Empowering Ourselves and Protecting the Planet

By now, we've all been trained to look at the ingredients in our food, household products and cosmetics, but there is one ingredient that is often overlooked- and it can cause a big stink. Fragrance. Did you know that one fragrance can be made from any mix of around 3,000 chemicals, and the FDA does not require companies to list each ingredient? Instead, it can be listed under umbrella terms, like fragrance and parfum. Fragrance is responsible for causing dermatitis and other skin conditions, migraines, and even more adverse reactions, including respiratory, neurological and immune system problems. What can we...

You don't hear much about glyphosate here in the United States. But let me tell you, it IS worth talking about! Glyphosate is an herbicide that breaks the shikimate pathway in plants, blocking the production of some of the essential amino acids needed for plant growth; instead, causing the plant to die.  Glyphosate is currently used in two ways:   1. It is used on GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) crops to control weeds, including soy, corn, canola, alfalfa, sugar beets, and cotton.  The weeds will die off, but the GMO plants are modified to resist glyphosate exposure, so they can continue...

Your cleaning products aren’t food or drugs, so they aren't regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  What?!  Instead, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires makers to list only the ingredients that are active disinfectants or 'potentially harmful'. This sounds great, but here lies the problem.  Since the government only requires companies to list ‘chemicals of known concern’ on their labels, if it isn't 'known', then it is considered safe.  The government has no idea whether many of the chemicals used in everyday cleaning products are safe because it doesn’t test them, and it doesn’t require manufacturers to test...