How large is the market for feminine hygiene products and what does it mean to Mother Earth? According to Global Industry Analysts, Inc., the 2015 global market projection for tampons alone is $2.6 billion. At an average unit price of 20 cents, that’s 13 billion tampons each year, plus their packaging and applicators, that end up in the world’s overburdened landfills and in sewage treatment plants—many ultimately in our oceans and rivers where they are harmful to plants and animals.

Health for yourself and sustainability for the environment!

The total market, including all types of sanitary pads, was $13 billion in 2010 as reported by Medical News Today.

Women’s health related to these products is a more serious concern. The U.S. FDA and Health Canada, both regulating tampons as medical devices, specify certain requirements for manufacturers of these products—not including ingredient labeling. They do require provision of information about the risk and symptoms of toxic shock syndrome (TSS).

Repeatedly since 1997, Rep. Carolyn Maloney of NY introduced a bill to the U.S. Congress, The Robin Danielson Act (H.R. 2332). This Act would amend the Public Health Service Act to establish a program of research regarding the risks posed by the presence of dioxin, synthetic fibers and other additives in feminine hygiene products, and to establish a program for the collection and analysis of TSS data.

Chemicals in Sanitary Supplies

A textile industry article by Pancholi and Dr. Naik explains a sanitary pad’s manufacturing process. High absorption is achieved by mixing shredded wood pulp with acrylic-based, super absorbent polymers (SAPs—sodium, potassium, and alkyl acrylate), which enable the pad to hold up to 30 times its weight in water. The process of bleaching the wood creates dioxin, a known carcinogen.

Next, a permeable, nonwoven top layer of fabric is attached to the pad. After adding a non-permeable polyethylene bottom sheet, the three layers are glued and sealed for a leak-proof pad.

Mt. Holyoke College’s Environmental Action Coalition states, “Tampons are made from rayon, produced from wood pulp and cotton which is a heavy pesticide crop. Of all insecticides, 25% are used on cotton, and…the vaginal walls are the most absorbent part of a woman’s body,” so the insecticides and other chemicals slide easily into the bloodstream.

Tampons are made from cotton, rayon, or a blend of both materials—each prone to problems—cotton due to pesticides, and rayon, made from cellulose which comes from processed wood pulp. Many have questioned whether rayon is related to the occurrence of TSS.

The problems with tampons and sanitary pads are further compounded when chemical fragrances are added. Fragrances often consist of hundreds of synthetic chemicals including phthalates that can pose chronic, long-term health risks including hormonal and reproductive issues.

H.R. 2332 Identifies Numerous Concerns

H.R. 2332 would require the National Institutes of Health to “determine the extent to which the presence of dioxin, synthetic fibers, and other additives in tampons and other feminine hygiene products poses any risks to the health of women who use the products (related to cervical cancer, endometriosis, infertility, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, immune system deficiencies, pelvic inflammatory disease, and TSS); and any risks to the health of children of women who used such products during or before their pregnancies, including risks relating to fetal and childhood development.”

The bill’s findings express multiple concerns, including, “50% of TSS cases in the U.S. are related to tampon use. The CDC estimates that one or two of every 100,000 women 15 to 44 years of age will develop the syndrome.” It states that accurate data is not collected on the occurrence of this syndrome.

Innovative Alternatives

This industry is yet another ripe for the promotion of organic, sustainable products produced without harmful chemicals. The industry is not new; it has existed for the past two decades. However, the traditional, chemical-laden brands remain more widely recognized and used by the mass consumer market.

Due to the significant negative impacts to the environment and to women’s health caused by the manufacture, use and disposal of feminine hygiene products, companies such as Corman, Natracare, Moon Cup and Diva International have responded by developing safer, more responsible alternatives.

There are two major types of healthier feminine hygiene products: those that resemble the more traditional disposable tampons and pads, and the more environmentally responsible, reusable silicon menstrual cups which collect menstrual flow rather than absorbing it.

Emerita markets a full line of 100 percent organic cotton feminine pads, panty liners and tampons. The products are pesticide-free, chlorine-free (no dioxin), fragrance-free and naturally biodegradable. Emerita uses no plastic cover sheets or wood pulp fillers, but rather absorbent cotton that allows breathing to provide that fresh feeling.

Canada-based Diva International, with its DivaCup, provides an environmentally-responsible, convenient alternative to tampons and pads. The DivaCup is a resurrected version of the original rubber latex cups first manufactured in the 1930s but soon out-marketed by the manufacturers of disposable tampons and pads. The DivaCup is made from soft, high quality medical grade silicone to collect menstrual flow as it rests at the lower base of the vaginal canal. The cups are simply rinsed and replaced and have proven a reliable alternative that saves a lot of space in our landfills.

We anticipate further growth in this more natural, organic industry segment as consumers realize the benefits to their health and the environment.

© 2011 White Lotus Living, Inc.

Every time I search for new products, it’s the same—I get a feeling of excitement as I start reading about a new product that looks useful, interesting or fun and that markets itself as being natural, eco friendly, healthy, or one of many terms that makes it seem potentially safe to use. I then immediately turn to the ingredient label and typically experience inevitable disappointment as I reach the middle or end of the list and start finding suspect ingredients. The mission of White Lotus Living is to offer only the purest of products to our customers.

