Submitted questions will be posted with my response by the following Tuesday or before.
Submitted comments will be moderated and approved within 24 hours.
Dish Drying Rack at Ikea
Question from TA
Hi Debra,
I just came across this dish drying rack on Ikea’s website. www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80213173. It comes in this darker color and in a silver color that is listed as nickel plated with clear lacquer. That seems more likely to be potentially toxic (what is the lacquer, etc), so I’m just looking at the darker colored one. The product description says “Steel, galvanized” — but this seems to pertain to the water-catching tray rather than the wire rack.
I clicked over to this related product, and it identifies the black wire part as steel with powder coating and the “shelf” (I’d call it a tray) as galvanized steel. That seems more accurate and appears to be the same as the dish rack. www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10238148
Would you consider this powder-coated steel rack and galvanized tray to be safe?
On a side note, I also noticed on Ikea’s site that they have been in the process of using “more sustainable” cotton in their products. Not organic, but grown in ways that use less water, less chemical fertilizer, less pesticide. It seems like a good step, especially for those of us who can’t get organic everything. www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/this-is-ikea/people-and-planet/energy-and-resources/index.html#cotton
Debra’s Answer
Powder-coated steel and galvanized steel are both materials I consider to be safe for their intended uses. Neither outgas toxic vapors into the air and they wouldn’t leave toxic residues on dishes. I wouldn’t eat it however, and it’s probably not designed for continuous skin contact.
That’s great that IKEA is moving in the direction of more sustainable cotton. Every step toward reducing toxics helps!
Glyphosate in Sugar Cane Paper?
Question from Mary
Hi Debra,
There is paper made from sugar cane, but isn’t sugar cane one of the crops grown from GMO and so wouldn’t the paper have residues of glyphosphate?
Debra’s Answer
I love sugar cane paper and was just about to buy some.
“GMO sugar can exists but is not widely used.” www.theorganicprepper.ca/sweet-life-how-to-source-non-gmo-sugar-for-your-pantry-11282012
So while I can’t say there is no glyphosate contamination from the environment, it isn’t routinely used on sugar cane crops.
Facts For Fighting Dryer Sheets
Here are some references about the toxic dangers from dryer sheets. Please add a comment with any others you know about.
THE HEALTH WYZE REPORT: The Toxicity of Dryer Sheets, Fabric Softeners, and Laundry Detergents
Are There Heavy Metals in Your Garden?
Heavy metals have been detected at high levels in Portland residential neighborhoods, around two glass factories.
Environmental authorities are recommending that citizens should avoid eating produce grown within a half=mile of the highest mapped metal concentrations until further notice.
Home gardeners nationwide are now asking questions about heavy metals in garden soil.
Read more about heavy metals in garden soil and if you need to test your soil…
CIVIL EATS: What Portland’s Soil Crisis Can Teach Us About Heavy Metals in the Garden
While your soil may be just fine, it also may be contaminated with heavy metals. If so, your, your body may have built up a store of lead and possibly other unknown heavy metals that could be affecting your health.
Once heavy metals enter your body, it is very difficult for your body to remove them.
That’s why I take PureBody Liquid Zeolite every day. This natural mineral is uniquely suited to remove heavy metals. Tiny bits of negatively-charged zeolite act like little magnets to attract positively-charged particles—which include 99.9% of heavy metals, radiation, and organic chemicals–so they can be removed from your body via your kidneys. It’s simple, effective, and affordable.
Another Reason To Have A Water Filter
We know about chorine and fluoride and heavy metals in tap water, but does your water have 1,2,3 Trichloropropane (1,2,3TCP)?
After all the news about water problems in Flint, Michigan, a reporter decided to actually read the “consumer confidence report” for her drinking water. And she found this footnote in tiny print:
And it’s not just her local community in Fresno, California. 1,2,3-TCP has been found in about a hundred public water systems in California.
But neither the state nor the federal EPA regulates 1,2,3-TCP in drinking water. So public utilities don’t have to test for it, filter it out, or advise their customers if it’s in the water.
Again, my best recommendation is to filter your drinking and bathing water at home, using a filter that removes a broad spectrum of pollutants.
KQED: There’s a Concer-Causing Chemical in My Drinking Water, But California Isn’t Regulating It
If you are drinking tap water, it’s likely that it contains chlorine or chloramines, fluoride, heavy metals, perhaps radiation, and unknown contaminants of various sorts.
Your best protection is to get a water filter that removes a broad spectrum of known pollutants and unknown contaminants.
The water filter I use in my own home is made by Pure Effect. It’s state of the art filtration removes just about everything that might be in your water that you don’t want to put in your body.
