Carol Ekarius' Toxic Burden Blog: Learn how chemicals affect your health

Cut down on the consumption this holiday season: donate some percentage of what you would usually spend on stuff to put under the tree to a good cause, and make conscientious choices for the gifts you do give.

Most of us are guilty of spending too much on holiday shopping. We run credit cards up, and pile packages in a small mountain under the tree. Christmas morning comes, everyone tears through all the ribbons and wrappings, and we are left feeling dull, almost hung over, with guilt and worry, and more stuff to store in already overflowing closets, garages, sheds, and storage units.

Just about everything under the tree is imported from a country with a less-developed economy and legal system than ours (can you say, China, Malaysia, Sri Lanka...), so with every purchase we are adding to global environmental and social problems. We are also adding to our own health problems, since our own regulatory system isn’t doing the finest job of keeping unsafe products out of our carts.

Gifts of Giving

This year, consider buying a little less, and donating some of the money you would typically spend on gifts to one or more good causes. Feed someone who is hungry: buy a chicken through Heifer Project International, or meals through America’s Second Harvest. Consider a gift to a local environmental group that works in your backyard. Support the arts or libraries, parks or wildlife. Worried about health issues? Then consider making a gift to The Breast Cancer Fund, Physicians for Social Responsibility, or The Children’s Environmental Health Network. (Links for all of these groups and the businesses that are mentioned in today’s post are at the end of the post.)

Researchers have found that giving to charity is actually good for the giver. For example, a group of scientists at Oregon State University studied brain wave activity of people using MRI, and showed that there is a clear increase in positive brain activity when people were making donations. And, a survey by a Syracuse University professor showed that “people who gave money charitably were 43 percent more likely to say they were “very happy” than those who didn’t give. Better health and increased wealth—for both the individual giver and the nation as a whole—are also linked to charitable giving.”

Gifts for Family and Friends

Of course, you don’t have to stop giving gifts to family and friend, nor should you. Of the gifts you do give, though, start making conscious buying choices that are good for the recipient and the world. Consider giving some really good, organic foods and body care products. Numerous studies show that organic and naturally raised foods, such as grassfed meat and dairy products, are significantly more nutritious and have fewer pesticides on them. Plus, good food is a great present. The place to search for good food? Local Harvest, a wonderful asset for finding real food from real farmers., or across the country, has a zip-code based database that allows you to search for farms, farmers’ markets, and restaurants that focus on local and/or organic food near where you live. Use the “Store Categories” to search for products from real farmers and artisan foodies who ship products nationwide, ranging from chocolates and desserts, to fruit and flowers, pet supplies and preserves, seeds and soaps, or wool and fiber.

As for body care products, the more edible the ingredients list, the better. My new find is ProductGoat, from a relative newcomer in the field. As the name implies, this Colorado company’s specialty is making great skin-care products with goat’s milk, though they also use a wide variety of plant-based oils and essences. The list of things not used in their products is impressive. My fave in their lineup: the Serene face cream. Lemongrass gives it wonderful scent, and it is truly luscious for your skin.

I’m also partial to Pangea Organics and Grateful Body. Pangea is another Colorado company, and Grateful Body hails from northern California. I interviewed both Pangea’s founder/CEO, Joshua Onysko and Grateful Body’s founder/CEO, Shannon Schroter, a couple of years ago. Both emphasized the importance of high quality, natural ingredients.

Onysko said, if you can’t eat it, he doesn’t really want it in his products. “I tell people to follow the if-you-can’t-pronounce-it you-probably-shouldn’t-be-smearing-it-on-your-body rule.”

Schroter got into making all natural skin-care products after his two sisters died within a year of each other from cancer. He told me, “Having two sisters dying of cancer makes me very sensitive to people dropping off left and right of cancer. So our aim is to lessen the toxic load in our children. You have breast milk that has 67 toxins in it, you have umbilical cord blood of newborn children that has hundreds of chemical in it, so our first goal is to lessen the toxic load.

“Skin care is like eating,” he added, “just eating through your skin instead of your mouth. So I say, ‘clean up your diet’. These chemicals you put on your skin go into your body and there are negative effects.”

My favorite item from Pangea is the Italian Red Mandarin with Roses skin cream, which is pricey but lasts a long time. And, I hate to admit it, but my regular investment from the Grateful Body lineup is 30Plus Hot Flash Splash... a cooling mist that really does the trick.