Toxin, Toxout

From the authors of Slow Death by Rubber Duck, Bruce Lourie and Rick  Smith are back with their new, eye-opening book, Toxin, Toxout. Toxins are back, and they’re EVERYWHERE. God, this book was so illuminating and yet so freaking scary at the same time — the amount of harmful substances in our everyday products are causing so many changes in not only the environment, but also to our bodies. I like to think I lead a somewhat healthy lifestyle in terms of staying away from plastics, recycling everything that I can, producing as little waste as possible, but this book made me really aware of the possible amount of chemicals that are in my body from things I never thought of before, like dust in the air and chemicals inside cars. I’m also more aware that I haven’t been exercising as regularly as I should have been (I blame it on school! It’s all university’s fault!), which has also kept toxins in my body.

I could go on and on about all these horrible things, but everyone should really give this a read because this we are all affected by toxic chemicals far more than we realize. And if you care about your health, you probably need to change how you live. Or you’ll dieeeeeeeeee!

Seriously though. Read this book.

PS. Look at the cool underwear Rick sent me! Thanks, Rick!

Slow Death by Rubber Duck — Rick Smith & Bruce Lourie

While I’m sort of on a roll, posting about green/eco/environmental things, I finished reading Slow Death by Rubber Duck yesterday. And man, is it an informative book.

The book takes a look at the many toxic substances people expose themselves to through everyday things such as personal care products, food, and even something as simple as sitting on your fire retardant-covered couch. At the same time, the two authors, Smith and Lourie, douse themselves (willingly, I might add) with these everyday things to measure their levels of these chemicals before and after exposure. The results are astounding, to say the least.

While reading, I got a large sense of paranoia about everything I touch, everything come into contact with. There’s an extremely summary and helpful hints at what to do as a next step that I will need to re-read and take note of. There are a whole bunch of organizations and groups involved in either the banning/regulation of these toxic chemicals or that provide people with ways to live healthier and cleaner (there are too many to list but I may go into them in detail individually). Anyway, enjoy my fat body as seen through my crappy webcam.