Learn more about Pure Effect water filters here…
Cangshan Knives
Question from Michelle Bishop
Hi Debra,
I just ordered a Cangshan N series (hollow center in handle, solid metal knife) from Amazon. All the reviews are good but they’re from Aug 2015 and forward so it seems these knives are not long-established. They got an NSF certification (I verified on the website) but I wanted your thoughts on the metal and its safety.
Debra’s Answer
The material is simply stainless steel.
I usually don’t recommend stainless steel, because heavy metals can leach from it. However, leaching requires contact time, and there is very little contact time with a knife.
I myself use knives with stainless steel blades and I am not concerned about this.
Lead in Glass
Update February, 2020: Is There Lead in Glassware? read more…
Hudson River Contaminated with Uncontrollable Radioactive Flow
“For more than a decade, it has been impossible for operators of the Indian Point nuclear power plant to stop highly radioactive reactor and spent fuel pool coolant from leaking into the groundwater and migrating to the Hudson River.
“And despite assurances from Entergy that this time will be different, there is no indication that the company has developed the ability to prevent the latest uncontrolled leaks from following the underground waterway into the Hudson. And because the river is a tidal estuary flowing as much as 20 miles above and below the nuclear site, radioactive contaminants may be sucked into the drinking water systems of several river towns.”
HUFFINGTON POST: Indian Point Contaminates the Hudson River With Uncontrollable Radioactive Flow
This is just another example of unknown water contaminants that might be in your drinking water. Contamination occurs long before it is detected.
If you are drinking tap water, it’s likely that it contains chlorine or chloramines, fluoride, heavy metals, perhaps radiation, and unknown contaminants of various sorts.
Your best protection is to get a water filter that removes a broad spectrum of known pollutants and unknown contaminants.
The water filter I use in my own home is made by Pure Effect. It’s state of the art filtration removes just about everything that might be in your water that you don’t want to put in your body.
Learn more about Pure Effect water filters here…
Glyphosate Detox: How to Remove Roundup From Your Body
More and more in the past few weeks stories are coming out about glyphosate contamination in one product after another.
In October 2015, I wrote a post on my Toxic Free Body blog called “Glyphosate Detox: How to Remove Roundup From Your Body.” Since that blog is no longer available, I want to repost portions of it here, in light of recent events.
We can’t avoid glyphosate by only avoiding GMO’s—it’s now found in organic grains and who knows where else. We only know it’s in organic grains because grains have been tested. Glyphosate is applied by aerial spraying. It can drift to organic produce just as easily as organic grains. It may be more widespread than we know.
The way to survive all this exposure to toxic chemicals is to assist your body’s detox system, which is very overloaded. The two approaches are to 1) support your detox organs (liver/intesties and kidneys in particular, or to do things that remove toxics directly, such as taking liquid zeolite or spend time in a sauna.
The difficulty in choosing a detox for a particular substance is that you need to pick a detox that matches the characteristics the the toxic substance you are wanting to remove.
I searched on “glyphosate detox” and found a number of posts that were just way off track.
So I thought I would give my viewpoint on this.
First, glyphosate is accumulating in our bodies.
A Friends of the Earth Europe study done in 2013 tested urine samples from people in 18 countries for glyphosate. The results showed that traces of the chemical were found in samples from all countries, with 44 per cent of samples found to contain glyphosate on average.
Then a 2014 study showed glyphosate levels in mother’s breast milk 700 times higher than the maximum contaminant level (MCL) set for glyphosate by EPA.
However, the safe limit set by EPA was based on biotech theory that glyphosate would not bio-accumulate in human’s tissue. Yet clearly it does when actually measured.
Friends of the Earth Europe says, “Glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) is a systemic, broad-spectrum herbicide, that works by blocking an enzyme used to make protein in plants. This means it is toxic to any plant that has not been genetically modified to resist it.”
Hmmm. What about humans who have not been genetically modified to resist it?
The only method of detox I know of that will remove herbicides is sauna. Your body will sweat it out.
I’ve also seen some evidence that probiotics will help restore your gut microbiome that gets destroyed by glyphosate. That makes sense to me.
You can get a glyphosate urine test at The Detox Project.
100% of German Beers Tested Contaminated with Glyphosate
Tests done by the Munich Environmental Institute (Umweltinstitut München) found glyphosate in ALL of the 14 beers tested.
The German Brewers’ Association admitted that low residues of the probable human carcinogen glyphosate could not be prevented, because “the herbicide is now found virtually everywhere after decades of use in agriculture.”
SUSTAINABLE PULSE: German Beer Industry in Shock over Glyphosate Contamination
