Discovering Where Toxins Come From (And How to Avoid Them!): Keeping toxins out of your food, Making sure your water is toxin-free and Breathing clean, toxin-free air.

Discovering Where Toxins Come From (And How to Avoid Them!)

In This Chapter

▶ Keeping toxins out of your food

▶ Making sure your water is toxin-free

▶ Breathing clean, toxin-free air

The toxins that surround us today are many and varied, but the ways in which those toxins enter our bodies are limited to three main routes: our

food, our drinking water, and the air we breathe. If you want to live a truly detoxified life, all you have to do is make certain that every morsel of food you eat, every drop of water you drink, and every breath of air you take are toxin free! As you may imagine, that’s very difficult to achieve, but if you do you’ll be rewarded with a healthier life.

In this chapter, I offer insight on how toxins assault you through food, water, and air. I let you know how toxins end up in these three places, explain a little about what they can do to your body in certain situations, and provide useful tips on how you can avoid eating, drinking, and breathing toxins.

Hungering to Understand Toxins in Food

The food you choose to eat is one of the most important factors — some people would argue the most important — in determining your overall health. It’s such an old cliché, but you really are what you eat. If you want to be toxin free, you have to eat toxin free (or at least as toxin free as possible).

In this section, I tackle a couple key questions:

✓ How does food end up loaded with toxins?

✓ What basic steps can you take to avoid toxins in food?

You may be shocked by the many toxic hurdles that your food has to clear before it ends up on your dinner table, but after reading about all the potentially toxic influences you probably won’t be surprised to find out that quite a lot of your food contains some sort of dangerous material. And you’re sure to wonder — if you don’t already — how you can begin to take steps to limit the amount of toxin-filled food that ends up on your plate. That’s why I finish this section with some very basic recommendations for how you can start that process. (I dive into much more detail on that topic in several of the chapters you can find in Part II.)

Digging up details about toxins in soil

Soil is the starting point for a huge number of food products that we eat today. The plants that make up a substantial part of our diets — from basic grains to exotic fruits — get their start in the soil. And plenty of the other materials we consume, such as meats, either eat plants that were grown in soil, are in constant contact with soil, or both. Good ol’ dirt really is the starting point for a lot of the calories we take in every day.

The troubling part about the importance of soil in helping to grow and sup- port the things we eat is the fact that soil can be extremely toxic. Many thousands of tons of toxic materials are released directly onto the earth each year, and many thousands more make their way to the soil after first being pumped into the air or into bodies of water.

When it comes to toxins in the soil, one of the top offenders is a group of substances that are supposedly added to the soil to improve the food we eat: fertilizers. Fertilizers can contain all sorts of toxic materials, and the ways in which these materials end up in common fertilizers may cause you to cringe.

One example is the practice of mixing industrial wastes into fertilizers. Yes, you read that right: Industrial waste is sometimes “recycled” and used as a component in fertilizer. The general idea behind this process is that some industrial byproducts, including zinc and nitrogen, are key ingredients in certain types of fertilizer. So instead of trying to dispose of the byproducts, why not just use them to create the fertilizers that make our soil more productive? Well, for starters, the byproducts don’t contain only zinc and nitrogen. They can also contain toxins like the heavy metals that I explain in Chapter 2.

You may wonder how this practice is allowed to continue. Put simply, some people argue that the amounts of toxins in the industrial waste that eventually ends up in the soil aren’t necessarily any higher than the levels that are normally found in the soil. (Remember that many toxins, particularly heavy metals, do exist in nature in small amounts.) But the truth is that we don’t fully understand what this practice is doing to our soil and to our food, and there’s no question that the fertilizers are much more toxic than what naturally occurs in soil.

You may also be wondering why farmers would knowingly add toxins to the soil through the use of fertilizers. The truth is that many fertilizers don’t list the toxic materials they contain because fertilizer producers aren’t required to list all the ingredients used to make their products — only the active ingredients that make plants grow faster or bigger.

Another fertilizer-related source of toxins in our soil are biosolids: the waste materials removed from our water at water treatment plants. Biosolids are commonly sold or given away for use as fertilizer. The idea is that the biosolids are a somewhat more natural alternative to chemical fertilizers, which is all well and good. The problem is that biosolids have their own toxic components, like hormones, detergents, pesticides, carcinogens, antibiotics, and other pharmaceuticals. Basically, anything that ends up in our water supply can end up in biosolids, and that includes plenty of toxins. When you get right down to it, biosolids aren’t really a more natural alternative to chemical fertilizers.

Investigating insecticides and pesticides

The use of pesticides on fruit and vegetable crops can often result in increased amounts of dangerous toxins in your food. (Pesticides are chemicals used to kill insects, fungi, and even rodents.) The goal of most pesticides is to wipe out pests but not harm other living things. Unfortunately, the majority of pesticides contain toxins that endanger the health or even the lives of many animals — humans included.

Children are especially vulnerable to the toxins in pesticides, even when amounts are extremely small. If you’re buying or serving food for kids, try to cut down on the amount of pesticides that end up on their fruits and vegetables. Check out Chapter 7 for details.

Pesticides contain so many different toxic ingredients that poisoning can affect any body system. The most common effects are on the nerves: Acute poisoning can cause tremors, shakes, and severe psychiatric and behavioral changes, not to mention brain tumors. And you don’t have to be exposed to a large amount of these types of toxins to get sick from them. Very small doses over a long period of time can result in severe damage to your health. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that in the next 70 years, pesticide residue on food will cause 1 million additional cases of cancer in the United States.

More than 3,000 active toxic ingredients are used in pesticides, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) records show more than 100,000 registered pesticide products in the United States. That massive number includes pesticides that are used on the largest farms down to the pesticides you buy for your lawn or garden.