Sometimes I resort to searching for new products on competitor’s websites. I haven’t found a competitor yet that goes to the same length we do to scour the ingredient labels of our products. I’m convinced that many of them feel the need to offer brand names people recognize because they are easier to sell. Many of the name brands, however, (and I would go so far as to say most of the name brands)—even if they are marketed as pure and natural—are still made from those nasty chemicals we want to avoid.

“Fragrance” is Our First Stumbling Block Today

I found a new product I like and want to check out. I hope it’s a good one! It has “Naturals” in the brand name in addition to a man’s first name. Based on past research, I know a word like “natural” in the product name means nothing.  It has not been defined like the term USDA Organic has. There are no requirements to use this word. No entity consistently follows up on the use of this term in a way that can be relied on.

This product I found is a line of cleaners and polishes for furniture and other specialty items found in our homes. It would be a great line to bring to my customers if it’s pure—it’s something we could all put to good use. I’m always looking for great cleaning products.

But after downloading the list of ingredients from their website, I see “fragrance” is the last ingredient mentioned, following all the wonderful truly natural ingredients that had me hopeful <sigh>.

What’s Wrong with Fragrance?

Fragrance is a red flag because most fragrances, unless they are truly natural essential oils which have not been extracted using chemicals, are made from chemicals called VOCs (volatile organic compounds). VOCs are carbon-based chemicals that evaporate easily in the air (the common term is off-gassing).

They are petrochemicals that give off vapors. One clue that we are being exposed to VOCs is that there is a smell to the product (and not all VOCs have an odor). The smell can be fragrant and pleasing or it can be strong like ammonia. Many VOCs are known to be harmful to our neurological system, they are linked to organ damage, asthma and cancer.”

Wait, Maybe this Fragrance is Okay

Still hopeful since this is the only red flag I see on the ingredient list, I look further on the ingredient sheet that I downloaded and I notice at the bottom there is an explanation of what fragrance means to this manufacturer. This is actually a good sign—they realize fragrance is a problem—or at least they realize that discerning shoppers are interested in knowing exactly what is in the products they buy.

Here is what I find: “Our cosmetic grade essential oil and fragrance blends contain a natural essential oil complex and are custom designed for our products. All our essential oil fragrances use materials approved by RIFM (The Research Institute of Fragrance Materials) and follow the guidelines issued by IFRA (The International Fragrance Association).”

No—I spoke too Soon!

Sounds official enough, right? Wrong! My first thought is, “Hmmm—cosmetic grade—what does that mean?” What I do know is that neither the FDA nor any other agency is responsible for monitoring or even determining what ingredients can or should go into our cosmetics.

The U.S. is notorious for being slow on the uptake to protect consumers from our harmful cosmetics. As a result, entire books have been written to warn us how bad the cosmetic industry is about using everything from PEG(polyethylene glycol), SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) and lead to animal parts and insect extractions in our cosmetics (it’s true). So the phrase, cosmetic grade is another red flag that has me suspect.

Reading Between the Lines of Scientific, Official-sounding Information

Reading the fragrance description further prompts me immediately to search for both RIFM and IFRA on the Internet to learn about their policies regarding fragrance. Who are these organizations and what is their purpose?

The about us section in RIFM’s website is impressive: “…RIFM’s Database also houses an online collection of Flavor/Fragrance Ingredient Data Sheets (FFIDS) from 1985-present. FFIDSs are issued to assist with compliance for U.S. OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standards and the European Commission’s Dangerous Substances Directives.”

I like the reference to the European Commission’s Dangerous Substances Directives. I know Europe is ahead of the U.S. in banning dangerous substances for use in European-manufactured products.

But the last paragraph in this section begins to concern me: “RIFM delivers well-documented conclusions from comprehensive analysis that translates into enhanced Product Management for its members, resulting in safer and more life enriching products for the consumer. Membership in RIFM is open to all companies that manufacture, sell, distribute or engage in business related to the fragrance industry for at least one year.”

So RIFM’s members are companies that are in business to manufacture, sell or distribute (etc.) products with fragrances. That means the info provided by RIFM supports these companies, confirming the safety of the ingredients in the products they offer.

Let’s see who the RIFM members are for a final test. If the products of the members are pure, then I will give this organization an A+ and I will begin to carry the cleaning and polishing products of this company that I’m researching without hesitation.

I pull up their membership list and go right to the consumer product active members. They are: Chanel S.A.S, L’Oreal, SC Johnson & Son, Inc., The Procter & Gamble Co., and Unilever. Although this is enough information to cause me to turn away and say, “Next product, please,” I will go a few steps further to show you why I am no longer interested in the “natural” cleaning and polishing products I was so excited about this morning.

I am honestly walking through this process with you as I write this article…it is not something I had to stage in order to prove a point. This is an everyday occurrence, and I am confident I will find good reason to sidestep my new product find and move on quickly—well, it’s actually slowly, isn’t it—to another product.

Applying a Magnifying Glass to Product Ingredients

Let’s just arbitrarily go to Unilever’s website because I’m less familiar with them and do an in-depth look at some of the ingredient labels on their products. On this link you can find a list of all Unilever brands: http://www.unilever.com/brands/index.aspx.

I’m going to pick a home care brand and run with it. Surf looks familiar to me. It’s a laundry detergent. The Unilever marketing people wrote a cute description for it: “Surf gives multi-sensory satisfaction – the suds, the fragrance, the freshness, the colours, the feel, the clean…This is a brand that finds clever ways to give you more than you would expect.”

