Detoxifying the Kitchen

Detoxifying my home is something that has become more important to me since Kaiden’s arrival.  It was important before but now it’s extra important.  I’ve wanted to write about it for a while but it is a huge topic and can be overwhelming, so I decided to tackle it one area of the house at a time!  Today I’m going to write about detoxifying the kitchen as this seems to be the one room that requires to the most effort and money to me.  It is taking me a long time to reduce toxins in my kitchen and it is an ongoing battle!  Here are the steps I’ve taken or that I plan to take:

1.       Eliminating non-stick/Teflon and aluminum cookware – both of these are unsafe options for cooking.  Better options are stainless steel, ceramic, cast iron and enamelled cast iron.  So far I’ve gotten rid of all my non-stick cookware and am using stainless steel.  The only thing that I haven’t replaced is my frying pan... but hopefully Santa will bring me some enamelled cast iron cook ware!

2.       Plastic containers – with all the talk about BPAs we definitely know that it is possible for chemicals to leach from our plastic containers.  Eliminating plastic tupperware, baggies, etc and replacing with safer options such as glass containers and baggies with safer containers or reusable sandwich bags.  If you still have plastic containers (can’t lie, I still do) making sure to never put hot/warm food in them and never heat food in them is a good first step.

3.       Cleaning products – I am not a big fan of any anti-bacterial products and don’t use them in my kitchen or in my house (except for CleanWell which I use at diaper changes as there is no close sink).   Soap and water does a good job but it can be hard to find a truly green dish soap or cleaning product.  Right now my favourite dish soap is by Seventh Generation but I am also a big fan of the Miessence Bio-Pure cleaning concentrate which I’ve just started using.  And always remember that just because something says it is natural or organic doesn’t mean that it doesn’t contain synthetic chemicals.  The EWG has a useful resource for checking your products.

4.       Plastic utensils – similar to plastic containers, eliminating plastic utensils and replacing with better options such as wood or stainless steel.

5.        Bakeware – instead of using aluminum or silicone bakeware, switch to stainless steel.  I am still looking for a local source of stainless steel bakeware so I’m holding off on any purchases until then.

Those are a few steps that I know of for removing toxins from your kitchen.  I would love it if you would share some of your ideas as well!