day after day or not? Other countries have different positions, France for example passed a low banning BPA from all food containers, this law will be enforced starting in 2015.
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What is my position on BPA?
I am not going to get into scientific details or into all the different controversies. All I know is that anything that affects hormones is measured in microscopic amounts and that I am not willing to take any chance with my precious family.
The sad reality is that very little of all the chemicals present in all the plastics have been tested and I prefer to stay on the safe side by assuming that any plastic container is not safe for food.
Aluminum.
A lot of cheap kitchenware are made of aluminum, it is a cheaper and lighter alternative to steel, but it does not compare in quality and safety. If you ever cooked scrambled eggs in an aluminum pan you noticed that the more you stir the eggs the more they take on a greenish tinge, this is due to the particles of aluminum transferring to the food. There are several controversial scientific studies about the effect of aluminum on health, this metal has been blamed for Alzheimer disease, osteoporosis, depletion of the body in phosphorus as well as cancer and infertility. I am not qualified to comment on the validity of the different studies but I did notice that aluminum indeed transferred to the food that was in physical contact with it, for me this is enough to avoid aluminum altogether. I don't need extra ingredients in my food.
Beware: Aluminum is also present in some baking powders and deodorants.
Detox with plants.
Plants inside your home help to purify the air and filter out a lot of chemicals by absorbing them. The boston fern and dwarf date palm are a good choice as they will clean your air of formaldehyde, toluene, xylene and are not toxic to cat. The areca palm will absorb toluene and xylene. These are my favorite as they are not toxic to cats. However it is better to keep plants away from the bedrooms as they release CO2 at night. For a full list chemical absorbing plants refer to the following link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air-filtering_plants
this is just me! Trying to feed my family organic food, detoxify our home and teach our children simple, spiritual values. Well...it sounds beautiful, doesn'it?, it is not always the picture perfect family one can imagine, it is a crazy bunch, but we take it one day at a time and try to have fun in the process......
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