(Yes, I’ll bet it does.) I am searching for an ingredient list. Another interesting thing that catches my eye is a drop-down box on the bottom right side of the page inviting me to select my European country (I guess Surf is no longer offered in the U.S.). By selecting a country I will be presented with a list of ingredients in my products! (the drop-down promises: “Find out what’s in our European home and personal care products by selecting your country from the list below.”).

I select United Kingdom as an English-speaking country, and I go to Surf, since that’s the product I’m interested in (I see that Unilever also manufactures Brut, Dove, Pond’s, Sure and Vaseline Intensive Care among numerous other brands I do not recognize).

The info on the Surf page that pops up has all the Surf sub-brands, so I arbitrarily choose one whose name contains a nice herb that I have grown in my organic garden to brew tea: Bergamot. The product name is Surf Powder Sunshine Lemons & Bergamot. Doesn’t that sound clean and refreshing?

I arrive at the ingredient page I’m looking for (pay day!) and I am presented with a list of 42 ingredients in this product, from antifoaming and bulking agents and builders to optical brighteners and sequestrants (what is that?!?)…and…oh…wait…what do I see here? You’ll never guess! Fragrance—our old friend!!

But unlike we tend to find on an ingredient label, this time each chemical fragrance is specified separately. We have “Parfum, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, and Citronellol” Speed-reading down the list I also see a red flag I’m familiar with (you probably are, too): PEG-75. And here is the ingredient with the most letters in it just for fun: Disodium Anilinomorpholinotriazinylaminostilbenesulfonate (that is the optical brightener).

Next I will do a quick check for you of each of these ingredients on the Environmental Working Group’s Cosmetics Safety Database which I often use as a first check of any chemical I encounter. This database rates chemicals (as well as products) with a ranking from 0 to 10. A rank of 10 means the chemical is highly toxic; 0 means it is relatively safe. The ranking is not perfect, but it is based on EWG’s extensive worldwide database of studies that have been done on these chemicals, and it’s a great place to get a high level idea of whether to stay away from the ingredient (or product) or to consider using it.

I enter “parfum” into the search box (parfum is the French word for perfume or fragrance). The EWG database pops up a ranking of 8 which indicates this ingredient is a high hazard. It is found in 11,376 products that have been entered into the database—quite a few items to keep out of your shopping cart. Its purpose is to mask, deodorize or perfume (translated: cover up odors in a product emanating from the mixture of chemical and other ingredients).

The Info that Leads to Our Decision to Move On

I summarized the results of the ingredients we want to look at in the table below so you can see them with a quick glance. Pay close attention to the partial problem list, because that is where you can really see the issues that have already been identified with these ingredients through testing. The issues range from allergies and dermatitis to immune system problems, and cardiac and renal (kidney) issues and cancer.

Further, as the Breast Cancer Fund states in their semi-annual State of the Evidence Report, it is not just the small amounts of the ingredients in our products that pose a health concern to us—it is the entire matrix of chemicals we are exposed to on a daily basis (through multiple products and exposures).

This exposure leaves our health in danger when we use these chemicals. We must be aware of this and we must take the initiative to do something about it to protect our health and to sustain the planet. What we must do is to stop using products that contain these ingredients!

What about IFRA?

I didn’t care to go any further in researching the new polisher/cleaner product I was interested in by looking at IFRA in addition to RIFM. I don’t have any information that leads me to trust the fragrance on the ingredient label, and I am not going to offer this product to my customers.

But if you are interested, the website of IFRA, the International Fragrance Association, leaves me with a similar impression to RIFM’s website.

IFRA has a downloadable Code of Practice that, according to their website, “supports the IFRA commitment to provide products that are safe for use by the consumer and to the environment.

The Code of Practice applies to the manufacture and handling of all fragrance materials, for all types of applications and contains the full set of IFRA Standards. Abiding by the IFRA Code of Practice is a prerequisite for all fragrance supplier companies that are members of IFRA (either directly or through national associations). The majority of client companies (including producers of toiletries and household products) expect their fragrances to comply with IFRA Standards as set out in the Code.”

Their membership is described on the website: “…members include fragrance ingredient and compound manufacturers and suppliers.”

I believe this is another self-policing association for fragrance manufacturers to show proof that their ingredients are safe when research by other independent agencies indicate they are not safe at all.

White Lotus Living’s Conclusion

So, my conclusion about this hopeful product is, I’m afraid, “Next!—” And it’s back to square one searching for cleaning and polishing products that will work well on your granite and marble countertops, stainless steel appliances, upholstery and wood. For now, I’m going to stick with my homemade liquid vegetable soap, baking soda, essential oil and a little elbow grease! How about you?

I hope this hands-on, day-in-the-life example of how White Lotus Living searches for suitable products to offer, gives you a better feel for the extent to which we go in order to protect our customers and the environment! Perhaps you can see that finding truly green products is a full-time job. We are here to find truly green products for you so you can find them easily in one place at www.whitelotusliving.com.

© 2011 White Lotus Living, Inc.

Some people still think buying products marketed as green, natural and even organic—with splashy bright green or clean-looking white labels—carrying words like “natural,” “eco-friendly,” or “no PCBs or parabens [or whatever]” is the answer to living naturally.

But flip to the back ingredient labels and 95 percent of the time you will encounter a lengthy paragraph full of synthetic chemical names you can’t pronounce let alone know the consequences of using them. This happens even with products labeled “organic,” so beware!

