July 29, 2010 – 9:43 am
Caroline Cox
This week, CEH’s Research Director Caroline Cox follow-ups on our Culinary Month tips to tell us about how she likes to grow, shop for, and prepare the organic food she loves.
Unrecipe #1: Every meal
Ingredients:
1. Your neighborhood farmers market
2. A few minutes of your time to sample what’s for sale and talk with the farmers
3. Anything tasty (and organic, please)
Directions:
I usually race through the farmers market on my way to the next thing on my list. But if you can take a few extra minutes, I think you’ll find that your farmers are a remarkable group of people. At my farmers market, one of my favorite farmers grew up in Japan. Another teaches Buddhist meditation when she’s not driving a tractor. Another became my friend when I asked him if I could pay for my garlic with a pocketful of coins. He just smiled and said, “Embrace change.”
Your few extra minutes will also let you sample what’s for sale and pick out what tastes really good. That’s what you want to buy. Preferably organic.
Peel, slice, chop, grill, or stir-fry as needed. When it tastes so good to begin with you don’t need to do much, and you don’t need much of a recipe. Enjoy!
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July 27, 2010 – 5:28 pm
Charlie Pizarro
Next time you hear a chemical industry rep (or one of their many fronts) whine about how eliminating toxic chemicals will be too expensive, will wreck our economy, will cause another outbreak of socialism, body odor, and/or Paris Hilton, just remember this number: $5.85 billion (for those of you who prefer to bask in the full, base-ten glory of imponderably large numbers, that’s $5,850,000,000).
You see, according to a study released today, $5.85*109 is the cost to our economy of four childhood diseases linked with toxic chemicals in the environment. more »
July 26, 2010 – 9:51 am
Charles Margulis
In testimony to Congress last week, the General Accounting Office (GAO) thoroughly debunked the marketing of direct-to-consumer genetic test kits, charging that the biotech companies who peddle this high-tech snake-oil scam are guilty of providing “misleading test results” backed by “deceptive marketing and other questionable practices.”
If you have purchased genetic testing from a direct-to-consumer company (ie, not through a physician)and would like to help take action to stop these abusive practices, please email the Center for Environmental Health at charles@ceh.org.
Genetic test kits promise to give consumers who pony up $300 to $1,000 or more information about how their genes will predict their future. The kits promise to tell you whether you will contract certain diseases, give you suggestions for avoiding illness, and even promise to predict the abilities of your offspring (you might give birth to the next LeBron James!). more »
July 22, 2010 – 8:00 am
Alison Geering-Kline
It’s not the most well-known month dedication, but apparently, July is National Culinary Arts Month. Though this four week celebration focuses on celebrating professional cooks and chefs, we thought we’d pay homage to the good old tradition of cooking at home. Making your own food not only reduces waste, but it also gives you control over your food—so that you can buy your own, local organic ingredients and avoid pesticides.
Some of us here at CEH are quite into experimenting with different recipes to make tasty dishes with organic ingredients. So, we’ve compiled a list of some of our safe food practices, and a recipe or two, for this month’s culinary recognition. more »
- Posted in Eco-Tip of the Week, Pesticides, Safe Foods, Toxins in Household Products
- Tagged CA strawberries, compost, EPA, green culinary tips, local ingredients, methyl iodide, non-toxic kitchenware, organics
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July 21, 2010 – 12:44 pm
Alison Geering-Kline
For many of us, comforting sensations come to mind when we think about our personal care products and how they make us feel, smell, and look. But do you ever wonder what all those complicated ingredients listed on the back of your favorite shampoo or perfume actually are?
We’ve written about this before: All those alluring fragrances, promises of silky smooth skin, and that squeaky clean anti-bacterial feeling are brought to us by synthetic, lab-created chemicals, most of which are made from petroleum. Shocking numbers of these chemicals have not been adequately tested for safety, and few tests that have been done show that these chemicals can also post serious threats to our health. more »
- Posted in Greenwashing, Lead, Toxins in Children's Products, Toxins in Household Products
- Tagged EPA, families, green living, health, Lead, negative health impacts., safe cosmetics, toxics, toxics in cosmetics
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July 19, 2010 – 8:00 am
Alison Geering-Kline
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has already been deemed the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. But the spill has also earned another title: a public health disaster.
As the oil continues to gush, its health hazards continue to wreak havoc on the health of Gulf residents and cleanup workers. By the end of June, 162 oil-related illnesses had been reported to the Louisiana state health department. 128 of those cases involved workers on oil rigs or individuals involved in the oil spill cleanup efforts. According to the department’s oil spill surveillance report, the most common symptoms reported were throat and eye irritation, shortness of breath, cough, nausea, chest pain, and headaches. Many have also reported vomiting and additional respiratory problems.
