Create Your Non-Toxic Sanctuary

Introduction to thyroid-friendly home swaps 0:00

Hi, it's Dr. Jen. Welcome to one of the mini talks. So today we're going to talk about swaps for your home that are going to be helpful for your thyroid. So when we look at the home, it could be a source of toxins. And right now we're going to talk about different swaps that you can make that will make an impact on your thyroid. As you know, the thyroid is very susceptible to environmental toxins and one of them is BPA and also BPA like substances. Just because it says BPA free and it's a plastic, it has other compounds that could be endocrine disruptors.

And this can affect our thyroid and also our hormones, too. And as we know and we've learned during the summer that our hormones also impact our thyroid. So we want to make sure that we're making good swaps.

Replacing paper products with cloth 0:57

Let's start out with something that not everyone thinks about. This is a cloth paper towel, so they're really cute. You can even hook them together if you want to put them on a roll. But we use these. As you can see, this is wash fits well love these work great. This is what we grab instead. And why? Why do why is this important? Well, a lot of the paper towels you buy, they have bleach on them, so they're bleached that that's just chemicals that you're going to be touching a lot of the napkins.

They have food dyes and we just want to make least amount coming in contact with our skin napkins. Cloth napkins are another thing. So we use cloth napkins and we use paper towels that are cloth. We will never go back. It's so convenient. It's so nice. You throw it in a bin, wash them once a week and then you're done. And I'm sure it saves a lot of money too. So it's a great all around and happy thyroid. So now let's get into what we're drinking out of. I love a good old glass mason jar to drink out of with water.

We really enjoyed drinking out of glass. Yes. Sometimes we drop more glass, we drop dishes. We, everyone freeze as we get the vacuum and we clean it all up. But it's worth it because we do not want to be drinking out of plastic. You don't want your kids drinking out of plastics. They're they're a little they have a you know, compared with all the chemicals they take in, it affects their body more. Okay. Adults have a little bit more buffer. So glass, make sure you're drinking out of glass.

Safer drinkware and coffee cups 2:37

Another option to drink out of is silicone to. I prefer glass first and then that second. And then also you have stainless steel. So grab a coffee mug. This is really important. So bring your own coffee mug like my husband brings his own to church. You do not want to be drinking out of Styrofoam. Styrofoam is very toxic. Okay. The other thing, if you think of not even have because the lids are plastic. So whenever I can I take the lid off and just drink. But, you know, we're minimizing our exposure.

So when you go to a coffee shop and you get a coffee to go, that lid is plastic. But then also the inside of the cup and I'm not talking about Styrofoam, I'm talking about paper, but the inside is usually lined with some sort of plastic, okay, BPA or maybe even a forever chemical. So that is another thing I want to share. Speaking of forever chemicals, if you have a Teflon pan, throw it away. Okay? If it says nonstick, that is not going to be good. That means that it has the PFA acids which are forever chemicals and they affect your endocrine glands and stay in your body.

The half lives are decades and decades. You're never they're never going away. So really try to minimize that at home. And if you minimize your toxic exposure at home, that means that if you go out in their cooking in a nonstick pan or something, you know, at least you're reducing your risk at home. So that's what I really try to focus on, on what's going on at home. Now, another thing, let's talk about food storage. So food storage, I love these. These are all silicone collapse containers. They're great.

Like, look at this, they're so great. I love taking these to sports games and putting fruit in them. And then when you're done, they just they just collapse like that. They're dishwasher safe and oven safe. So these I love and then good old glass, good old Pyrex. So these are also great. And the lids are plastic, which isn't ideal, but they're so great.

Avoiding nonstick cookware and plastic storage 4:46

They're also great because you can heat them up in the microwave. Okay. So both of these options, you can heat up in the microwave. You can not heat up plastic in the microwave. It's leaching that BPA, that chemical that is an endocrine disruptor and it's bad for your thyroid, it's leaching into your food. So you want to use these and make swaps. So, you know, ask for a holiday for a set of Pyrex. You know, you could go to Goodwill and get a lot. I have a lot of cool glass containers that I that I store my herbs and they're really cool.

And, you know, some of them I got at Goodwill. So Glass is just such a great storage option for food. A lot of the times I will take food like oats out of the plastic container they're in and I will put them in glass storage and it looks so pretty too. The other thing, I love these little mason jars and then you can buy lids. These are plastic, but they're, they're really good lids because they feel, you know. So I'll go if we we went to the zoo and I filled this up with blueberries. So it's really nice and convenient and it's so cute.

They make little ones, big ones. So you can also drink out of this. This we have for drinking and we just, you know, swap them out if we want to use them as storage containers. So I really like how versatile mason jars are. They're really convenient. There's really no reason why we can't store our food and heat up our food in glass. Why we can't, right? Why we, we we need to. We can make these little swaps at home super easy. Another thing that I call my patients out on all the time, if I see they have a plastic water bottle.

Okay, now, if it's like an emergency, then yes, you can drink out of plastic water, but otherwise do not drink out of plastic water bottles. Okay. Not only is the BPA leak leaching into the water, also when it scrunches, it makes little breaks in the plastic and that can increase bacteria in your water. So just don't do it. It's usually gross crappy water. So you can use a nice stainless steel water bottles. This is what my kids use. Glass also works. It's a little bit heavier and a little bit harder, but we do have some glass containers that I really like.

My kids broke on going to schools.

Choosing better water bottles and mugs 7:18

Then I'm like, No more glass for school. But it's really nice for for adults tissues. They make the glass water bottles with some silicone around. So I like glass also. I tend to drop my water bottle all the time, so I usually just carry mine around in stainless steel. But that is also an option. Now let's talk about another thing is ceramic, ceramic glazes. So ceramic glazes can sometimes have light in them and led, as we have found out, is a heavy metal is not good for the thyroid. So when I drink my teas in coffee at home, I do just use plain glass.

I know it's not cute. There's not a cute stain on it or anything, but I don't need that because I want to save my thyroid and I care about that. So these are just nice glass coffee mugs that that I have. I've transitioned, gave away most of my ceramics, glaze it, you know, mugs because a lot of them, if they're made in China, if you don't know where the glaze is coming from, then you can assume that it might have light in it. Okay. And when we look at hot drinking hot things that are heating up things, okay, so coffee or heating up things in the microwave, that's going to cause more leaching as that warms up.

Okay. So that's kind of all I have to show you guys. I hope that helps. So here's the thing. Little small changes in your home, making your home less toxic is it's going to reap major benefits. And it's kind of fun, right. It's it's satisfying to have these things in our kitchen and to drink out of that.

Why small home changes matter 9:01

We know we're clean. It's also a time that you can educate people. So if you have people over, you could just say, yeah, we just we use glass because it's healthier. We don't want that BPA. They're endocrine disruptors. We don't want that leaking into our kids, leaking into us. So we definitely also use it as a way to inform others and open up discussions for health. Because the more of us that talk about it in our healthy, the better we can all be together. So I hope those tips are great. So cheers. Right?

Cheers. Thank you for listening to this many talk with Dr. Jenn.