The fact is, according to the Breast Cancer Fund’s State of the Evidence Report, about 87,000 synthetic chemicals are registered in the U.S. today, and 1,000 or more are added each year. More than 90 percent of these have never been tested for their effects on human health. Does this seem scary?

What Does it Mean to Go Truly Green?

I like to call it “going beyond green” because of what green has come to represent due to the plethora of marketing campaigns that pander desperately to those of us who seek to live healthier lives.

There’s a lot involved in going beyond green, but you only need to start with baby steps. Chances are, once you make the commitment to start—and your health and your family’s health are a great reason to make the commitment—you’ll find your results are so wonderful you can’t help but expand your efforts to the next step and beyond.

Is Going Green Really That Important?

I give credit to my commitment to beyond green living to YHC Magazine and its publisher, Ann Castle. I began writing articles for YHC early in 2008, and Ann kept assigning articles that made me realize the dangers of chemicals in our environment and in the products we use every day.

My interview with Jean Rizzo, now president and CEO of The Breast Cancer Fund, was the one that pushed me over the edge. We spoke for a full hour-and-a-half, and the statistics she quoted that struck me hardest were that no more than one in 10 women with breast cancer have a family history of the disease, and today, one out of eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

I had always felt invulnerable to breast cancer because no one in my family had it. X-ray technicians still give this impression before giving mammograms by asking if anyone in your family has had breast cancer.

But around the time of my interview with Rizzo, I had been diagnosed with a type of cyst that makes a woman four times more likely to get the disease. Today I go for annual mammograms, ultrasounds and sometimes MRIs instead of just the routine mammogram.

Current studies show that one out of every five products we use contains ingredients certified by government authorities as known or probable human carcinogens. And cancer is not the only risk—there are allergy, illness, neurological, organ-damage and reproductive risks in addition.

Armed with these statistics, I came home and proclaimed to my husband, “I am going to rid our entire house of chemicals!” I visualized bottles, boxes and cans being swept up in one spot like a tornado, vanishing quickly through the roof. The purging left only positive energy behind and it felt so good!

The Progression to Green for One Committed Green Advocate

From that moment on I began to study green, sustainable living and how to accomplish it. Thank God for the Internet, because it is full of information on these subjects, but unfortunately I quickly realized that finding the right products to replace the old, chemical-laden ones was going to be a real challenge.

No longer could I go to a single store, load up my basket and bring home all the products that would make my life a breeze. Where would I even find them? I realized I was going to have to slowly pick through source after source, read every label, buy new products and try them—and when I didn’t like four out of five of them for one reason or another, start the search over again product-by-product. I saw nothing ahead of me but time and expense.

But Rizzo’s positive words kept racing through my mind: “I envision a future…when I can send my granddaughter down the beauty aisle and not even have to think about what she takes off the shelf, when the values we hold are that the health of the planet and the people living on it are vital and interconnected and that our decisions come from that place.”

Knowing how long the search was taking me and how daunting it was to reach success, that’s when I  realized very few people would have the time to do what I was doing, let alone have the energy and patience to do it for themselves—even if they really wanted to commit. That was the day I decided to start www.whitelotusliving.com to serve as that one-stop shop for safe products. People could go there and not have to think about what they take off the shelf.

Since that day, our home and our lives have become as clean and green as possible. And I can tell you that the gratifying experience of using truly healthy, truly natural products is what spurred me to move from category to category to larger category until I had replaced everything in our home with green alternatives that are affordable and that do their jobs as they  promise. We have even moved on to sustainable living on a larger scale.

Mother Nature Will Spur You On

The natural smells of my new moisturizers are what made the first impact. Before, I would buy shampoos, conditioners and moisturizers that promised to smell mostly like flowers or fruits. I remember actually thinking they did. But the fragrances were made up of hundreds of chemicals—volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) which I had learned were dangerous to my health.

When I made the switch to the real thing (botanical products), I can’t express the magnitude of elevation my spirit felt as the true, natural smells of these ingredients from nature wafted to my nostrils. This gave me confirmation that I was doing the right thing, and it made me determined to continue—for me and for everyone else.

Karen’s Botanicals was the first product that struck me this way. Karen infuses her ingredients out of all natural and mainly organic plants from the earth by placing them in certified organic, cold-pressed olive or sunflower oil, in large, glistening jars that sit for days at a time soaking up the energy—first from the sun and then from the moon. Her recipes are old-world and the aromas are real and vibrant.

Zosimos Botanicals was next, with their pure line of cosmetics. In addition to all the makeup we need, they produce shower gels made from apricot and pear, lemon and ginger, lemon and lavender and more, and their solid jasmine perfume smells just like the exquisitely-perfumed air of a jasmine vine in the spring. You can still find products from both these manufacturers and more at www.whitelotusliving.com.

Chemical Fragrances Do Not Smell Real!

I had some of the old chemical-laden products left at the time, and I opened the bottles to smell them (even smelling them is harmful though). What struck me immediately was that these products no longer smelled like the fragrances listed on the labels. I could now immediately detect the unnatural smell of the chemical ingredients. How could I ever have thought this shampoo smelled like grapefruit, apples, flowers or lemon? I was amazed by this realization and it gave me even more determination to share this information with the world.

Going Green Further, Step-by-Step

Soon I began to make my own cleaning products out of baking soda, vinegar and essential oils, and I learned that I could scrub my sinks and tubs all day if I wanted without getting that tight feeling in my chest and difficult breathing I always experienced when using cleansers, commercial tile cleaners and the like.