If you want to buy pesticides to use on your garden at home, make sure you know which pesticides are the most dangerous. How? Pay close attention to pesticide labels. Pesticide products each have one of three labels, as follows:

✓ Caution: Mildly toxic. Anything more than an ounce is a lethal dose for a human. (Even smaller amounts will kill a child.)

✓ Warning: Medium toxicity for a pesticide. A teaspoon to a tablespoon is enough to kill an adult.

✓ Danger: Highly toxic. A very small amount is enough to kill an adult.

(Look for the skull and crossbones symbol to identify a pesticide in the “Danger” category.)

I strongly suggest cutting out the use of pesticides at home. You can find natural, nontoxic products that will rid your house and yard of pests; a quick online search will yield several options. But if you choose to use chemical pesticides, please try to stick to products in the “Caution” category.

Of course, most of the food you eat doesn’t come from your garden, so what can you do to ensure that you’re limiting the amount of pesticide toxins that ends up on your food? You can take several steps, from washing fruits and vegetables thoroughly to making wise decisions when you’re buying your food. I include suggestions at the end of this chapter, and you can find more detail in Chapter 7.

Picking out problems with processed food

When I talk about processed food, I mean food products created using practices that range from genetic modification to food additives. To me, processing includes anything that’s done to food outside of natural conditions. And at this point, all kinds of strange and dangerous things are done to our food long before we take a bite.

Genetic modification

The processing of food starts very early, even before the food is grown or raised. Genetic modification, which involves tinkering with a plant or animal’s genes to make it easier to grow as a food source, is done on about 70 percent of the food in the average grocery store. Genetically modified foods aren’t usually created to provide better nutrition but rather to increase production (so we can grow more tomatoes or raise more beef, for example).

I know it doesn’t sound like such a bad thing to grow more food, but we don’t fully understand the long-term effects that genetically modified foods can have on our bodies. For example, some vegetables are genetically modified to cause them to produce a toxin that acts as a pesticide so insects and other critters aren’t as likely to feast on the crops. There’s currently a debate on what effect that toxin can have on humans when the vegetables eventually end up on our plates. At the very least, I think we can all agree that what’s going on is not a natural process, and there’s real potential for negative effects on our health that we don’t yet fully understand. For a much more detailed discussion of this subject, see Chapter 6.

Food additives

In total, food companies add 2,800 substances to their products in an effort to save a buck, boost sales, and ensure that their food will last on the store shelves for a very long time. If I covered all 2,800 of these substances here, your shelf life probably wouldn’t be enough to get through them all. So instead I provide a snapshot of some of the toxins that are intentionally added to processed foods:

✓ Aspartame: One of the most toxic substances we are exposed to nearly every day, aspartame is a blend of toxic chemicals that’s used as a sugar substitute in processed foods. You can find it in everything from diet soft drinks to chewing gum. It took the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 16 years to approve aspartame, and now millions of pounds of it are added to our food each year.

Aspartame can act as an excitotoxin — a chemical that causes nerve cells to fire rapidly. Some studies have shown that excitotoxins cause nerve cells to fire so unusually fast that they do themselves irreparable harm.

This substance can cause dizziness, visual impairment, disorientation, muscle aches, numbness, and more. At 86 degrees Fahrenheit, aspartame breaks down into wood alcohol, formaldehyde, and then formic acid — all toxic. Some women also report that aspartame worsens the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

Aspartame is often used as a sugar substitute in so-called “diet foods,” even though no conclusive evidence links aspartame (or any other sugar substitute, for that matter) to weight loss.

✓ BHT: You don’t need to know the long chemical name that is abbreviated as BHT, but you do need to know that it’s a common additive in many processed foods. In many ways the jury is still out on BHT, but the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is an arm of the World Health Organization, considers BHT to be a possible carcinogen. To me, even a possible carcinogen is worth avoiding.

✓ High fructose corn syrup: This is a big one. High fructose corn syrup has become the primary sweetener in all kinds of foods, from soft drinks to cereals. You’d have a hard time walking more than a foot down any grocery store aisle before running into a food that includes it. Unfortunately, high fructose corn syrup contains mercury, which is one of the worst toxins for humans and one that I write about quite a bit in this book. This chemical form of fructose has also been linked to tooth decay, migraines, diabetes, obesity, and cancer. My advice is to start cutting down on the amount of high fructose corn syrup you’re eating and drinking now, and keep cutting down until you’re consuming very little or none of it.

✓ Monosodium glutamate (MSG): A huge range of processed foods include MSG — an additive that enhances food taste. MSG is an excitotoxin that can cause symptoms like nausea, cramps, dizziness, rash, heart palpitations, numbness, and even mood swings and confusion.

✓ Olestra: Olestra is essentially a fake fat. It’s used in place of fat in processed foods to make the nutritional information look a little better for people who are trying to lose a few pounds (although no evidece proves it can help with dieting). How does it work? Simple: Olestra molecules are too big for our digestive systems to absorb, so this substance just moves on down the line instead of ending up in our bodies like normal fats. But here’s the problem: You must have some real fats in your diet for you to absorb key vitamins like A, D, E, and K, not to mention carotenoids (nutrients that protect us from cancer).

✓ Sodium benzoate: This substance is a food preservative and a common additive in soft drinks. Also known as benzoic acid, it is thought to form benzene in soft drinks, especially when it can combine with vitamin C. Benzene is a very nasty toxin and a known carcinogen.

✓ Splenda: Splenda is another artificial sweetener that can cause toxic effects. It’s made by adding chlorine to a natural sugar. The result is a material in the same chemical family as DDT and chlordane — two extremely toxic substances. Studies conducted on animals have shown Splenda to cause swelling and damage to the liver in moderate doses, as well as tumors in some animals.