The Plaquemines Medical Center, near Venice, Louisiana has treated dozens of patients who have gotten sick from spill-related chemical exposure. The Director of the medical center, Michael Kotler states that the center handles those cases that the US Health Service and a private medical contractor employed by BP are not prepared to handle. more »
July 16, 2010 – 9:47 am
Charles Margulis
Thanks to research and legal action by the Center for Environmental Health, millions of children who play on fields of artificial turf will no longer be exposed to potentially hazardous levels of lead. A 2008 CEH expose showing high levels of lead in many varieties of artificial turf culminated this week with legal settlements that call for strict limits on lead made by the leading turf companies.
In 2008, the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services reported on their testing of artificial turf fields, concluding that for children exposed to lead from artificial turf, “the potential for lead poisoning to occur is plausible.” That summer the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warned that “As the turf ages and weathers, lead is released in dust that could then be ingested or inhaled, and the risk for harmful exposure increases.”
So CEH took action, testing hundreds of samples of turf and alerting parents and schools of the risks. We also alerted the turf makers and the California Attorney General. In September 2008, CEH and the Attorney General filed lawsuits to end the health threat from lead in turf. more »
July 14, 2010 – 9:31 am
Alison Geering-Kline
Last week Caroline wrote about natural, chemical-free ways to avoid mosquitoes at home and in the wild. This got me thinking about other ways to avoid toxic chemicals while on outdoor adventures. Yes, toxic chemicals in the wild may seem like a contradiction. But campers introduce toxics into the natural environment all too often when they pack the chemical-laden, wasteful products of our urban lives with them—insect repellents, plastic bottles, disposable containers and more.
Since I’ve been planning more camping trips for this summer, I wanted to a strategy to keep toxic, wasteful products out of my trip—not only to protect my own health, but also the health of the natural landscapes I’ll be visiting. more »
July 13, 2010 – 12:09 pm
Charles Margulis
Following an investigation and legal action earlier this year by the Center for Environmental Health, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Tween Brands today announced a recall of 19 styles of children’s metal necklaces, bracelets and earrings due to high levels of cadmium. About 137,000 pieces of jewelry were pulled from the company’s Justice and Limited Too retail outlets nationally.
“We welcome this action to remove a public health threat from store shelves,” said Caroline Cox, Research Director at CEH. “Parents should not have to worry that jewelry for their children may be tainted with metals that can cause life-long health problems.”
In February, CEH filed legal notices against Tween Brands and three other retailers for selling cadmium-tainted jewelry, based on California consumer protection law which applies to any jewelry that exposes children or adults to significant levels of the toxic metal. Cadmium can cause cancer, genetic damage, and kidney problems. A 2006 study concluded that exposure in children “should be limited as much as possible” to prevent direct health problems and problems later in their lives.
July 12, 2010 – 8:00 am
Matt Nevins
If you were to search for men who admit to frequenting Claire’s Boutique – where your teenage daughters shop for clothes, jewelry, and other fashion accessories with short shelf lives – I am quite certain that you would spend a long time looking. I visit this store often, along with many others that sell women’s and children’s jewelry. Creepy? Not at all. Ignoring the puzzled faces that ask, “What’s up with this guy, and why is he bringing 20 necklaces to the check-out counter?”, I remind myself of why I put any sort of masculine self-consciousness on the line: to protect unknowing children and parents from the hidden danger of lead-tainted jewelry.
In the summer of 2006, more than seventy companies signed a legal agreement with the Center for Environmental Health and the California Attorney General. The agreement set strict limits for lead—which causes cancer, birth-related defects, and other reproductive harm—in jewelry. The companies also contributed to a fund that pays CEH to check whether or not they’ve gotten the lead out.
Now, 22 months into the project, our findings show that some companies continue to sell jewelry with illegal amounts of lead.
How do I know? Well, every week, I shop at three or four retailers who agreed to end sales of lead-tainted jewelry and buy about 15-20 pieces of jewelry from each. I frequently hear, “Oh my goodness, is this for your girlfriend? That’s so sweet!” from the teenage sales clerk. When she realizes that I’m buying about 20 pieces of jewelry and spending over $200, it becomes more of a “Wow, you must have LOTS of girlfriends!”
But I digress. Buying the jewelry is only half the job. The other half is to screen each component of each piece of jewelry for lead. For this part, I use CEH’s X-Ray Fluorescence analyzer (XRF), which identifies all of the metal elements in an item. Most of the time, our results indicate that the jewelry does not contain dangerous levels of lead. more »
- Posted in Lead, Toxins in Children's Products, Toxins in Jewelry
- Tagged cancer, Claire's accessories, Claire's Boutique, health, illegal amounts of lead, jewelry, Jewelry Testing Fund, Lead, lead-tainted jewelry, toxic jewelry, toxics, XRF
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