Later I discovered soap nuts—berries from a tree found in the Himalayas that women have used for centuries to gently lather their wash-water and render their clothing naturally clean and soft. I found a supplier that makes it so easy for us—they offer liquid soap nuts to clean not only clothing but for general household cleaning as well. A load of laundry takes only ¼ teaspoon of this marvelous, natural soap, and clothes come out so soft you can stop using the commercial softeners with the chemicals they harbor. We now also carry a soap nuts shampoo that even my niece and nephew love to use.

Soon I acquired a steam cleaner like the ones used in Europe for decades. What a miracle! Now I can clean entire bathrooms, my kitchen, floors and yes—even windows quickly and easily using just a few cups or so of water turned into steam. The unit has specialized attachments to handle every different task, and they work like magic. Not only do I avoid chemicals and the cost of cleaning supplies, but I do the job better in less time and the steam kills bacteria instead of me. Mold and mildew never build up because I use my steamer regularly. Our house is spotless and I’m proud to show it off.

Cooking and Eating with Greener in Mind

We even cook differently these days. Our food, all of which is organic, is healthier, tastier (it’s gourmet quality), and it’s much quicker to prepare using high quality, reasonably-priced pressure cookers made from stainless steel rather than Teflon. I can cook a delicious chicken entrée that serves eight to 12 people in 40 minutes including the time to clean, prepare and brown it. I freeze what we don’t need during the next few days. Side dishes take even less time, and they all come out healthier because more vitamins and minerals are preserved with high-pressure as opposed to high-temperature cooking. I even learned to make a mouth-watering Bouillabaisse in 30 minutes—something I never attempted before.

During this time we moved a few times, and our latest move gave me room for an organic vegetable garden and orchard. The orchard is yet to be planted, but the veggie garden is soon to receive its third planting. I learned to garden by joining our local garden club and by reading The Square Foot Gardner book. At first I was intimidated, but having grown container plants for years, I rationalized it couldn’t be all that much different growing a garden. I was amazed by the produce I planted for the first time last spring. Our summer garden was bountiful and delicious. I’ll never buy a hothouse tomato again!

Making Your Whole House Energy Efficient

Our latest evolution has been to install solar panels on our roof. Now all of our electricity comes from the sun and we have only two gas appliances left. We sell unused energy back to the electric company and our electric bills are decreasing each month. The last one was $1.18 and that includes our heating bill! You can acquire solar these days without upfront expenditure, and rebates are still available from the government to reward the adopters.

Our next project is to install xeriscape landscaping on our property to keep the soil from eroding on our slopes and to greatly reduce our water usage. Xeriscape makes use of drought-tolerant plants (many of them natives), mulch and efficient irrigation to conserve our precious water.

It Feels Right to Go Beyond Green!

Preserve minerals and cook fast meals, chemical-free!

Many of us are aware that what we eat is a key to enabling our bodies to function optimally in many intricate ways. We know the importance of fruits and vegetables in our diet, avoiding processed foods, choosing organic alternatives and reading the labels in search of only pure ingredients in literally everything we purchase—whether it’s for consumption, application on our bodies or even the tools and products we use in our everyday tasks.

A great way I have adopted to maintain my family’s health and ensure our food tastes marvelous is to prepare many of our meals using stainless steel pressure cookers (rather than Teflon, aluminum, or nonstick cookware, all of which harms our internal organs and our environment).

There are so many advantages to pressure cookers, yet they remain a mystery to many. To start with, since food is cooked quickly with pressure, more vitamins and minerals are maintained, and meats are far more tender. The flavors blend much more quickly in a pressure cooker, so the taste is superb as soon as you cook it—no need to wait overnight for spices and flavors to blend.

The best bonus for busy cooks is that a meal that takes 90 minutes or 2 hours to prepare the standard way can be ready in only 20 or 30 minutes (including only 10 minutes of cooking)! Imagine how much healthier your family can eat on a regular basis if your meals are that quick to prepare!

You can cook almost any type of food in a pressure cooker: meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, rice, sauces, soups, stews, deserts and more. And truthfully, anyone can cook gourmet with easy, free recipes from the Internet! Check here for the best stainless steel pressure cookers at great prices!

© 2011 White Lotus Living, Inc.

[This article, written by our founder Jan in 2008, is the reason she created White Lotus Living]

Search the Internet for breast cancer information and associations and you will be overwhelmed by the amount of information. This is a welcome phenomenon resulting from the prevalence of breast cancer in the U.S. and throughout the world. I spoke with a representative from the Breast Cancer Fund (BCF) to shed light on the significant contributions this organization is making to rid our culture and the world of threatening breast cancer.

The Mission

For those of us who might feel complacent because our families have not experienced breast cancer, a major statistic sited by the BCF is that no more than one in 10 women who have breast cancer have a genetic history of the disease. This comes as a surprise to most people.

BCF’s stated mission is: “In response to the public health crisis of breast cancer, the Breast Cancer Fund identifies—and advocates for the elimination of—the environmental and other preventable causes of the disease.” They are the only national breast cancer organization focused solely on prevention.

There is a growing body of scientific evidence linking toxic chemicals and radiation to breast cancer risk. BCF serves to identify, publicize and eliminate these links to breast cancer through many avenues, including reports, fact sheets, and high profile advocacy work to educate the public on how to reduce their exposure to cancer causing and other toxic substances.