When food additives are evaluated to figure out how toxic they can be for the human body, they’re tested one at a time. This is a real problem because just like most other toxic situations, the combination of two or more food additives can multiply the toxic effects of all the additives. In other words, the food additive combo can be more toxic than the sum of its parts! For example, if certain blue food colorings (which you can read about next) are added to MSG, the toxic effect is seven times as potent as it would be if the additives were kept separate. And remember than many processed foods contain several additives, so it’s not uncommon to find a toxic mix in a single product.

Food coloring

Artificial food coloring may make processed foods look bright and (for some strange reason) appetizing, but the toxins that make up these additives don’t belong in your body. Most artificial food colors are derived from coal tar

and petroleum. It doesn’t take a nutritionist to tell you that coal tar doesn’t belong in the human diet. You’d expect to see food coloring as an ingredient in things like junk food and soft drinks, but it also pops up in some less obvious places, like salmon and fresh cherries. Here’s a quick rundown of a few common food colors:

✓ Blue 1&2: Used in baked goods, candy, and beverages. Both dyes have been linked to cancer in tests using mice.

✓ Green 3: Used in sauces, jellies, and more. This one has been linked to bladder cancer.

✓ Orange B: Approved for use in only hot dog and sausage casings. This dye has been associated with urinary obstruction.

✓ Red 3: Sprayed on fresh cherries and used in fruit cocktails, baked goods, and candy. Studies have shown it causes thyroid tumors in rats.

✓ Red 40: Used in snack foods. This dye has been linked to hyperactivity disorders.

✓ Yellow 5: Used in soft drinks, potato chips, jams, jellies, and more. This dye is strongly associated with hyperactivity and tantrums in children.

✓ Yellow 6: One of the most commonly used dyes in sausage, gelatin, baked goods, candy, and beverages. It has been linked to tumors of the adrenal glands and kidney.

Many of these color chemicals also contain heavy metals. (Flip back a chapter to read all about heavy metals and their effects on your body.)

Paying attention to packaging

If you read any of the last few pages, you can plainly see that our food is exposed to many different kinds of toxins through soil contamination, pesticide use, and food processing. As if that weren’t enough, the packaging that surrounds our food can introduce toxic chemicals as well.

Hundreds of harmful chemicals are either included in or used to make food packaging materials, and I don’t have the space here to discuss them all. But it’s important that you consider packaging as a source of toxins, so in the next couple of pages I provide a quick look at a few of the most common toxins found in food packaging.

BPA

Some common varieties of plastic — including several that are used to make food containers — contain a chemical called Bisphenol-A (BPA). BPA is a synthetic sex hormone that has been linked to cancer, miscarriage, obesity, reproductive problems, heart disease, early puberty, and hyperactivity.

BPA is very harmful and particularly troublesome because it’s found in so many different types of containers, from the linings of food and drink cans to baby bottles. You can find BPA in plastic food containers, sippy cups (specialized drinking cups for infants and toddlers), and even the IV tubes used in hospitals. (Okay, that last one is not technically food related, but it’s still a pretty scary place to find a dangerous toxin.)

How widespread is BPA? The EPA states that 20 percent of the U.S. diet comes from foods that are packaged in plastics that contain BPA. And the BPA present in all that packaging material is clearly finding its way into our bodies: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that 93 percent of Americans it tested have BPA in their systems.

To help cut down on your exposure to BPA, do the following:

✓ Use glass containers for food storage whenever possible.

✓ Limit your use of plastics stamped with a #7 on the bottom for any food-related purposes. (Not all #7 plastics contain BPA, but this is still a good general rule.)

✓ Don’t microwave or heat your food in any plastic containers; heating plastics that contain BPA makes the chemical leach out into food at a much faster rate.

As with many toxic chemicals, the debate about the harm that BPA can do to us continues to rage on. My advice? Stay away from BPA whenever you can.

Phthalates

Phthalates are another dangerous class of chemicals found in food packag- ing. You rarely see the word “phthalate” listed anywhere, but the individual chemicals included in the group are easier to spot: DINP, DEHP, BBP, DBP, DUNP, DIDP, DNOP, and DIBP are some common examples. You can find these chemicals in many kinds of plastic materials, including plastic food containers and plastic food wrap.

What do phthalates do to the human body? The chemicals are suspected of causing cancer, reproductive problems, liver disease, and kidney disease, among other problems. To get an idea of how nasty phthalates are, take a look

at the following wording, which appears on the label for pure DINP (the kind you’d use in a lab if you were a chemist):

May cause cancer; harmful by inhalation, in contact with skin, and if swallowed; possible risk of irreversible effects; avoid exposure; and wear suit- able protective clothing, gloves and eye/face protection.

All the effects of phthalates like DINP aren’t fully understood yet, but do you really want a substance that requires such a scary warning label coming in contact with the food you eat and the food you feed your family? I doubt it. To limit your exposure, avoid products that include one or several of the phthalate acronyms in their ingredients. Also, avoid the use of plastics stamped with a #7, and heat up your food in glass or porcelain containers instead of plastics.

PFOA and PFCs

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorochemicals (PFCs) are in a class of chemicals used to make nonstick cookware and utensils, and they’re also found in grease-resistant coatings for food packaging. If you don’t limit the discussion to food-related materials, you can also throw in stain-resistant carpeting and fabrics and waterproof clothes as sources for the chemicals. Both PFOA and PFCs are toxic. It looks like the EPA will eventually classify PFOA as a carcinogen, and 19 EPA studies show PFCs to be a substantial risk for human health.

Dodging toxin-heavy foods

Nothing would make me happier than to tell you that you can completely avoid toxins in your food. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s possible to cut out every single toxin from your diet. The best you can do is work hard to limit the amount of toxic exposure you and your family get from the food you eat. If you do that, you’ll be light-years ahead of the majority of people. Understanding the problem and working to correct it are both enormous steps in the right direction.

