(00:07):
Welcome to the Slightly Greener Life podcast. This is your host, Tonya Harris. I am an award-winning environmental talks and expert, bestselling author, and mother of three. I created this podcast as a place to help busy moms ditch the overwhelm and start living a low toxin life. Now let’s get into this week’s episode.
(00:29): Detoxifying your home and lifestyle sounds very overwhelming, and it definitely can be, but if you take it just a couple of steps at a time and remember these three simple tips, you’ll be surprised at how easy and automatic it can be. So here are three ways to stay slightly greener without getting completely overwhelmed. The three that we’ll talk about today are the 80/20 rule, find your deal breakers, and number three is to choose your top two. But first, let’s dig into the 80/20 rule.
The 80/20 Rule
(01:00): And this rule works for so many things, including toxins, believe it or not. And the way it works here is that if you can buy safer products 80% of the time, then you don’t have to worry so much about the other 20% of the time where you don’t have control, or say you’re at an event, or even if you just want to treat yourself. But it could also be if you’re trying to stick to a budget or like me, if you’re traveling and you forget something and the store doesn’t carry your favorite safer version of that product, really no matter what the reason, the 80/20 rule comes in handy. And don’t worry if you can’t do that 80/20. That’s fine, too. Just start with 50/50 or 60/40, really, whatever works for you in your budget and lifestyle. Just start with what works best for you and your family and work your way up from there.
Find Your Dealbreaker Ingredients
(01:49): The second tip is to find your deal-breaker ingredients. And this is my favorite rule because this is really what made shopping become automatic and easy for me when I first started out, because a deal-breaker ingredient is just what it sounds like. And in term of toxic ingredients, it means as soon as you see this ingredient name on a label, you know this product is not right for you.
(02:13): In my book, the Slightly Greener Method, I use the example of dating, which is how we typically think of deal breakers. Like if you find out that you’re dating the guy who claps when the plane lands, and seriously, sorry if you’re that person who claps when the plane lands, but it’s just an example, but that’s an example of a deal breaker. The same goes for buying safer products and reading product labels. If you can decide what your deal-breaking ingredients are, you’ll know right away whether or not to buy a product. For example, we have ADHD in my family, so our deal-breaking ingredients are artificial colors and sodium benzoate. This means that when I’m out shopping and checking food and drink labels, if I see either one of those terms on the label, then I’m not buying that product. So instead of trying to memorize several ingredients at a time, if not more that I’d like to avoid, I started out with just one or two.
(03:04): And the way I got to this point was back in 2006 when I was trying to help my son, who was showing signs of attention issues, and after a lot of research, I began changing our diets, but really I was driving myself and my family crazy by trying to replace everything all at once. So what I did was I thought, “What if I just started out memorizing a couple of ingredient names first that have to do with ADHD instead of trying to avoid everything and then just build on from there?” So that’s what I did. I began with memorizing just two ingredient names rather than dozens.
(03:39): How can you find your deal breakers? One of the best ways is to think about any health concerns you or your children have, or maybe a concern of something that runs in your family. Like our example of artificial colors, those are known to be linked to hyperactivity, so I chose that one first. Or if you have eczema, maybe sodium laurel sulfate would be an ingredient you could start out avoiding because that one is strongly linked to inflammation and skin irritation. And when you buy my book, you get a dedicated book website that has a protocol of ingredients to avoid that have to do with certain health conditions like ADHD or weight gain, brain health, and even what to avoid during pregnancy. Or maybe you don’t have any current health concerns, which is awesome, but you just want to be healthier. My book’s website also has an ingredients to avoid ranked section that gives you my recommendations of ingredients to avoid in order of deal-breaking ingredients.
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But we’re all individual and our needs are just as unique as we are, so I created the Slightly Greener Method and wrote my book to help you decide which toxins to prioritize avoiding for your own unique needs, because it can be so overwhelming at times. But when you use your deal-breaker ingredients, pretty soon it becomes automatic, and you’ll know which brands to buy and which to skip.
Choose Your Top 2
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The third way to detoxify your home without losing your mind and your budget is to choose your top two. This means choosing your top two, or even your top one, most used, most consumed toxic products and replacing just those first. I recommend starting in the kitchen, then moving on to your personal care products and cosmetics, and then onto your cleaning products, because I believe that these are the three main areas of your home where you can see the quickest impact. So if you can choose your top two, or again, even if you just choose one, most used, most toxic product, you’ll make a big difference. This way you’re not replacing everything all at once, but you’re doing it slowly over a period of time. For example, my daughter loved hotdogs when she was little, but I am not a big fan. As a treat, I would buy her a safer brand of hotdog like Applegate Farms, and it would be an occasional treat. This way, she still got the occasional hotdog and didn’t feel deprived, and I felt better about the ingredients. And the same goes for items in your bathroom. Switch out products like toothpaste and face wash or shampoo that you use every day and just replace those with a safer brand. Or you can buy a safer mascara that you’ll use every day and then keep your favorite, most likely toxic mascara for special occasions.
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There are so many ways to customize this detoxified lifestyle, and this is not about avoiding everything, because we can’t. But what we can do is make these smaller changes that will add up over time and that will fit into our lifestyle rather than us feeling like we’re depriving ourselves by changing our lifestyle to fit these changes.
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So that’s it for the three ways to stay slightly greener without getting completely overwhelmed. Again, they’re the 80/20 rule, find your deal breakers, and choose your top two. Just remember, it’s not about perfection. It’s about creating a lifestyle that works for us. And when we make these smaller changes, just one or two at a time, it becomes so much more doable, and before you know it, you’ll have the perfect shade of green for you without completely turning your lifestyle upside down.
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Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Slightly Greener Life podcast. Please take a moment to subscribe to the show and then be sure to share it with a friend who wants simple steps to living in this complex world. I’ll see you next time!
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