Every two years since 1998, BCF has produced their landmark report State of the Evidence: The Connection Between Breast Cancer and the Environment. The 2008 edition is available for free download at www.breastcancerfund.org/evidence. The report explains that in the decades since World War II our use of synthetic chemicals has proliferated; at the same time, breast cancer rates have increased alarmingly. It further explores the link between radiation—both ionizing and non-ionizing—and increased breast cancer risk.

Today, an estimated 83,000 synthetic chemicals are used in the U.S., and 1,000 new ones are added every year. Only seven percent of these have been studied for their effects on human health. According to the report, a survey by the Silent Spring Institute in Massachusetts revealed that “216 chemicals and radiation sources have been recognized by national and international regulatory agencies as being implicated in breast cancer causation.” And these 216 do not include the endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which increasingly are being linked to breast cancer risk.

Many of these chemicals accumulate in our body fat and may remain in breast tissue for long periods of time, causing cancer and other health problems.

The 2008 report reveals that the causes of breast cancer are a complex web. Not only are many chemicals involved, but the timing of our exposure to environmental threats, the mix of chemicals we encounter each day and the doses we are exposed to interact with genetic and lifestyle factors to affect our health. It’s important to know that low doses over time can be harmful.

Pinpointing the causation is not a simple matter. But Jeanne Rizzo, R.N., BCF’s executive director, sheds light on the significant effect we can have on breast cancer by removing a single cause. Statistics show that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during her lifetime – an epidemic number. Just a few years ago, the number was closer to one in seven. Rizzo explains, “What caused this improvement is that we reduced our exposure to hormone-replacement therapy (HRT). Seventy million women came off of HRT after the Women’s Initiative Study of 2002.”  The study was conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to address the most common causes of death, disability and impaired quality of life in postmenopausal women. Rizzo continues, “That shows us that when you remove an agent like that…any chemical exposure…in this case it was hormones, you actually see a reduction.”

The bottom line is, there’s going to have to be a foremost shift in the way we do things in order to protect our health. Rizzo says, “We still have close to a quarter of a million women a year who will hear that they have either invasive breast cancer [which has spread to the surrounding tissues] or ductile carcinoma cancer in-situ [cancer located within the milk duct and classified as stage 0 or ‘pre-cancer’].”

“To eliminate environmental or other preventable causes of the disease,” says Rizzo, “we first have to get a sense of what is showing us evidence of harm.” For example, laboratory studies have provided evidence that EDCs act like estrogen and cause mammary gland tumors in animals. They cause wildlife all sorts of problems. Rizzo says, “There’s enough for us to say there’s evidence of harm.”

The answer is simple—we need to look for safer alternatives. But implementing the answer is complex because of the number of chemical threats involved. In addition, industry uses certain chemicals and chemical compounds because they are cheaper. Rizzo says we need to “really focus on the kind of innovation and technology that will provide the things we need and also understand that we’re going to have to sacrifice a little. Plastics are a major culprit for us…and there are a lot of chemicals used in personal care products that really are discretionary.”

She continues, “[The answer lies in] a combination of what action the individual can take to reduce their own exposure and influence the economy by the purchasing choices they make, and what our government needs to do in terms of a paradigm shift to look at evidence of harm as being a strong enough trigger to take public health policy action, whether it’s regulatory or legislative or deciding on what gets subsidized and what doesn’t.”

There’s hope for the future

Rizzo is optimistic. She explains, “I envision a future where we’re not talking about regulating chemicals one at a time, when we’re thinking about health not illness, when our focus is on all the things we’re doing to stay healthy and protect ourselves and not worry about assaults, when I can send my granddaughter down the beauty aisle and not even have to think about what she takes off the shelf, when the values we hold are that the health of the planet and the people living on it are vital and interconnected and that our decisions come from that place.”

She believes this could happen in the next decade or so, in the same way our attention has been quickly turned to the issue of global warming. The government has already responded to some extent. BCF’s home town of San Francisco adopted the “precautionary principle” for their purchasing policy. If a chemical or compound is being cited as potentially harmful, they will purchase alternative products that do not contain those chemicals.

Rizzo says, “We are seeing responses in some states to issues like removing the most egregious chemicals from personal care products marketed for children. And on the national level, Senator Feinstein (D-CA) just introduced an amendment to the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act which was passed by the Senate, to eliminate phthalates, a plasticizer, from children’s soft plastic toys and other products.”

Rizzo says the U.S. government isn’t broadly saying we have to change our chemicals policy yet. But Congress and various state legislatures are looking at it. She says, “We’ve been successful in California in advancing a number of these issues through the legislature. There are probably a dozen states actively working on some element of this. It’s a big start.”

Although science doesn’t have the absolute answers yet, Rizzo suggests that we need to implement change which leads to safety and protection rather than ill health and disease while we are waiting for those answers. She explains, “The precautionary principle says, ‘Think ahead, take action in advance.’ The reactionary principle says, ‘Wait until everybody is sick and dying and then we’ll make a decision.’” Rizzo sees our shift toward the precautionary. “I do feel optimistic because there are so many more people interested in and aware of this. [BCF] can’t keep up with the download of information and shipping out the reports. That tells me there’s real public interest in this.”

© 2011 White Lotus Living, Inc.

[this is an article our founder, Jan, wrote for YHC Magazine]

Ear candling relaxes your body so it can heal itself!