In this section, I don’t cover every detail of how you can fill up your grocery cart (and your dinner plate) with toxin-free foods, but I do provide basic tips on how to start the process. You can find some useful information on how to avoid specific types of food-related toxins in the first several pages of this chapter, and you can read much more on the topic in Chapters 6 and 7.

Reading food labels

It’s easy to jot down a list of food items you need at the grocery store and then just cruise up and down the aisles until your cart is full and the foods on your list are all crossed off. The way that foods are produced, marketed, and put in front of you on the shelves has been streamlined to the point that you can fill your pantry quickly, easily, and cheaply without giving much thought to the process. The downside is that the path that toxins take to your food — and your body — has been streamlined too, and if you want to work toward limiting your exposure to toxins you have to insert some thought back into the process. One key way to do so is to read food labels carefully and com- pletely when you’re making choices about what foods to buy and eat.

Here are three steps for reading food labels to help you spot and avoid toxins:

1. Don’t buy a food if it contains ingredients that you don’t know or can’t pronounce. I know that sounds incredibly simplistic, but it’s a good general rule. For example, if you see a label that features ingredients like “100 percent organic pepper,” “100 percent organic carrots,” or “salt,” you can feel pretty good about the lack of toxic materials that are added to the food as ingredients. However, if you see things like acesulfame-K — one of hundreds of common toxic ingredients — you want to pass on buying or eating that food product. (I discuss this rule in more detail in Chapter 5.)

2. Pay attention to the order in which ingredients are listed. Ingredients are listed according to the amount of each ingredient in the food. The ingredients that make up most of the food are listed first, and the ingre- dients that are present in smaller amounts are listed last. If you really believe that you have to buy a food product that contains a potentially harmful ingredient, try to buy a variety or brand that lists that ingredi- ent at or near the bottom of the ingredients list.

3. Watch out for different variations of the same toxin. Food companies commonly list questionable ingredients under different (yet suitable, according to regulations) names or words. For example, forms of MSG can be listed as “calcium caseinate,” “textured protein,” or “glutamic acid,” to name a few variations. You can’t be expected to memorize every variation of every toxin, so use this rule in combination with rule #1 in this list. If you think an ingredient may be a different name or variation of a toxin and you can’t pronounce it, don’t buy it.

Some similar (and potentially harmful) ingredients can be listed with very different names and in multiple places within an ingredients list. Take sucrose, dextrose, and maltose, for example. They’re common substitutes for sugar, and some processed foods contain two or even all three of them. A food label may list the three near the bottom of the ingredients list because technically they’re different substances, but if you add up all the amounts of each contained in the food, it would be more like the first or second ingredient on the list. This technique is called stacking, and it’s a common method for making an ingredients list look a little better than it really is.

Knowing the most common toxins in food

If you wanted to remember all the toxins that can be found in or on food products today, you’d probably have to quit your job and work on memorizing toxins full time. Realistically, you can’t know everything about toxins in food, but you can do yourself (and your family) quite a bit of good if you just avoid the most common food toxins. Keep your eye out for these top toxin- containing ingredients:

✓ Artificial colors

✓ Aspartame

✓ High fructose corn syrup

Thirsting for Toxin-free Water

What’s more important to life than water? Every living thing that we’ve ever discovered has required liquid water to survive, and humans are certainly no exception. The human body can go a few days without water, but if you’re like me, you’d rather not go more than a few hours without a tall glass of it.

Our need for fresh water and the fact that most materials will dissolve in water make it particularly troublesome as a vehicle for spreading toxins. You need to be aware of the many toxic threats that your drinking water can pose, and you also need to consider the steps you can take to ensure that your water is as toxin-free as possible. I provide information on both fronts here.

Figuring out how toxins end up in drinking water

Many of the toxins pumped into our air and onto our soil end up in our water supply. Rain and the movement of water on and in the ground have a way of picking up substances — toxins included — and moving them all together toward a nearby body of water. These bodies of water include the various reservoirs that make up our drinking water supplies. So it shouldn’t shock you to find out that the water that comes out of the tap in your kitchen sink isn’t sparkling clean and toxin free.

Drinking water can contain all kinds of toxins. Read on to find out about a few of the most common.

Pharmaceuticals

The prescription and over-the-counter drugs we take don’t all get absorbed into our systems when we pop a pill or drink a spoonful of syrupy medicine. A good portion of those pharmaceuticals passes virtually unchanged through our bodies and gets flushed (quite literally) down the toilet. More than 100 different kinds of drugs have been detected in water supplies all over the world, so we’re not talking about an isolated problem here.

You may assume that the water treatment processes used to clean up our water take care of these wandering pharmaceuticals, but that isn’t the case. The most common water treatment techniques don’t remove or change pharmaceutical compounds. So if you think about your municipal water supply, the antibiotics your postal worker has been taking for his sinus infection, the pain- killers your coworker took after her recent surgery, and the antidepressants your neighbor has been taking could be ending up (in small quantities) in your water supply. And then there are the veterinary medicines used on pets and farm animals. (The hormones used in raising beef cattle have been found in many water supplies and have been causing quite a stir in the media lately.)

The amounts of pharmaceuticals present in our water are small, but the whole idea behind most of these medicines is for a relatively small dose to have an effect on your entire body, so even tiny amounts can cause changes to your body’s systems. Even more troubling is the threat of drug allergies: If a person has an extremely strong drug allergy, he could potentially suffer an allergic reaction just by drinking water from his community’s water supply.

Commercial waste

Trillions of tons of toxic waste are released into our environment every year through commercial and industrial processes, and toxic materials have a tendency to collect in water.

