Author: kyce

Forgoing the plastic wrapping that seems to blanket the earth these days has meant relying on our hands to provide the same basic foods and goods we only recently bought heavily packaged from the store. Lately my hands are my teachers, showing me all kinds of things I didn’t know I could do. Hands, in fact, seem to be the primary tool in a plastic free life. These days mine knead bread and stir pots, roll tortillas and express milk from goat udders, pick rosehips for tea, crochet scarf after scarf, and hang diapers on the line. If that sounds like Little House on the Prairie but with radiant heat floors and indoor plumbing, it is, and I love it.

I also like what Susan Lydon says of hand crafting in her book The Knitting Sutra:

“The sensation is almost impossible to describe (she writes),

as it occurs through the hands rather than the mind and is utterly nonverbal in nature,

but it feels as though invisible teachers were guiding your movements.

Perhaps it is not that at all but merely a connection to the collective unconscious

or a kind of ancestral memory common to us all …

you don’t know it’s there until you tap into it by accident,

with a particular motion of the hands, and then suddenly,

with an almost electric shock, the body remembers.”

What are you learning from your hands these days?

While I might sometimes question the benefit our decision to go plastic-free has on the planet’s health, there is no question that it is one of the most significant changes we can make to improve our own well-being. The growing mountain of evidence continues to show that despite its prevalence in our society, exposure to plastic isn’t always safe for us, and especially not for our children.

In November The Official Journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry released a study linking phthalate exposure to ADHD in school age children.

Equally horrifying is this study by Environmental Health Perspectives that links prenatal BPA (Bisphenol-A) exposure to aggression in two year old girls.

For an article about how BPA has been shown to be present even in “BPA free” bottles, click here. I know we can’t escape the ubiquitousness of these chemicals, but it is upsetting to think that even when we think we are “safe” we probably aren’t.

Speaking of Bisphenol-A exposure, Treehugging Family reports on a study done by Consumer Reports showing how BPA leeches into many common canned foods, including organic ones.

So what is safe? I just can’t say anymore, especially after reading this icing on the cake piece about the migration of toxins from ordinary food packaging, like cheese.  The author of the study says, “even manufacturers of plastics do not know the full extent of chemicals that are present in their products.” So at least I know I’m not alone in my ignorance.

While BPA and phthalates are unavoidable completely, we can take a simple step to reduce our exposure to them: quit plastic. It will help keep your family healthy, and who knows, it might just help the planet, too.

Thanks to Life Without Plastic and Treehugging Family for leading me to these stories.

Just to be clear (b/c it’s not always obvious where the links are on this blog), the highlighted bold white words should take you to the studies I mention.