Anyone else read that line and immediately think of Britney Spears’ song, Toxic? (Note To Self: Have a dance party to Toxic later.) Love her or not, Britney was onto something when she released that song.

We are miraculous human beings, yes, but unfortunately we are also faced with a toxic world these days. We are in fact said to be exposed on average to hundreds if not thousands of toxins each day. Can you believe that?! It’s sad and disgusting to think that somehow we’ve allowed this to be ok. Maybe it’s the mama bear in me these days but I’m not cool with sitting back accepting this as normal. I want to protect my family and myself as much as possible as I’m sure you do as well.

If thinking about your toxic exposure is something new for you then please right now take a deep breath or three. Seriously. This can be extremely overwhelming to take in. I know when I started learning about all of the garbage that was hidden inside my personal care items (soap, toothpaste, deodorant, etc), household cleaners, beauty supplies (makeup, nail polish, perfume) and food I wanted to scream. “Why?!”

After much research I realized that I may not be able to understand why we allow this here in the U.S. but I can learn how to minimize my family’s exposure to it. For years I’ve had a handle on our food with all my nutrition research so I felt confident there. (Note: If you don’t, please see my Nutrition 101 page and the EWG Dirty Dozen to help you determine which foods are imperative to buy organic) What I wasn’t confident on were all the household and personal care items. There are great resources out there but again my favorite is the Environmental Working Group (EWG). They have a free website and app where you can type in a product or scan something with the app and it will show you the rating for it. They rank them from 1 (green, being low risk) to 10 (red, being the worst).

They also have an EWG Verified icon which means the product has passed their strictest criteria. Fair warning you will most likely fall down a rabbit hole of checking everything in your house. I know I found myself happily surprised with somethings and furious with others. I personally dumped anything that was in the red right there on the spot. Luckily I didn’t have too much but I then started to research better options to replace them with. Be sure to look at each product individually. For example, one company can have a hand soap that ranks a one but if you buy it in a different scent it can shock you with a much higher score all due to the fragrance.

Just like when starting a new fitness routine sometimes people like to jump right in while others slowly make changes. Which ever type you are I’d approach this the same way so you don’t go crazy. If you’re the person who likes to jump right in then dumping all your high risk items, making a list of better options and buying them all in one swoop might be the way to go. Crank up your favorite empowering music playlist and go for it! If that all seems daunting and too expensive right now then take the one in one out approach. Every time you run out of something look up a safer option and replace it with that.

To me, the key isn’t to be the first one to restock your house with only safe products rather it’s to be the one who continually minimizes their toxin exposure long term.