Chemicals are usually assumed to be harmless unless proven otherwise, so most of the 80,000 chemicals used in or in the making of the products that surround us haven’t been through a government-sanctioned safety review. Most of these chemicals aren’t even monitored until someone notices patterns of illness, disease, or death resulting from exposure. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes years of exposure to a toxin before the effects show up and cause a real health problem, and by then it can be too late.

The watershed effect

A watershed is an area of land where all the water under it or on it goes to the same place. There are 2,110 watersheds in the United States, some of which cover thousands of square miles. Toxins can have a devastating effect on a watershed because small amounts of a toxin spread over a large area can be carried by moving water within a watershed and concentrated where the water eventually collects. You may not live close to a manufacturing plant that releases toxic chemicals, but if that plant is within your watershed there’s a good chance that it — and any other toxic source in your watershed — is contributing to the contamination of your area’s water supply. (Many

areas use reservoirs or lakes as their primary water supply.) The same is true of the toxic fertilizers and pesticides used on farmlands. You may not live right next door to a field that is sprayed with these materials, but if that field is located in your watershed, your water supply could be at risk.

The millions of Americans who depend on private wells for their water aren’t immune to the problem. Toxins can be transported by ground- water, and as a result toxic chemicals can be dumped on the ground and turn up in well water many miles away.

Processing

The processing of wastewater is designed to turn water that has been used into water that can be used again — to purify and clean it so it’s safe for drinking, bathing, and so on. However, many water processing operations don’t do a great job of removing chemical toxins, and known toxins are often added to the water supply.

The focus of most water processing efforts is to remove large solids from and disinfect the bacteria in the wastewater. Steps are also taken to remove a number of dangerous chemical toxins, but thousands of other toxins aren’t taken into account.

What’s even more disconcerting is the common practice of treating water supplies with toxic chemicals like chlorine for the purpose of killing bacteria. Chlorine has an unquestionably toxic effect on the human body, causing irritation and damage to the respiratory system among other things. The EPA contends that the levels of chlorine in drinking water that result from the chemical’s use as a bacteria killer aren’t high enough to harm the people who drink and bathe in it, but many people disagree. If you’re not crazy about having a sip of chlorine with your drinking water, read on to find out how you can seek out a solution.

Avoiding toxin-tainted water

Water, water everywhere — but what is safe to drink? The barrage of toxic threats to our water supplies makes that a tough question to answer.

Local and municipal water supplies are regulated by the EPA, but the overall quality of water from place to place within the United States can vary greatly. Bottled water is regulated by the FDA, but the quality of bottled water can vary as well. In the next few pages, I clue you in on how you can flatten out some of that variation and help to ensure the quality of the water you’re drinking by figuring out your local water report, getting your water tested, filtering your tap water, and buying bottled water that meets your standards.

Analyzing your local water report

Municipal water departments are required to make a public notice of water quality on an annual basis but don’t have to test it every year. Your local water department can provide you with that information upon request, and the folks managing the water supplies in many areas send out the reports each year as a matter of course. In larger communities the information is also available online, so do a little online research to find out if the details of your water quality may already be at your fingertips.

It’s great that water departments are required to make public the analysis of the water supply, but reading one of those documents can be quite a task. You usually find a lot of information on just a few pages, and the details can be both technical and confusing. Taking a good look at the report is certainly worth your time, though, and you can make the process easier by keeping a couple things in mind:

✓ Take note of all the toxins I talk about in this book that are not included in the report. That means your water department is not testing for them.

✓ Pay special attention to footnotes or asterisks. As in reports from any other government or industry group, these notes can allow important information to be stashed away in the fine print.

I once received a report from our local water department that had a footnote symbol in the section on the arsenic levels in our water. The footnote said that the arsenic data was based on a water sample from three years ago. It didn’t explain why the arsenic data was from test- ing that took place three years earlier. (You would think that the water department could secure a sample of its own water for a new test.) I tried to get an answer that would clear up the situation, but the water department never provided any solid reasoning for the footnote. I can only conclude that the arsenic data was from the last year the water actually passed the EPA guidelines, which didn’t give me a whole lot of confidence in the quality of the water coming out of my tap.

Getting your water tested

Everyone should consider getting their water tested for these six different categories of dangerous materials: microorganisms, disinfectants, disinfection byproducts, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals, and radionuclides. (It’s not critical that you understand all the details about these categories. Just know that any comprehensive water test should include all six.) A water test is particularly important for families that rely on well water, but even if you’re connected to a municipal or local water supply, don’t rule out the idea of getting some tests run on the water that comes out of your taps.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommend that well water be tested at least once each year for dangerous chemicals and bacteria. It also recommends that testing be done even more frequently if an infant is drinking the water or if there’s a chance that the well’s structure was recently damaged in any way. If you’re on a well, you also want to know if any oil, gas, or mining operations have ever been present in the area; if the land has ever seen heavy pesticide use; and if a junkyard or landfill is (or has been) nearby. If any of these activities have taken place on or near the land, make sure you opt for extremely thorough testing.

If you’re on a municipal water supply, you may think it strange to have your water tested. But even if your city water supply is pristine, a lot can happen to the water between the city’s pipes and your tap. Your house’s plumbing, or even some of the city’s pipes, could contain lead or other metals that can leach into your water, and water tests can detect those toxins.

In addition to these general testing recommendations, specific conditions merit water tests, including the following:

✓ If anyone in your home has recurrent gastrointestinal problems, have your water tested for toxic bacteria.

✓ If you notice strange stains in sinks, toilets, or clothing that you’ve washed at home, test for copper, manganese, and iron.

✓ If your water has a foul smell or taste, test for hydrogen sulfide, acidity, copper, lead, iron, zinc, and sodium.

✓ If you’re getting an usually large amount of soap scum residue in your tubs, sinks, and toilets, have your water checked for hardness (heavy salt content).

✓ If you’re thinking about moving into a new house, have the water tested before you make the commitment to move in.

