Lady and I have been making more and more conscious decisions about spending our money in the time we've been together. Where to shop. What to buy. Who to buy from. Who not to support. Decisions like not buying Nike. Not shopping at Wal Mart. Shopping at local stores whenever possible as opposed to chains.
Lately, we've been purchasing things that are of the more healthy nature. Organic when we can, even though it is usually more expensive. And now, with the products we use, Lady took steps to research what we're putting on our faces, what we're washing our hair with, what we're absorbing on a daily basis. She found SafeCosmetics.org and we've made some changes already.
We're not just throwing out everything in the house though. We're not rich enough to do that and we're not wasteful enough to do that even if we were rich enough. We're replacing things as we run out of them along the way. Changes will be made in the shampoos we use, body wash, facial soap, lotion, hand soap...
Take a click over to this tool and enter in a product or two that you use right now. Your shave cream. Your shampoo. Your toothpaste. Your hand soap. Your deoderant. Your contact lens solution. See what's inside there. See which carcinogens you're absorbing. Skeeves you out don't it? Every single product isn't listed, but this is a pretty good start. They have tons of the major brands and their various lines of products.
One alarming thing that Lady learned was that there are no regulations on what the companies put on the labels of their products. 'Not tested on animals' doesn't mean jack shit. They can flat out lie. 'Natural' on a bar of soap doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. There is no governmental regulation on the usage of words like that as there are with food and the FDA. There are rules via the FDA as to what is 'organic' or 'light' but no such agency oversees products that can be just as harmful as a Big Mac. Stuff that you use and ingest/absorb every day.
Be aware of the shit that you put on your body. Take steps to cut back on the bad stuff. Be an informed consumer [and an informed voter while you're at it!]. I know this is going to be a long learning process for me/us, but you gotta start sometime and there's no time like the present.
One of the biggest coverups in products is the ingredient "fragrance" which can be almost anything. It can be rat shit, it can be otter musk, it can be patchouli, it can be vanilla. Just about every company uses it in their ingredients list. It's a way to get around disclosing some potentially nasty stuff.
So does this mean you'll stop pimping Marathon Grill, a restaurant which has been nailed for egregious labor violations, on your food blog?
Posted by: Mr. Furley | March 10, 2006 at 07:55 PM
actually, yes. we're not eating there anymore. and what's up on the blog will stay there. it may be amended to include the violations.
and mr. furley, you were way cooler than mr. roper.
Posted by: albert | March 10, 2006 at 07:58 PM