Healthy Living, Naturally

Did you know that many ingredients in common cleaners, even "green" cleaning products, have been linked to allergies, asthma, and other long-term effects like reproductive harm and cancer? Chemicals found in cleaning solutions may be impacting the way our hormones work by either mimicking estrogen, androgen or thyroid hormones, or by stimulating or blocking production of these hormones when the chemical is absorbed into our bodies.

While it is true that small amounts of chemicals found in these products may not pose a problem in isolated instances, it's important to keep in mind that there is a cumulative effect. And like it or not, cleaning our homes just happens to be one of the things we do regularly. 

According to the EPA, our greatest exposure to toxic chemicals is right in our own homes. And without proper ventilation, chemicals undoubtedly accumulate, especially in rooms where the windows stay closed. So, here are a few tips to keep in mind: Read more...

Every parent has made that quick move; your baby's pacifier drops onto the floor, into the dirt, under the stroller and a few seconds later, with the help of some hearty parent spit, that pacifier is good to go and popped back into an open and waiting mouth for more sucking comfort.

New research sheds some interesting light on that impulse. 

A recent small study in Sweden (and published in the journal Pediatrics) has taken a closer look at the benefits of self cleaning your baby's pacifier. 184 Swedish babies who were particularly allergy-prone (at least one parent with allergies) were studied regularly by a pediatric allergist, starting at birth and checked via phone calls and exams over a 3 year period. Read more...

Last week, we wrote about what's involved in the making of a plastic water bottle. As a quick reminder, consumers are really (and obviously) mainly paying for the plastic water bottle itself when they choose to buy a disposable, single-use plastic water bottle...equaling 90% of the cost. That's quite a bit of unnecessary oil that could be used for far better purposes than a quick answer to thirst. We also talked about the inevitable opportunity for a plastic water bottle to be contaminated during manufacturing, as that's just chance in a complicated process.

Why take a chance? Read more...

Ahh.. the 80's introduced us to leg warmers, perms, velour and stirrup/hammer pants. This decade also brought us another doozy: the disposable plastic water bottle. Though the trend towards "needing" bottled water took another decade to take shape. But that trend is on the downside as folks learn more and more about the negative impact that plastic water bottle drinking poses to our own health and that of our planet's.

When you buy a bottle of water made of plastic, 90% of the cost of this bottle comes from making the plastic bottle itself. How so? Well, to produce each plastic bottle takes the equivalent of filling 1/4 of the bottle with oil. And then to make the 29 billion bottles purchased every year in the US, the oil bill climbs to 17 million barrels of crude oil. Per year! For something we use briefly and just once. That's enough oil to fuel 1,000,000 cars for a year. And then even more to ship it around.

And that's just the beginning.  Read more...

Happy Earth Day! 

At MightyNest, we believe that creating a healthy home is the foundation of a healthy Earth. Our purpose is to help families create healthy, safe and nontoxic homes that are free of known toxins. For us, it all starts with avoiding the many harmful chemicals that are present in synthetic materials.  There are over 80,000 synthetic chemicals present in products on the market today and a higher volume of them are produced each year. Of those, less than 20% have been tested for their toxicity. That's certainly an unsettling number. It is still unclear what the long-term consequences of some of these chemicals will pose to our health and the health of our children. And yet, chemicals are all around us so we can't entirely avoid them, but we can make informed decisions to reduce our exposure. That is what MightyNest is all about. We're here to empower you to do the same for your family. Read more...

Many years ago, out of the blue, I developed the itchiest rash I had ever experienced. It was like a switch turned on and my skin (mainly my arms and legs) felt on fire. In order to not scratch them like mad, I resorted to slathering on all sorts of anti-itch creams, aloe, benedryl. But the itching persisted and I became more and more filled with anxiety. Hives? I had had a bout earlier in my life..maybe that was it. Dust mites? My mom was convinced that I was experiencing an allergic reaction to mites and a good dust mite mattress cover would solve this itching crisis. Bedbugs? I had just moved to NYC...

There was no time to hypothesize. I went to my family doctor. His first question: "Did you change laundry detergents?" And then he added, "Did you use a dryer sheet?"

I did.  Read more...

Since Teflon pans have been relegated to the very back burner, this leaves many folks wondering "what's the alternative?" And "how do I know which product to choose?" We certainly understand this confusion and the hesitation about switching to a new way of cooking. It's a common feeling that we grow attached to certain methods of cooking, our cooking tools and the way our favorite foods taste.

You've probably heard of clay pans (yup, we're giving one away below but keep reading about why you'd want one!) making their way into kitchens as a healthy replacement for Teflon. More and more, people are replacing non-stick cookware (which is lined with harmful chemicals - read here for more info on Teflon) for non-reactive cookware made of inherently safe materials like clay and glass. Ceramic cookware is inert and emits a far-infrared heat, an effective and beneficial heat for cooking, enabling a full range of subtle flavors to emerge. Read more...

Washing dishes may not be everyone's favorite chore. But I have to admit, I actually enjoy washing dishes....as long as they're other people's dishes. You see, I really appreciate everyday objects and specifically, their form and function. So, while washing other people's dishes, I take notice of the design, the quality, the form. And I wonder about their origins: Handmade? Hand-me-down? From far away travels? A wedding gift? 

And there is a meditative element in the time spent washing dishes, at least when it's not rushed or when "doing dishes" with someone else. A friend of my mother's once shrieked at the sight of my bare hands scrubbing pots after Thanksgiving dinner. She was horrified that I didn't have gloves on and warned that I would pay for this habit later in life with wrinkly, rough hands. At the time, I was a full time potter and my hands stayed in a bucket of water for most of the day. Too late now for non-working hands. Read more...