✓ If you live in a rural area, you may want to get your tap water tested.

Some rural areas don’t have the funding to carry out the more expensive types of water treatment. Also, there’s a greater likelihood that the water has been contaminated by runoff from agricultural fertilizers and pesticides.

✓ If you are planning to get pregnant, make sure your water is pure.

When you make the choice to have your water tested, the first step is to contact your local and state health departments. Some departments will test your water free of charge, although in most cases those tests are pretty limited. After you’ve exhausted those possibilities, you can turn to private water testing companies. You can find a listing in your phone book or online.

When selecting a private water testing company, make sure you use only those companies that are licensed in your state to conduct water testing. Also, make sure that the company you choose is willing to speak with you in depth about the results of the water tests. Much of the information that comes out of the testing process is technical, so you’ll need someone to talk you through it.

For more information on water purity and testing, check out the EPA’s Web page for ground water and drinking water: www.epa.gov/ogwdw.

Removing toxins from your tap water

If you’re concerned about toxins in your tap water, look into setting up a system for filtering or purifying your water. Dozens of options for water filtering and purification are available, and you can find many of them online or at your local hardware or home improvement store. A perfect system doesn’t exist, but with a little research you can select one that fills your specific needs. Most of the units fit under your sink or on your countertop, although some are meant to be installed where the incoming water pipe enters your house. Here’s a rundown of the most common options:

✓ Carbon water filters are easy to install and inexpensive. They absorb many toxins and microorganisms while letting most minerals pass through. Carbon filters don’t change the acidity of the water (a good thing), but they’re subject to developing mold if left unused for long periods of time (a bad thing). I think carbon filters are a good, basic option for water filtration.

✓ Water distillers definitely produce water that is free of impurities, but the distillation process also removes minerals from water. Your body needs many of the minerals found in tap water, so if you go the water distiller route you need to make sure you’re getting plenty of minerals elsewhere in your diet. Water distillers also tend to produce more acidic water, which isn’t the healthiest.

✓ Ceramic filters are adept at filtering out microscopic particles and microorganisms. The filters can be renewed by brushing them under running water. One downside: Ceramic filters tend to noticeably decrease the flow of water.

✓ Reverse osmosis (RO) filters are readily available in a variety of sizes and are relatively inexpensive. Your local home improvement store probably has several options. A system with a 1-gallon reserve costs about $150. Most RO filters are easy to install. (I speak from experience — I recently installed one.) They remove almost all toxins, but you must remember that the good minerals are also removed.

✓ Ultraviolet (UV) radiation systems use a special lamp to kill all living organisms and leave the minerals untouched, but the lamp loses its effectiveness over time and you can’t tell whether it’s still working with- out testing the water. Another big downside: UV systems don’t remove heavy metals and other chemical toxins from your water.

Buying clean water

If you want to skip tap water altogether for drinking purposes, you can turn to bottled water as your primary source. If that’s your choice, you’re certainly not alone: Americans drink more than 7.5 million gallons of bottled water each year.

Bottled water can seem pristine and pure, but don’t let those pictures of peaceful springs and snow-capped peaks on the labels fool you. In many cases, bottled water is just as likely to contain toxins as tap water, so you need to do your research to make sure the bottled water you’re buying is as toxin-free as possible. Forty percent of bottled water is straight tap water with no additional treatment. Do your research to guarantee that the water company does proper treatment.

The bottled water industry is regulated by the FDA under its food safety pro- gram, but the FDA doesn’t do any active testing. You can find bottled water quality reports on the Web sites of many of the largest bottled water companies, and most of the other companies will provide you with information on their water’s quality if you request it.

In addition to water that comes in bottles that you simply buy off the shelf, many grocery stores now have in-house reverse osmosis (RO) water systems that you can use to fill large (usually 5-gallon) reusable containers. RO water is probably the most consistently clean water you can buy, but it contains few if any natural minerals. It’s worth noting that the large containers used in this process are almost always made of the type of plastic that doesn’t leach toxins into your water.

A Breath of Not-So-Fresh Air: Inhalable Toxins (And How to Avoid Them)

Thus far in human history, we’ve had a tough time figuring out a good way to live without breathing. Good, clean air is critical for people to live healthy, happy lives. If you’re hoping for a way around that fact, all I can tell you is don’t hold your breath.

The good news is that we’re not in any danger of running out of air. There’s plenty of it to go around, so we’re definitely in good shape on the quantity front. The problem with our air is the quality. In our centuries-long quest to make human civilization bigger and badder all across the globe, we’ve done quite a lot of damage to the quality of our air. Despite the efforts of many people to cut down on air pollution, we’re still spewing untold amounts of toxins into the atmosphere every year.

Toxins in our air can cause just as many health issues as toxins in our water and in our food. If you’re committed to detoxifying your body, you need to figure out what’s floating in the air around you and what you can do to keep airborne toxins out of your system.

Understanding airborne commercial and industrial toxins

You can’t blame commercial and industrial processes for all the rampant air pollution that has taken place in the last couple centuries, but our plants and factories are responsible for more than their fair share. Many of the toxins I describe in Chapter 2 are released into the air (usually as byproducts) in some form by industrial operations just as often as they’re dumped into our water and on our soil. Several other toxins seem to be particularly problem- atic when it comes to air quality.

In the next couple pages, I describe in some detail the most common and dangerous toxins that are released into our air every single day. I hope that through reading this section, you can better understand what we’re up against as we work toward cleaner air for ourselves, our families, and everyone else sharing this planet.

If you want to see specific information about the air quality in your area, visit the EPA’s air quality information page at www.epa.gov/air/data/geosel.html. You can plug in your zip code or select your state from a map of the United States to see a report on the quality of the air you’re breathing right now.

