Where it all began...

I have learned a lot recently about toxins, products, and home health. (What I mean by "it" in the blog title...) This emerged as a result of part of my personality that I recently explained to a coworker... I'm a nerd. In my opinion, everything is an opportunity to learn and to study. I don't know where I got this idea, exactly. But what it means, practically, is that anything that I start learning about that seems kind of important becomes something I want to learn everything about. I know, it sounds a little obsessive. It might be. But I haven't studied up on that one, so I don't know if we should really call it that...

My foray into the world of information on toxics today started pretty simply. All my baby supplies say "BPA free." I decided maybe I should know why they felt the need to tell me that. What was BPA, after
all? Turns out, BPA is a synthetic estrogen. It was made in hopes of being used for that, but it wasn't as good as others, so it got shelved... until somebody discovered that it was pretty useful for hardening plastics. I think the assumption must have been that once it was in something solid, it would stay put. Problem is, it doesn't. As we are finding out about so many things in plastics, it leaches out--into whatever it is next to...

Which turns out to be everything.
Okay, maybe not everything.
Just peas and carrots, soup, baby formula, water, fruit cocktail, tuna, beans, leftovers, soda, and pretty much anything in a can, water in old Nalgene-like water bottles (usually coded #7; the new ones use polypropylene instead, so they are safer)... more that I can't remember.
And it's in even more things that come into direct contact with skin. Cash register receipts (carbonless). Plastic flatware. Dental sealants. So it might be absorbed through the skin, or it might get into the system by eating with hands that have touched it.

The problem with it being so pervasive and getting into food and human bodies is that it is extra estrogen that our bodies weren't counting on working with. The Washington Post article above says that the concentration found in most people's bodies might be small, but it's 1,000 times the body's natural level. That doesn't sound so small when you think of the proportion. Based on animal studies, it is believed to contribute to: undescended testes, early puberty, male sexual dysfunction, polycystic ovarian syndrome, miscarriage, thyroid disregulation, diabetes, even ADHD. A new study (out yesterday) confirm it does cause hormone changes in men.

All these things make me extremely grateful that it's no longer in my baby bottles or my plastic water bottle. Yet I am disturbed that it is still in canned foods and plastic flatware, and even used as sealant on the metal lids of glass jars... It's ubiquitous! I've found out that small children and pregnant women are most vulnerable. But I didn't find out until after little Beckett was born, and so I don't even know how many canned foods I ate during my pregnancy with him.
I have decided, however, to minimize his exposure through my milk. I haven't opened a can for our food for weeks now. Our beans now come from a bag, and I soak them and then cook them myself. Soups so far are ones I have made. Sauces come in jars. Fruit for my cottage cheese is in a jar. And tuna... well, I don't know when I'll eat it again.

If you are curious about what it would take to decrease your exposure to BPA, look at the sidebar in a Washington Post article.
I also decided it was time to take some public action to make my voice known. There's a bill before Congress right now about chemicals...