What You Can Do for Your Child's Asthma?

May is Asthma awareness month. Asthma is increasingly common among children and teens. In fact, it's the most common serious chronic childhood disease. 1 in 13 school-aged children has asthma. Rates in children under five have increased more than 160% from 1980-1994!

Children are highly vulnerable to chemical toxicants. Pound for pound of body weight, children drink more water, eat more food, and breathe more air than adults. The implication of this is that children will have substantially heavier exposures than adults to any toxicants that are present in water, food or air.

An asthma attack is triggered by small particles in the air, things like mold, dust mites, secondhand smoke, pollen, bugs like cockroaches, even cats and dogs. Then there are common household cleaners which give off fumes that have been linked to increasing the risk of your kids developing asthma. (Read more about common household toxins.)

Asthma can't be cured, but it can be dramatically helped by getting rid of triggers that can lead to an asthma attack. Here are a few smart things you can do.

1. Change out your everyday toxic household cleaners to a line of natural, nontoxic, cleaners. Purchase a starter kit to get started.
2. Don't smoke in your home or car. Don't let anyone smoke near your child.
3. Keep cockroaches away by keeping counters, sinks, tables and floors clean. Cover trashcans and store food in airtight containers.
4. Keep pets outside if possible, or if you have a pet inside, try to keep them out of the child's bedroom and off the furniture.
5. Keep dust mites down by washing bed sheets and blankets weekly, vacuum carpets, rugs and furniture often, and washed stuff toys regularly and dry completely. You may want to consider removing carpets in favor of hard surfaces.
   
6. Get children on a good nutrition program. Lots of children with asthma and allergies have responded well to this nutritional regimen:
• quality children's multivitamin
  
• nutritious protein shakes. (Here are some fun and delicious ways to add children’s health products to your children's diet! Start their day with a healthy and refreshing smoothie.)
  
• additional vitamin C
  
• carotenoids
• alfalfa
  
• maintain a healthy digestive balance with probiotics
  
• natural immune system booster
  
7. Consider purchasing an air purifier to dramatically reduce, mold, dust mites, pollen, smoke and particulates and other indoor irritants from the air your child breathes. Although this air purifier cleans the air in your home up to 3000 sq feet, it's small enough to be carried anywhere in your home. So when you first get the unit place it on a table or dresser near your child's bed. Remove all coverings, sheets and pillowcases, and let it treat the food source of dust mites! Do the same in the bathroom, basement or garage to get rid of mold and mildew. Contact us for more information on this amazing air cleaner.

You are not powerless against asthma! Act now to provide a safe, healthy environment for your child. Build his body and immune system.

How Safe is Your Drinking Water?

Everyone knows that water is essential to life. Unfortunately, today's water supply leaves much to be desired. Below are some of the problems with the water today:

The problem with tap water:

• 2,110 contaminants found in U.S. drinking water since 1974.
• Most city municipalities only test for 22 contaminants.
• 8 out of 10 Americans live near a toxic waste site.
• 3 out of 4 waste treatment plants are not able to stop industrial toxic chemicals from polluting the water. --EPA
• Water treatment plants add up to 47 chemicals to treat drinking water such as aluminum, chlorine, and sodium.
• People who drink chlorinated water have 43% higher risk of bladder cancer. -- National Cancer Institute
• Contamination after water treatment comes from lead and asbestos contaminated pipes; plus bacteria and dirt from leaky pipes. -- EPA

The problem with Bottled Water:

• Standards for bottled water are the same as tap water. No guarantee of improved quality.
• Cancer causing chemicals have been found in water stored in plastic containers. --Dept. of Health
• High bacteria count has been found in bottled water, including fecal coliforms. --EPA

Your body, mainly your kidneys, are the filters removing the lead, particles and chemicals found in water today, whether they come from industrial pollution, or from the chemicals put in the water to negate the pollution. But rather than having your body be the filter, why not buy a filter that purifies your water at the tap?

Purifying your water at the tap is the best way of assuring good, clean water. Our line of water purifiers offer options to fit every budget, from the easy-to-use and inexpensive pitcher carafe, to the Consumer Digest excellent-rated high volume, advanced carbon filtration system, to the unparalleled water quality of the reverse osmosis system. All units provide you with a reliable way to get pure, clean water from your tap. These units also save you money over bottled water and free you from the inconvenience of having to lug bottled water from the store.

We invite you to learn more about our complete line of water filtration units.

Doing our part to keep our planet clean

This is a special time of the year for us. We are very dedicated environmentalist and Earth Day is important to us. We like to take take Earth Day as a day to take stock of our commitment to doing our part to keep our planet healthy and clean. Remember if we foul up planet Earth there are no emergency exits for us to use!

In his testimony before congress, Al Gore advised lawmakers to cut carbon dioxide and other warming gases 90 percent by 2050 to avert a crisis. Doing that, he said, will require a ban on any new coal-burning power plants, a major source of industrial carbon dioxide, that lack state-of-the-art controls to capture the gases.

"There is a sense of hope in this country that this United States Congress will rise to the occasion and present meaningful solutions to this crisis," he said. "Our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill, and I know it's a challenge to the moral imagination."

What do you believe? Will you rise to the occasion and to do your part?

Home Green Home
The Buck Stops Here

Global warming. It’s the buzz word making the rounds. There are movies about it, political positions on it, organizations working to stop it and we go about our daily lives as if we can’t have an impact on it as individuals. We say the environmental buck stops here … with each of us.

Rather than wait and look to governments and corporations to “do something about it”, how about setting an example individually? Historically, significant change was not brought about by businesses and governments, but by individuals committed to doing the right thing just because it was.

As Margaret Mead said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has”.

So how can we as individuals have any impact? Considering that over half of the world’s pollution is sourced from households, each of us collectively can make a difference.

Here are a few ideas.

1. Plant a tree! Trees increase levels of oxygen in the air and filter out pollutants we produce.
2. Replace a light bulb! Exchange the incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent one. They last 10 times longer and use only one-fourth of the energy compared to incandescent light bulbs.
3. Recycle! Recycling lessens the amount of waste that goes into landfills and reduces the amount of toxic chemicals absorbed into the earth.
4. Visit a Farmer’s Market! Buy locally produced foods instead of goods that must be trucked in.
5. Remember that each year Americans throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam cups. Even 500 years from now, the foam coffee cup you used this morning will be sitting in a landfill!
6. Use non-toxic, biodegradable cleaners to clean your home. Just one of our starter kits is the equivalent of planting 10 trees, eliminates 108 lbs. of packaging wastes in landfills and 248 lbs. of greenhouse gas emissions. Bonuses are it saves you money and time. We make it easy to get rid of all those undesirable cleaners you may have in your home in one full swoop. One starter kit makes the equivalent cleaning power of:
   
   60 bottles of Fantastik
   32 bottles of Mop and Glo
   728 bottles of Windex
   1 Bottle of Woolite
   1 Container of Clorox Wipes
   1 Bottle of Soft Scrub
   2.5 Boxes of Cascade
   2 Boxes of Tide
   3 Bottles of Downy
   1 box of Bounce
   
   You'd have to spend more than $3,400 to get the same amount of clean! With a starter kit, you have an easy way to create a toxic-free home without sacrificing cleaning performance. In fact, the products in the starter kit were proven to outclean 11 national brands. If you don't think our non-toxic, biodegradable products work better than what you're using now, the company will refund your money for the cost of the products.
   

Please visit our educational site dedicted to environmentally friendly, effective and economical cleaners. Remember, only you decide how to spend you money. Please let us know if we can be of help.