Carbon monoxide

We release huge amounts of carbon monoxide into the atmosphere every year, and most of it can be traced back to automobile engines. When you inhale carbon monoxide, it attaches to your red blood cells where oxygen is supposed to attach — a huge problem. It can cause brain damage and death, among other horrible things. To help protect yourself and your family from this common toxin, make sure your home’s heating system is running properly and avoid situations in which you’re inhaling large amounts of automobile exhaust.

Ozone

When you hear the word ozone, you may think of the ozone layer and the hole that we put in it over the course of a few decades in the twentieth century. Ozone is a gas composed of three oxygen atoms stuck together. Yes, this gas makes up the ozone layer, which blocks many of the harmful effects of the sun. But when ozone is present lower in the atmosphere — at or near ground level, for example — it’s a potent toxin that contributes heavily to the formation of smog. Ozone has a very harmful effect on the lungs and lung tissue. It causes coughing, shortness of breath, and chest pain, and it’s particularly rough on people who suffer from asthma. Like carbon monoxide, ozone is released in automobile exhaust, and when it gets together with other airborne pollutants to form smog, your best bet is to steer clear.

Many large cities now make ozone alert announcements when levels of ozone in the area’s air become dangerously high. If you live in a metropolitan area, look for ozone alerts in your local news sources. When an alert is announced, do your best to stay in a controlled-air environment. You don’t have to hole up in your house until the alert is lifted. But if you have an outdoor activity planned and you see an ozone alert, consider switching your outdoor plans to a different day. Chances are your picnic or bike ride will be a lot more enjoy- able if you’re not breathing in elevated toxin levels all day.

Lead

I cover lead in detail in Chapter 2, but I include it here also because it’s a common airborne toxin. I know it may seem odd to think of lead (which is a very heavy material) floating around in the air, but lead dust is released into the atmosphere all the time by waste incinerators, smelters, and makers of batteries that contain lead. If you live near any of those types of operations, be sure to get tested for lead. And if you have children, make doubly sure they are tested regularly as well. (Check out Chapter 5 for more information on seeing a doctor about your toxicity levels.)

Nitrogen dioxide

Nitrogen dioxide is another airborne toxin present in automobile exhaust. It has toxic effects on the lungs and can be especially harmful for people who have asthma or lung disease. If you spend time near major roadways, your exposure is likely 30 to 100 percent higher than if you live and work away from heavily trafficked roads. Unfortunately, about 16 percent of homes in the United States are located within 300 feet of a major roadway, so millions of Americans are exposed to high amounts of nitrogen dioxide. If possible, keep that in mind when it comes time to move to a new area or into a new home.

Sulfur dioxide

Sulfur dioxide is one of many sulfur chemicals that easily dissolves in water and forms acid. These chemicals are released by all sorts of industrial processes, and they can have extremely detrimental effects on your lungs and other organs. They also help to create acid rain, which is damaging to many different aspects of our environment and health.

Acrolein

Acrolein is a prevalent but not very well-known toxin that has many uses in industry; it may be most commonly used as a multipurpose pesticide. (You can read all about the dangers of pesticides a little earlier in this chapter.) The harmful effects of this toxin include serious complications for your mucus membranes and respiratory tract.

Manganese

Manganese is an essential element for good health — you’ll likely find it listed in the ingredients for your multivitamin — but excess levels can be very toxic. Manganese poisoning can cause symptoms similar to those of Parkinson’s disease, including tremors, difficulty walking, and facial muscle spasms. The most common source of toxic problems with manganese is welding. If you’re involved in welding or have a welder in your family, be sure to include manganese when you get tested for toxicity.

Mercury

I write about the horrible toxic effects of mercury throughout this book. (Flip back one chapter for lots of basic information.) When it comes to airborne toxins, mercury comes into the picture in what can seem like a very peculiar setting: the dentist’s office. Airborne mercury is created every time a dentist makes, applies, drills, or removes an amalgam (often called silver) filling. These fillings are half mercury, which means dentists and their staff are usually exposed to quite a bit more mercury than the rest of the population. In all my years of practicing medicine, I have never tested a dentist for mercury who didn’t have toxic levels in his or her body.

If you think you may have been exposed to airborne mercury because of amalgam fillings, you should get tested for mercury toxicity. This is especially true if you work in a dentist’s office where amalgam fillings are created, handled, and removed on a regular basis.

Having dental fillings removed

If you need or want to have amalgam fillings removed, you and your dentist should follow these protocols to limit your exposure to the mercury they contain.

The patient’s protocol

As the patient, you should take the following supplements starting before your fillings are removed:

✓ Cilantro: Helps with mercury removal

✓ Vitamin C: Improves immunity and detoxification

✓ Alpha-lipoic acid: Aids liver health

✓ Garlic: Boosts immunity and has sulfur

✓ Kidney formula (with juniper and uva ursi): Strengthens kidney health

✓ Liver formula (with milk thistle and olive leaf): Boosts liver health

✓ Vitamin D: Aids kidney function and bones

✓ Turmeric: Helps immunity

✓ Vitamin B complex: Aids liver function You should also take detox baths once a week while the fillings are being removed. This aids the removal of mercury and other heavy metals from the skin. In the bath water, add

✓ 2 cups Epsom Salt (which contains magnesium sulfate)

✓ 1 cup baking soda

✓ 2 to 3 teaspoons of powdered vitamin C

✓ 2 to 3 teaspoons of yellow mustard powder

These substances will help pull heavy metals from the skin. Yellow mustard contains sulfur, for example, which bonds to mercury and pulls it out of the skin.

Soak in the tub for 15 to 20 minutes, and then scrub your skin with soap. The bath water will begin to turn dark gray and cloudy. The discoloration will leave a ring around the tub, which lab tests have found to contain aluminum, lead, and mercury.

