Baby Steps: The Best Places to Start Your Journey to More Organic Living

The amount of chemicals, toxins, pesticides and more we are exposed to on a daily basis is alarming and frightening to say the least.

Your concern over the harmful effects of what you and your family are bombarded with during the course of everyday life likely makes you want to make some major overhauls to all aspects of your home, but the thought of all the changes you want to make can be more than a little overwhelming.

Thankfully, if the thought of a massive overhaul of everything in your life is a little daunting, you can still make positive changes to reduce the chemical load you and your family are exposed to each day by tackling the issue one baby step at a time. Start your journey to healthier, more organic living by making these baby steps. Soon, your baby steps will add up to big differences!

Start Organic Living

Organic Pijamas

Switching to pijamas made with organic materials is a smart idea for a couple of reasons. First, you and your family spend roughly a third (or even more for babies and small children) of each day in your pijamas, making the time you are exposed to them chemicals used on conventional pijamas significant.

Additionally, conventional cotton is treated with a host of pesticides that you are exposed when you wear those pijamas. Secondly, while it may take some time to build an entire daytime wardrobe made from organic fabrics, just a couple of pairs of organic pijamas can meet all your nighttime sleepwear needs.

Dirty Dozen Foods

Though consumer demand for organic food choices is helping to decrease the prices of organic foods, there is no denying that organic foods still typically cost the consumer more than conventionally raised foods. If your grocery budget can’t withstand the additional cost of going entirely organic with your groceries, focus your efforts on the foods that typically contain the highest chemical loads.

Each year the Environmental Working Group (EWG) issues a list of the “Dirty Dozen” produce that contain the most pesticides and chemicals that you can use as a shopping guide. The list can vary slightly each year, but some of the foods usually recommended to buy organic versions of include produce with thinner skins like apples, tomatoes, grapes, peaches, and blueberries. Celery and spinach are also frequently on the list.

Foods with thicker peels, like citrus fruits and bananas, are often listed as cleaner options that can be bought conventionally without as much risk of chemical exposure.

Counter Cleaners

Ironically and unfortunately, the very products that are designed to make our homes cleaner often leave behind a shocking amount of harsh chemicals and toxins as you use them to clean up everyday spills and splashes. While changing over to using all organic cleaning products is a worthy goal, the first baby step you can take towards this admirable goal can be as simple as switching to an organic counter and surface cleaner.

With both food and hands frequently coming into contact with counters all over the home, counter cleaner is naturally going to be transferred onto foods and hands without you even realising it. Not only does this transfer lead to exposure through our skin, but it can also lead to accidental ingestion.

Switch to an organic counter and surface cleaner today as your first step towards a cleaner and safer home. The effectiveness, safety, and more pleasant scent of organic counter cleaner will help spur you on to making other cleaning product changes.

Baby Lotion

The small and still developing nature of baby and children’s systems makes everything that they come in contact with have the potential to have an even greater impact on their delicate systems than on adults. As such, switching the products your baby and children are exposed to certainly deserves a priority spot on the list of changes to make. Yet, understandably switching over all of baby’s products can take a bit of time and effort.

A terrific, easy baby step to take in making these changes is switching to an organic baby lotion. Unlike soaps and shampoos, baby lotion stays in contact with the skin for an extended time period. The skin is the largest organ on the body and absorbs whatever is placed on it, making taking in toxins through conventional lotion a real risk. Look for a simple organic lotion with no added fragrances. As an added bonus, the whole family can switch to the lotion!