Desperate after a six-month failed search to cure her 18-month-old son’s ear infection, which led to his inability to keep his antibiotics down, Harmony gave up on his doctor. She recalled how upset her family was with her decision. Her next attempt was to consult with Dr. James J. Berryhill, ND, PhD, a prominent naturopath trained at the United States School of Naturopathy, who told her about ear candling. Her first response to this was a disenchanted, “Okay, great—thanks,” as she headed for the door.

Harmony, better known today as Doc Harmony, was straight out of corporate America at the time. Berryhill’s answer didn’t sound logical to her and she didn’t believe ear candling could work, but she was at the breaking point—and her son was declining quickly.

So in spite of strong protests from her family and a husband assuring her it wasn’t going to work, she recalled lamenting, “I’m sure it won’t work.” But candling was the last resort for her helpless, crying baby.

She explained, “I put on the mermaid movie, gave him a lollypop,” she paused to apologize—“I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to give them sugar at the time—and after two minutes with candling, he sat there still the whole time. I did four candles—and he was never sick again—never!” she emphasized.

Holistic Health Methods Maligned

Holistic health practices often are misconstrued and typically maligned by many in the medical profession and by others who prefer to place their faith solely with modern medicine. But after having positive personal experiences with these same practices, people who have tried them tell story after story of success (known as anecdotal evidence). Ear candling is no exception.

Ear Candling Misrepresented and Misunderstood

In fact, the practice of ear candling is fraught with misinformation and misconception, according to Harmony, who has since earned her Doctorate of Philosophy of natural health from Clayton College of Natural Health. For starters, “Everyone believes it’s an ancient technique—it’s not true.”

She points to undocumented stories, generated in the last 20 years and widely available on the Internet.  For one, Harmony is writing a public response to Biosun, who claims candling is a Hopi tradition, but the Hopis have denied this falsehood in writing, requesting that it be stopped.

Another story points falsely to a picture on an Egyptian wall of a princess who is said to be using ear candling. Harmony faxed the photo to several departments of archeology in Egypt to determine the story’s validity. She says, “An elderly gentleman actually called me back to say, ‘This is only hysterical to us—unless it’s still buried, I promise you there is nothing like this in Egypt.’”

The Truth About Ear Candling

Doc Harmony, through a series of events and encouraged by Dr. Berryhill, decided to begin handcrafting ear candles in 1992. She has since traveled the world introducing Harmony Cones through more than 15 trade shows a year and has personally candled more than 10,000 people.

Regarding the origin of ear candling, Harmony says, “Different quadrants of the world started using ear candling roughly a few hundred years ago and it evolved and spread because they brought the tradition with them as they traveled and relocated.” Homemade candles have been made from materials ranging from corn husks to scrolled up cheesecloth. In Mexico, they used newspaper, which Harmony considers quite dangerous.

The truth about ear candling, said Harmony, is “candling doesn’t remove anything from your ear. Your body simply goes into a relaxed wakefulness” and this gives it the natural ability to heal itself. Candling does not relieve TMJ, clarify your blood, reduce or remove excessive wax or cure tinnitus (ringing in one’s ears), as claimed by various practitioners and proponents.

Harmony clarifies with several analogies: “If I go into the sun, everything will open up and relax.” And it’s the same for focused sessions of deep breathing, or sitting in a sauna—you experience a relaxed sensation. “It doesn’t mean the tool is a medical device—it means the person is in a relaxed state where they can heal.”

The number one response Harmony hears after candling people is, “I feel so open—so clear.” She explained, “What’s happening? It’s no different from receiving a good massage or experiencing a good deep breathing session.” Ear candling simply provides a way to relieve the stress and tension which interfere with our body’s natural healing process.

Clinical Studies on Ear Candling

The effectiveness of ear candling has been demonstrated by three clinical studies performed in Germany. One showed a 98 percent efficacy rate when applied for ear infections. A second study determined that ear candling works by measurably increasing the alpha performance of the brain and peripheral blood circulation resulting in less stress and increased well-being for the subject.

A third study found that acute complaints decreased or disappeared and chronic conditions became milder in intensity with ear candling for subjects hospitalized with colds and their secondary effects, headaches, earaches and stress symptoms.

The FDA and Ear Candling

This brings up the subject of recent FDA actions regarding ear candling. In February, 2010, the FDA sent 17 different letters to ear candle manufacturers requiring them to change their marketing practices. In the same action, they classified ear candles as medical devices and stated ear candles cannot be approved as a medical device.

The FDA’s (and Health Canada’s) objections relate to the improper use of ear candles which has caused serious injury in 14 instances. They are particularly opposed to unsupported claims of product benefits and to promoting ear candling for use with infants and children. The FDA has found no valid scientific evidence to support the safety or effectiveness of these devices.

Response to the FDA

Harmony Cone has an open lawsuit with the FDA claiming that the FDA is violating people’s constitutional right to choose how they want to heal. It has been Harmony’s experience that the FDA is not accepting evidence regarding this case.

Ear candle manufacturers as a group object to the medical classification of ear candles as they are not intended to provide medical benefits. Similar to acupuncture, massage and other holistic treatments, none of which are classified as medical, their purpose is to give the body the opportunity to heal itself.

As with many other products and services, misinformation spread rampantly can ruin an otherwise valuable industry. Harmony lamented, “Here’s a great little product…but the lack of proper education and poor selection of raw materials makes things challenging. So many people are giving such bad information about candling.”

Harmony Cone Improvements

Harmony explained, for example, that a manufacturer should never produce candles made with 100 percent beeswax, even if they can be called organic as a result. Beeswax has an extremely low viscosity due its high oil content. This means it drips more, making it more likely that hot wax can drip down the shaft of the candle into someone’s ear, resulting in injury.