For additional assurance, you can have an IV with vitamin C before the filling removal and a chelation treatment with DMPS after removal (see Chapter 18 for details).

The dentist’s protocol

The dentist should use a certified mercury removal protocol, which includes these measures:

✓ Clean air filtration in the room where fillings are being removed

✓ A rubber dam to prevent mercury pieces from being swallowed or inhaled

✓ Water coolant to keep the filling from heating up (because heat releases toxic mercury vapors)

✓ High-speed suction or vacuum for removing toxic vapors and debris

✓ Filtration masks for all employees in the room while the procedure is performed If your dentist won’t follow this protocol, search for a dentist who will. Online, look for biological or holistic dentists at these Web sites:

✓ The International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology: www.iaomt.org

✓ The International Academy of Biological Dentistry and Medicine: www.iabdm.org

✓ The Holistic Dental Association: www. holisticdental.org

Formaldehyde

Many people think of formaldehyde as embalming fluid, and they’re some- times shocked to find out that the toxic chemical is used widely in the production of things like leather goods, plywood, particle board, paper, foam insulation, and even pharmaceuticals and vaccines. It’s a gas at room temperature, and exposure can cause eye and throat irritation, nausea, head- ache, and fatigue. High levels of exposure can cause swelling of the lungs, which can result in death. Formaldehyde has a distinctive odor that you may remember from the frog dissection portion of your high school biology class. If you work in a setting where formaldehyde is used, insist on being given a respirator — it can save your life.

Benzene

Like formaldehyde, benzene is used across a wide range of industries and applications. It is generated by burning coal, gasoline, and oil, and it’s used in the making of products like inks, rubber, plastics, and pharmaceuticals, to name just a few. Benzene causes eye, skin, and respiratory irritation, along with headache and dizziness. Short-term elevated levels can cause unconsciousness and death, and if you’re exposed to benzene over a long period of time it’ll wreak havoc on your body. It has reproductive effects, damages your blood, and is (according to the EPA) a likely carcinogen. If your job puts you in contact with benzene, make sure you have a good respirator and use it whenever exposure is probable. If you’re worried about benzene levels in your body, check out Chapter 18 for information on how you can utilize saunas to help rid your body of benzene (and other toxins, as well).

Getting a feel for the inhalable toxins in your home

If you think that most airborne toxins come from factory smokestacks and hang in the air only in the smog that envelops some cities and industrial areas, think again. Your home could be a hotbed of airborne toxins.

Many household products, particularly cleaning products, are loaded with toxic chemicals. Take a quick look at the ingredients of some of the products you have in your home, and compare that list with the toxins described in Chapter 2 and elsewhere in this book. Not only are these products toxic if you have skin contact or (heaven forbid) accidentally ingest them, but the fumes they put off are also toxic.

A recent study looked at the toxins present in 120 homes on Cape Cod, which probably isn’t an area that springs to mind when you think about toxic environments. The study focused on the air and dust present in those homes, and the findings were hair-raising. Every single house had more than 20 toxic com- pounds known to cause cancer, neurological problems, and birth defects. There were even traces of some substances that had been widely banned years before (like DDT), and plentiful amounts of toxins like phthalates (which I describe in detail earlier in this chapter).

What are the sources of the inhalable toxins that are present in the homes of many Americans? Following are a few examples:

✓ Paint fumes

✓ Dry cleaning

✓ Air/carpet fresheners

✓ Detergents and fabric softeners

✓ Household insecticides

✓ Lawn and garden chemicals

Do yourself (and your family) a favor and work toward limiting your exposure to these toxic materials.

Chlorine is a very common inhalable toxin in many homes. Use bleach cleaners and detergents containing chlorine sparingly (if at all), and remember that if you can smell chlorine, that means you’re being exposed to more than you really should be.

Cleaning the air around you

The threats presented by inhalable toxins are serious and tough to avoid. So how can you clean up your air and limit the amount of toxic materials that you’re breathing every day? The following are a few excellent first steps:

✓ When you’re outside, be mindful of the quality of the air around you.

Pay attention to air quality measurements on your local weather report, and spend your time outdoors on days when the air is relatively clean. Avoid being outdoors near manufacturing plants, refineries, and major roadways.

✓ When you’re moving to a new home, keep air quality in mind. You probably won’t end up buying or renting a new home based on the air quality in the area — there are usually many other pressing matters to consider. But if you can factor in the home’s proximity to sources of airborne toxins, your lungs (and the rest of your body) will thank you.

✓ Cut down on the inhalable toxins you keep in your home in the form of household products. The first things to go should be insecticides, pesticides, and anything that says “danger,” “poison,” or even “caution.” This includes cleaning supplies, so please don’t insist on trying to hang on to toxic cleaners.

There are many excellent alternatives to toxin-filled household cleaning supplies. A knowledgeable staff member at your local health food store can probably suggest all sorts of choices or even tell you about ways that you can make your own safe cleaning supplies. If you can’t find suitable replacements for your old products, use them sparingly and always in well-ventilated areas.

Here are some tips to get your household moving in the right direction:

✓ Use natural cleaning products. For example, vodka or other grain alcohol makes a great cleaning spray.

✓ Pay special attention to your carpet. Carpet accumulates and holds dust and toxins. If you must have carpeting, clean it often and use a vacuum with a filter that does not spray the dust back into the air.

✓ Change your filters frequently. Air conditioning filters and ducts can be a source of toxic accumulation and exposure. Change your filters according to the recommendations set out by the manufacturer, and use quality filters. You can also have your ducts inspected and cleaned professionally, especially if you live in an older house.

✓ Use a quality HEPA air filter. HEPA stands for high efficiency particulate air, and HEPA filters do a great job of removing airborne toxins from indoor environments. Hundreds of HEPA filters are on the market, so do some online research and even consult with your doctor before choosing the one that is right for you and your family.