Harmony Cone offers candles with no beeswax using the highest quality food grade wax available, and their beeswax candles are mixed with a high grade of wax that never drips. Harmony Cone’s ingredients make them the safest, cleanest burning candle on the market. The company creates the only candle in the U.S. with a burn line label and directions to ensure consumer safety.

Theirs are also the only candles with a patented safety tip designed to protect consumers as well as to perfect the action of the candle. Further, their manufacturing processes, which ensure accountability of raw materials from the point of production to the consumers’ hands, are implemented by a former FDA agent.

Harmony explains that many candles are produced in China to reduce the cost of manufacturing and then sold at discount stores. She says, “A product manufactured in this way is not going to perform the same way as one produced with quality in mind. You can spend three times as much for a good grade of wax, and it’s not an ingredient one should cut corners on.”

Having candled more than 10,000 people, many of them in very distracting, trade show environments, Harmony says she has never had an injury or drip occur. Proper use is important and must be explained on the package. “When you first light the candle,” Harmony explains, “you hold it away from the person’s ear.”

She also said, “Ear candling is not something you can do yourself. It’s too relaxing. At a trade show with 20,000 attendees, the people I candle still fall asleep on the table.” As far as holding the candle at a 45 degree angle to divert dripping wax away from the ear, Harmony explained that the angle of the candle must follow the angle of the ear canal and everyone’s ear canal is angled differently. She reiterated, “If a candle is made properly it will never drip.”

The Natural Remedy Dilemma

There is a serious dilemma between the FDA and holistic or natural remedies, and according to Harmony, ear candling represents the tip of the iceberg. When the FDA issued the ear candling letters, Harmony was sure there had to be a competing medical product on the market they were trying to protect.

Sure enough, the same day the letters were issued to ear candle manufacturers, the FDA approved post marketing plans for Prevenar 13, a pediatric vaccine Pfizer produced to prevent invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) which can cause ear infections, meningitis and pneumonia.

The following month, March of 2010, Japan temporarily suspended Prevnar (as it is known internationally) after four children who received the vaccine died a day after being immunized. All but one had received another vaccine at the same time. Three babies in the Netherlands had also died late in 2009 after receiving Prevnar, and in 2008 a baby in India died after receiving an earlier version.

There is currently extreme controversy over Prevenar and many other vaccines. Prevenar is still available in 11 countries (down from approximately 70 original countries). Today it is available in the Netherlands but not in Japan or India.

The U.S. government has a vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS), cosponsored by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the FDA to collect voluntary reports about adverse events experienced following a vaccination. According to www.flu-treatments.com, VAERS reported 28,317 adverse reactions to Prevenar since its approval in 2000, including 558 deaths, 555 life threatening conditions, 238 permanent disabilities, 2584 hospitalizations and 101 prolonged hospitalizations. These cases neither indicate nor rule out a causal relationship.

In contrast to these huge numbers, regarding ear candling, the FDA sites a survey published in 1996 by the medical journal Laryngoscope, which reported 13 cases of burns of the ear, seven cases of ear canal blockage due to wax and one case of a punctured eardrum. Yet they have taken action to inhibit the use of ear candles while giving free reign to continue the Prevenar vaccine.

These and many other examples call into question whether the FDA and the medical industry is motivated to construct a case against holistic, natural remedies in favor of medicine and pharmaceuticals, even when evidence shows the former to be safe, valid alternatives to promote health.

Most people prefer to have access to the facts and the valid pros and cons of a particular treatment so they can make intelligent, informed decisions on which health method to choose. Decisions that affect our health are personal, and a significant portion of the outcome of any treatment is the recipient’s confidence in the chosen method. Our government should work to protect us from instances when our lives or our health are truly in danger.

Jan Tucker, founder of White Lotus Living, Inc., writes and speaks on the subject of natural living and provides pure products, from cosmetics to household items, whose labels are free from synthetic chemicals. Visit www.whitelotusliving.com.

© 2011 White Lotus Living, Inc.

There’s so much info out there about “green stuff” that it’s really hard to figure out what’s really green and what’s just pretending to be just so you’ll buy it. That’s why when I began to green my own life, I decided to give back by sharing my finds and my journey with everyone.

To detoxify your home and your life, you have to read every label (on the back) of every new product before you buy it. Take a new moisturizer for example. You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find one that’s free from synthetic chemicals (including “fragrance”). Then you buy it and find that either the product doesn’t do what it promises or you just don’t like it for some reason—oops! Back to square one!

And that’s just a single product from one category. Multiply that by the hundreds of everyday items you will eventually want to replace and suddenly you have a full time job and a lot of expense sampling products. It just takes too much time and research to go truly natural. And it’s far too easy to give up, which is truly a shame for everyone.

Ridding your life of harmful synthetic chemicals is an important job because not only will it help you maintain your health (and your family’s if you have one), but cutting down on chemical use will help us sustain our planet. And so far, we only have one Earth on which to live—we can’t afford to mess up!

What’s remarkable to me is that I’ve discovered my original, almost frantic intent to get the chemicals out of my house has created a much more extensive transformation in my life. I’ve become enriched in so many more ways than anticipated. And it’s the entire journey I’d like to share with you here.

So stay tuned! It’s a wonderful Beyond Green life!!

© 2011 White Lotus Living, Inc.